Really Rough Couple of Days
 

So yesterday was my last day at my job. (I quit there to start working for a different company)

I drank Thursday night due to unforeseen issues, and I just slipped. I thought to myself that'd I'd be fine and wouldn't have to detox again. So then yesterday, I was unceremoniously escorted out and I got angry. I let me AV get the better of me and drank last night.

This was not really a surprise that I was escorted out as I work in IT, but it hit me hard: not having those friends that I've made connections with, the rude nature of people, and other things.

So I sit here, hungover, and needing to detox. I called my doctor and told him whats going on. He said he'd detox me again, so he called in prescription.


This is the bad part: The prescription detox med (Ativan) is on back-order and wont be available for a long time. So I called doctor again, and told them my situation and am now waiting to either get a different pill, or find the pill at a different pharmacy.

I know factually that my alcohol detoxes are life threatening. My blood pressure gets up over 200 when it spikes. That's life threatening. With the pills, I'm happy as a clam.

Don't know what to do right now...

If he doesn't call you back or fax in another prescription within a few hours, I would gp to the ER and tell them your situation.

I'm already feeling a few shakes, but no major withdrawal symptoms. My withdrawals are weird anyway and addiction Psychiatrists are always fascinated with my symptoms.

I have all the typical withdrawal symptoms, but they start like immediately when I wake up, but last only one day. This is interesting to them, because I don't drink until 5 or 6 P.M. and I go to sleep around 11 P.M. I'm sure you're realizing that I go through withdrawal for about 8 hours a day everyday when I drink. Very stupid and dangerous.

I don't have seizures, but my referenced blood pressure from above means I NEED medication during withdrawal.

I can't give health advice for you to follow, but as a friend in SR and a person that went to Med-School....please go to ER. Your BP could be through the roof. Check your vitals right now. Count heartrate with neck artery. If you are even slightly over your regular, go. Your Diastolic ? Over 200 is not good. anything over 160/120 is at risk. The shock of withdrawals combined with High Blood Pressure can very easily cause seizure.

Yeah I know all of that. My heart rate will go up around 2 or 3, so hopefully by then I get something. I have bp pills to lower it, but I'm just hoping that's enough.

I'm just uncomfortable right now. More annoyed than anything about this situation.

Just went to the gym and checked blood pressure on one of those machines. 130/90. This is fairly typical for me since I smoke and I'm an alcoholic.

Kflee thank you so much for your concern.

Ok well that is good to hear. Sorry you feel annoyed. That is the hardest to snap out of. I had a bad night last night and still fighting with it today. I will send good thoughts your way as I try to salvage my brain and make my day better. Stay on SR and vent throughout the day. It worked for me couple days ago. Glad you started back up with Detox.

Maybe you already know this, but each withdrawal does become more dangerous. There is no reason for you to expect any withdrawal to be the same as the last, unfortunately. Have you ever done a hospital detox? It may be time to consider a higher level of management than going it alone at home. Please keep us posted. As others have suggested- don't hesitate to get to the ER!

Sending you my best!

The thing that's annoying me is that I'm ready to quit drinking. I have all the people I need, I have AA, and i have sr. But I can't quit without either spending hundreds of dollars on inpatient detox or having this damn pill to safely detox me. My detoxes are very predictable, so with the medicine I'm totally cool with detoxing at home.

I'm doing what my doctor and psychiatrist told me to do. They said I'm safe to do it at home and that was yesterday.

With that being said, I'm not going to try and withdrawal without medication. I did that once, and I went to ER. I will be responsible about it.

Sweet they will have it ready in a few hours! I have to drive about an hour to get it, but that's better than nothing...

Good! I'm so relieved!

I'm relieved as well. Starting tomorrow. :-(. I had instructions to take one in the morning and one at night.

He said do NOT take this on a day where you take alcohol, and do NOT try and detox without taking one in the morning. He actually called me about 30 minutes ago and told me he didn't want to tell me to drink, but he wanted this to be planned instead of "hoping missing a dose won't affect my detox." So unfortunately, I will have to do my best to only drink what I have to to stave off withdrawal symptoms this evening / tonight.

