TiredCarpenter

Serotonin: YES, I’ve experienced it almost exactly as you’ve listed.
Another I would add is clumsiness. I had the dropsies just a few days ago. Dropped almost everything that I handled for a few hours one afternoon. (at about 10 weeks sober)

I’ve heard of PAWS (post-acute withdrawal ) symptoms starting at even less than 3 weeks sober.
The treatment center I was in a few years back was really big on having us recognize PAWs and journaling any symptoms.

Your list seems very familiar. You are not odd.

Dee’s digital dharma link: symptom list is a virtual match to yours as well.

Stay well.

Andante

Just to point out that while discussion of PAWS as a topic is always germane, the original poster of this thread hasn't been active on SR for over 5 years and is unlikely to respond to comments.

PuckLuck

Amen to that.

Makeright

If you didn't have acute withdrawals would you still have PAWS?

Andante

By the end of my alcoholic adventures, I'd put my poor brain through so many withdrawal cycles that I no longer had much in the way of acute withdrawals. I was in a constant misery of ongoing withdrawal symptoms which getting drunk only slightly relieved. When I finally quit for good, those symptoms peaked briefly and then settled in for the long haul. It was weeks before I felt even a little better, months before I began to have good days, and years before the good days outnumbered the bad ones.

That said, my experience was pretty extreme, and far outside the norm. I doubt most people would have long-term withdrawal issues without having gone through acute withdrawals first. And it seems like there's typically a gap between when acute withdrawals subside and the post-acute symptoms make their appearance.

ant385

i didn’t have acute withdrawal really. The first time I experienced withdrawal it was after a Xmas party and I was going about my day then WHAM! I became suddenly paranoid, extreme anxiety, crying the lot. I didn’t know what was going on. Physically I would dry heave, itch all over and have brain zaps that felt like electricity in the brain which would then flow down my body and make me shudder. But I had the brain zaps with PAWS. So although I may have had acute withdrawal it kind of merged and became PAWS. There was no gap. I think everyone is different. I never got why you would go a month feeling amazing when you got downregulated GABA receptors and then get PAWS. But what do I know?

I do now have relief some days but the waves are still just as debilitating. 8.5 months sober