Dim

Hi guys quick question.
Is there such thing as delayed alcohol withdrawals?
I'm a day shy of 3 weeks sober and it seems like i'm feeling worse than I did in the first 2 weeks?! Body aches are fine for the most part but dizziness, fatigue and anxiety seem worse than the initial withdrawal.
Anybody experienced anything similar to this?
Just looking for experience rather than medical advice.
Thanks heaps x

ALinNS

Yes, there are a lot of threads on here asking a similar question, keep in mind many of us took years abusing our bodies, it can take weeks, months for everything to get back to "normal"

Andrew

Dee74

A lot of us seem to suffer from PAWs. Check the link out and see what you think:

http://digital-dharma.net/post-acute...r-immediately/


D

gleefan

It took me a while to feel well. Some people feel well as soon as they cut out booze, but I woke up feeling hungover for several weeks. It got better slowly, almost imperceptibly - however when I looked back, I usually noticed that it was better that day compared to the week before.

stillpooh19

Yep! I felt like crap for about 2 weeks. Then I started to feel much better, then out of nowhere panic and anxiety kicked in after about 45 days. I could barely get in and out of tub without feeling dizzy and faint. Things get better with each day, but I did have to see a doctor to help ease the symptoms. The website that Dee mentioned is very helpful. Best wishes!

ItsViolet

Oh yes definitely. I felt like that longer than three weeks, actually. Three weeks is very early! I remember thinking, shouldn't I feel better than this by now? After about that time I felt better then worse then better then worse then better. The body and brain have to go through a big adjustment. I'm only 64 days in myself so I better remember my own advice haha. I'm noticing improvement now but am cautious because I've come to expect a few bumps in the road. Let yourself rest, it will get better. Congratulations on your three weeks!!

ItsViolet

Yup. I was kind of cruising and then panicked at 58 days too.

Soberwolf

Hoping you feel better soon Dim

sleepie

Hey Dim just wondering if you got bloodwork done? I had dizzy spells and still do though I am over 4 months sober, I was told I am prediabetic over a year ago. These things can be kind of funny. Sometimes dizziness or sweats and stuff can be something as simple as blood sugar. Alcohol can really affect that.

Dim

Had blood work done before my latest binge and all was fine. Sometimes i wish it was something physiological just so i could understand it! I'm just finding it super bizarre that it seems to be getting worse rather than better... mind you i'm day 5 free of antidepressants now so this could be playing a part as well... i'm trying to he as productive as possible but its quite frustrating when i'm constantly light headed and dizzy.

yearlander

Sometimes anxiety can cause those symptoms. And if you have quelled anxiety with drink, you never had to feel it, now you may be.
Also I read somewhere (I am always reading lol) that 90% of problem drinkers have hypoglycemia. That can cause those symptoms. Thats low blood sugar.
But eating lots of sugary stuff, that you may be craving, makes the problem worse. As through a counter action by the body ie releasing a lot of insulin, can actually make you end up with even lower blood sugar.
Try a balanced diet, a lot of complex carbohydrates and protien, and stress reduction techinques.
And remember, nothing is as bad as drunk comedown in the acute stage feels!

Itchy

Dim,
I had terrible Paws for almost six months. One day great, next day fatigued, got constipated then the opposite on and off and got my days and nights mixed up. Well, still do - it's 3AM now.

For my first three months I saw my doc at least once a month for urinalysis and bloodwork, especially liver enzymes etc.

I came here for some of the reassurances you are seeking. The thing I thought more than a few times was that if I drank again I'd feel better. Lol! Naaah, if I did that I'd just have to go through the same thing again, maybe worse. Nope, if it was that bad, once was enough. I don't know how those folks that quit the relapse over and over can stand it. I decided that after a couple of anxiety attacks, which I'd never had before or since, that I'd join AA for some face time and to find out if it was normal too. It varies but sleep issues and mood swings are common. Remember my docs were read in before I detoxed in hospital 7day medical detox. I wasn't worried if I did some damage because of the monthly withdrawal monitoring.

I think it took some of the folks here and at AA aback because I wasn't craving and caving, I just wanted to know others made it through similar symptoms and that my severe PAWS wasn't the precursor of a stroke or having my head blow up. just kidding. But it is our first time, and I had made up my mind to quit forever anyway. I wasn't feeling deprived just grateful I survived.

No way I'm going through that again! Don't you either. Hang in there or hangover.

Itchy

I got a PM from someone who read this here who asked how long I have managed the balancing act of sobriety and PAWS at the same time. My PAWS was only bad for about three months. I forgot to mention my short term memory was scary bad. I could not focus and you know that feeling when you go in another room and forget why you went there? I would start a project or chore and get distracted by another and start it then got distracted by another. I was terrified Alcohol had given me or hidden Alzheimer's!!!

Nah, I figured if it was I sure didn't need to be a drunk with Alzheimer's so I hung in there. I panicked a little at first but finally Dee and all my other friends here who know the list is too long, told me that it took years for me to damage me from drinking and to not expect it to be an overnight thing. That got through and I realized that instead of being overwhelmed by how much on our property I'd half-vast, it was actually kind of fun to be an airhead and just go from one chore to another. IN 8 hours I would pass by the first and finish it. So I stopped being scared and accepted that I was permanently damaged or not, and no amount of internal self-pity parties could change that. So I had to hang around sober until I healed, or not.