This is very frustrating to me, but what choice do I have? I have to follow his orders, and I am only detoxing one more time in my life from alcohol. I am working the steps, and I'm blogging my butt off on here.

And it's with some relief that I'm doing this responsibly and realizing that it's not feasible to quit today. We had planned yesterday starting detoxing but with the pharmacy issue, it just wasn't feasible.

My typical amount of booze is like a fifth a night. Tonight, if I have the willpower, I will be about half of that, and I Will be dumping that garbage out first thing in the morning.

Glad you have what you need via your doc to make it through detox again.

Perhaps now is the time to step up your recovery plan if you are truly serious about quitting. You mention you drank in Thursday due to "unforeseen issues". Having a solid plan eliminates that possibility. It seems as though your physical dependance is becoming more and more severe if just a day or two of drinking sends you into such severe withdrawals, and it will only get worse.

Yeah Scott I plan on posting an article on that topic, but I'll give you the short version. Which isn't short.

I'm a stress drinker. Me and my therapist/doctors are working on that as we speak. Thursday was crap at work. A few coworkers were lamenting me leaving and a couple actually shed a couple tears. This made me very sad. It may seem like a lame excuse, but in my field of work, we are all incredibly close. And when are relapses EVER logical?

We all know there's no reason to ever pick up the drink. And we all know there's "no buts" after that line. But we are imperfect beings.

But to answer your question, everything has been eliminated, and there is indeed a solid plan in place. At my new job, I have two very close friends that know I'm an alcoholic. They are also my bosses. (This may seem bad to you, but we are literally best friends. I know their quirks and they know mine. There is an infinite level of trust there.) They told me I would instantly be able to leave if there was ever any events alcohol related, and ensured me I'd even get paid for it. They also know that we don't do beer at work, and we don't go get a beer at lunch. It's a sober work environment. Strictly. If you do government work, you can't have software engineers seen outside having a beer at lunch.

The company I just left, was not. They were all a bunch of home brewers pushing beer in my face. It made quitting nearly impossible in my opinion. It's the reason I am switching jobs...

This was going to be a separate post too, but I'll mention it: My parents now know I'm an alcoholic, and they know I won't be coming around for a couple of months. There's no way I will fail after this detox. Don't believe me. I know I wouldn't. I've said this before, but I am going to do it. I'm going to show all of you who don't believe me. And I will take pride in that. And I believe all of you will too, since you're all part of how this is going to happen.

Also, those are the steps that upped my recovery plan. I didn't have any of those in place until yesterday. I'm golden after detox. Wait and see.

This has nothing to do with anyone here believing you or not. It's all about you believing in yourself and getting sober for yourself. Show yourself that you mean it and use us here for help. Please be careful that you don't overdo things tonight either. Did your doc recommend and amount to drink (since he told you not to quit?). The last hurrah can be very dangerous.

He suggested that I drink what I need and treat the alcohol as medicine. Not a last hurrah. I'm an alcoholic, but I'm very responsible in regards to drinking and driving. I will go without alcohol before I drive and get more. I went and bought "Skinny Girl" vodka. It has less alcohol but the same amount of liquid. I'm hoping placebo effect helps me out.

What if you buy a pint instead of a fifth. That will take away the temptation in the morning. There are times I have bought two bottles instead of one; "to last me through the weekend. Those two bottles never lasted past one day. We believe in you.....

So the Ativan works for you? I does nothing for me. My symptoms are pretty bad. On my home I start gagging until I get some drink in me. But I have almost died a few times from my consumption.

I have 0 temptation in the morning. You have an excellent idea. I'll have the wife dump it when I pass out tonight for the last time.

Maybe I am not understanding fully Justin, but if you can't take the Ativan today because you drank last night (per doctors orders), how are you going to be able to take it tomorrow if you drink tonight?

Based on what Justin wrote, it appears to me the doctor doesn't want him to take the benzos unless he takes one in the morning and one in the evening. Since he didn't take one this morning (he didn't get the meds until afternoon), he detox should start tomorrow, when he can take get the AM dose in.

