Babescake

Yeah, sorry. I didn't relate to that. No urge surfing yet, and I think I'm good at pop culture! Hope you do better.

Nofearnobeer

Kind of like when buy a new box of Legos, then it gets dumped all over the floor..Can those pieces get put back the box in sequential order?

snowboarder300

Let me see if I can give you a little bit of a boost. I was a fifth (750ml) a day drinker for several years, and when I came off it and decided I wanted to be sober, after the first week of body withdrawal symptoms, that were excruciatingly hard, the BRAIN FOG, was the bane of my existence. I have been COMPLETELY sober since October of 2015 and I am just now, almost June 2016, seeing a natural relief of the brain fog....sooooo, almost 8 months of fog for me, not using any medication to treat it (other than taking a multivitamin daily). I would say I am about 95% clear now. I know what you mean though..its awful...to me it was the worst part. I couldn't go out in public, into stores, listen to music, couldn't even drive at times, because its like every neuron in my head started firing at once. I told my wife standing in walmart once that I couldn't see ANYTHING because my mind felt like it was trying to see EVERYTHING at once. Heres hoping you get some relief from that awful fog!!! Theres been a few times I was pretty hopeless about it disappearing, but I can assure you that based on what Ive experienced it will eventually clear. Many props on your sobriety!!! Congrats!!

Andante

The very fact that you can construct such an apt and coherent analogy for how your brain feels means it really isn't doing that badly.

Not picking on you -- I've felt the exact same way. My journal for the last 3 years is chock full of entries complaining that "my brain doesn't work right anymore!" However, in reading back over those entries, it's evident that my brain was actually working better than I felt like it was at the time. For me, part of the suite of PAWS symptoms was definitely perceptual -- I thought it was worse than it actually was.

I even had a similar analogy. For me, it felt like the pieces of my mind were strewn over an area the size of a football field, and I was sitting in the center, immobile, with the task of putting them back together again.

All I can say is hang in there -- it WILL get better!

Mcribb

I can relate. I worked my way up at my job and then got demoted. I started working more and abusing pills. I had to reset my sobriety date. Eventually I had to switch careers which was stressful but it was the right thing to do. I couldn't keep going on the way I was going. After lowering my expectations about money, success, and all that. I started having peace with myself. My brain is still torn apart like you say yours is, but I think if you live one day at a time it will get better.

biminiblue

This is so true. At about four months I posted something that sounded almost exactly like this - so it must be a profound experience of the brain post-addiction.

My analogy was I felt like a jigsaw puzzle and all the pieces were being called back into me. In my case, I felt like the pieces were actively moving and that they were very close to me; specifically my shoulders and head. I was being put back together. It was like an Escher drawing (in my perception.) That's pretty cool that there are at least three of us who have had this experience. I like it.

It took me to about 10-11 months before I felt "normal." It's a great feeling. I didn't take any meds, because in the past meds have given me so many side-effects that I decided to find alternative methods of coping. Being on this site, outdoor exercise, meditation and prayer were my best tools.

Andante

Funny there's such a cluster of PAWS sufferers active on the board at the moment. Sometimes it seems like weeks can go by without anyone mentioning anything related to it.

There are certainly things you can do to encourage the process of recovery by participating actively in it -- and the greater the participation, the better the results -- but the one common denominator is time.