It took three months for the worst of the memory PAWS to feel better. by six months I knew I would be fine. I still have a touch of having to really think to be able to remember if something was yesterday or last week. But that's way better than the first tree months and I am normal again. Now that I've been sober for six years this coming September, I don't even think about it any more. I don't hesitate to go to functions and parties where people are drinking because I now drink too without guilt for drinking non alcoholic drinks. I still like a tall Gin and ginger ale with a twist and rocks, hold the Gin.

I am done for good and am certainly not foolish enough to start wondering if now could I moderate and drink, or do it until I am sick again? I know folks don't think it through and put it in those words. I do and laugh at those thoughts because they are no more going to be acted on than when I wonder how it must have felt when a friend shot himself in the hand acting like Stephen Segal at the firing range jacking his slide on his .45 back from the front with his palm in front of the barrel. I am sure not going to shoot myself because I wondered how badly it must have hurt.
about 20 years ago when I was smoking 2 packs a day I finally managed to quit for 18 months and then one day, since my wife still smoked and we bought by the carton to save money, I grabbed a pack and had one "just to see what it felt like for that initial dizziness high." Then another the next day saying it's OK I proved I could quit so I could moderate. Within a week I was smoking 3 packs a day, like I needed to catch up! I deserved to smoke as much as I wanted, I could quit anytime, right? What crock! Before I quit smoking three packs a day AND drinking more than 30 units of alcohol a day, I remembered wearing out 20 pairs of kneecaps over the last 20 years for being so stupid to relapse back to smoking. All the time trying, but I just could not muster up another quit.

I had relapsed very day within 10 minutes of waking up shaking and trying not to drink shots in my coffee to stop the shaking and just go through with it. I drink one cup barely not spilling it and then pat myself on the back for holding off drinking for ten minutes sand putting three shots in my second coffee as a reward for success.

After a year of that I decided I needed to detox in hospital and I found a VA medical Detox I qualified for. I set my affairs in order, got my doc on board, told my wife, kids and friends what I was doing (boy were they in denial, "Naw, you're OK, just cut back a bit and you will be fine.") and checked in September 21st 2010. I joined the class of September then, and it turns out I am the only one to still be on my one detox and quit.

I'm 63 now and I know I don't have another quit in me. If I relapse I die. And that doesn't scare me sober, it is just a fact. What keeps me sober is not fear. It is a quiet pride, and the self respect I earned back from myself is the priceless thing. With that I built myself right back into a wonderful life.

So don't be intimidated. I was once there where you find yourself and so I came here three weeks after detox and haven't left since. I don't need SR anymore to stay sober, I really never did. I stay to occasionally try to help another, and because I have some real old friends here now that I've never met in person. But they all helped me hang in there with reassurances and helped me save my life. I am atypical in that I skipped the revolving door relapses some have, and quit long before I had legal problems or lost my family house and savings. I quit determined. As well not one day since did I feel deprived of alcohol, but raging about myself letting me get addicted. I was furious with myself so I found that detox program and checked in. I was a non drinker before I quit, I just had to detox for a head start.

Then despite my doc, counseling, and friends, I came here and then did AA for three months only to make sure I was "normal" with the strange things my PAWS gave me. So for those who think 6 years is unattainable here is my first post here:
http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...ml#post2735953

See, we all start the same. Decision, detox, gaining back some physical stability and healing, earning back self-respect from self. And re-learning coping skills for life. I was lucky only in that I had a very successful career and retired the first time at 45, and then after traveling in an RV for a few years went back to work out of boredom, and started drinking too much because that's what I did after work and then started keeping it at work because I could, then I became too successful and we expanded and I decided that I did not want to work 18 hours a day six days a week and told the owner he needed a younger guy to take over our first location, so I retired again, my second retirement actually at 56 to drink full time. Two years later I was in detox. Almost six years later here I am, the same guy who could not go ten minutes in the morning without shots to look normal and not shake like I had Parkinsons.

And all the bad things I did were mild, my big sin was self-indulgence. Now I am just the same old techie Nerd who can also shoot hunt and build and repair things with the best of them. Now I am deciding what I want to be when I grow up, again. See the problem is not having choices, it is that there are endless choices, and the fun is trying them on in reading and in actuality. And all those who talked about me behind my back? Living well, is the best revenge. And each of us has a lot of money we spent on our addictions that we can save and do great things with like: dive in the ocean and from the sky, ski, get a college degree if we missed that and drank young, spend time with our kids, go cook holiday dinners at the local homeless shelter, spend time with vets trying to recover in body and mind, hug your children, or your family's or get one for yourself! (Wait a year I hear, but I got a fine woman when I was 19, instead of settling, and she has been a keeper, and crazy, following me around the world on our adventures.)

So just hang in there if you choose and let me know in another almost six years of your sobriety, if you don't feel the same.

sleepie

Mine was fine last they checked as well... but home testing proved otherwise, it was still a bit high. I think hypo, when you go low makes for dizziness. Though I have quit benzos even though it's been months maybe it's that as well, dunno.

Guess if you ask your Dr maybe they can help.