I don't know if that makes sense from a medical perspective, but that's what it appears (to me, at least) the instructions were from his current doctor.

From what I understand the MD does not want you to consume both alcohol and Ativan on the same day. Which makes sense. I am also a little confused on why he did not want you to start today, since you have not consumed today.

@Kayla50, I'm not sure yet, I haven't taken it.

@ScottFromWI, I cannot detox tonight because due to the progression of my detoxes, (like you correctly noted earlier) I start having withdrawal symptoms around 11:00 AM. Well today, the pharmacy didn't have medicine at 11:00 AM. Stupidly, I have been risking my health when I relapse and just dealing with the withdrawal symptoms by trying to ignore them. This is a mistake. He wants to treat me when the symptoms START rather than when I can no longer deal with them since that's the best decision health wise. He does not want me to have withdrawal symptoms, because like was noted earlier, they are dangerous and I in particular have borderline fatal blood pressure while detoxing. That's been verified by the ER visit I had two months ago. Since I was unable to take the morning dose (pharmacy didn't have Ativan until 2:00 this afternoon local time) he said to wait until tomorrow. So since roughly 2:00 PM when I knew I couldn't detox, I have been having ~1 standard drink an hour to get me through tonight. I'm assuming I'll have to have a little more alcohol than that at 5:00 PM, but I am not going to be getting trashed. I am not looking at tonight as a last hurrah as seems to be suggested, I am looking at it as a temporary solution to a stupid problem that is outside of my control. None of you on here can know how I feel about this. I WANT to quit drinking, and am ready to quit drinking FOR MYSELF, but it needs to be done safely.

@Marymacsmith, I couldn't take morning dosage because of the pharmacy not having them.

Let me also point out that this psychiatrist is the best in St. Louis, and has received several awards on addiction. He said: "do it once, do it right, and be sober after tonight. We know your body can handle getting drunk, but we don't know for a fact how your body will react to withdrawal symptoms due to them changing often. I am not telling you to go out and get hammered. I am telling you to wait a day. Drink what you NEED, not what you want." This is a smart move because:
A) I get the ativan in my system BEFORE withdrawal symptoms appear.
B) I have a little build up of Ativan in my system, so when I take the second dose at around 5:00 pm., I will have some in my system. This will increase the medication, thus giving me relief.

Ya, I had a seizure once while going through withdrawals. Luckily, I had just admitted myself into a hospital/treatment center. Don't know how things would of turned out if I was home alone. Still have a large scar on the left side of my forehead to remind me. Don't take any chances. I was lucky.

And it's a fact that you shouldn't mix Benzodiazepines with alcohol under any circumstances. It makes you drunk faster, and can lead to increased mortality. I am telling you what my doctor told me. If you want to ask questions, I'm totally ok with that, but please do not demean me. I do what licensed professionals tell me to do, because I do not know as much as them. I'm blogging on this site because of the friendly nature of everyone and support, not them suggesting I'm drinking tonight for the hell of it.

It is shameful to me to start drinking at 2:00 PM because I physically cannot wait any longer. I do not underestimate the gravity of my situation, and I came on this site with full transparency and honesty. I do not lie on this site. So I hope people take that into consideration before suggesting I'm making excuses.

I have done lots of research on alcohol withdrawal, and in this particular edge case scenario that does NOT happen often, finding a way to NOT detox without doctor recommendation is the safest route. (With the exception of inpatient settings of course)

I'm not drinking tonight because I can, I'm drinking tonight because I could not safely get to meds on time. So please understand that.

Justin, don't get frustrated with us, we are just trying to understand, I think the main issue is the fact that your withdrawal symptoms are not typical. Thanks for helping us understand. Kinda reminds me of this lady I worked with years ago, who had cardiac issues and was a pack a day smoker. Her MD actually told her not to attempt to quit smoking, becuase it would cause more stress on her heart.

I've posted and deleted about 3 times now....lol

it's got me beat how starting the Ativan tomorrow when you'll be drinking tonight is a better choice than starting today, when you hadn't been drinking at all.

I know you've explained the reasoning. I just don't get it.

but I'm no doctor and so...

best wishes Justin.
Hope it pans out.

D