48 years old - 4 months sober - paws
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Join Date: Apr 2018
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48 years old - 4 months sober - paws
My first post - very long time lurker. I am wondering why paws was never explained at aa meetings - i was told "it gets better" numerous times. I was a very heavy drinker my entire life. I kinda wondered if i would have quit a lot earlier if someone explained "the symptoms" of paws to me. Knowing what i know now, i am definitely experiencing them. I think if i had the knowledge about the symptoms, i would have simply waited them out (while working on making a better life). Just my two cents. I think younger people should be told a few more details.
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Join Date: Apr 2007
Location: Australia
Posts: 211,442
Hi 48Canada 
to be fair there's not any kind of universal agreement to what PAWs is or if it even exists.
Whatever AA does for people, its been working a long time before PAWs was developed as a concept.
D
to be fair there's not any kind of universal agreement to what PAWs is or if it even exists.
Whatever AA does for people, its been working a long time before PAWs was developed as a concept.
D
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Join Date: Jun 2012
Location: Pacific Coast
Posts: 785
Hi 48Canada and welcome!
I can think of a couple of good reasons PAWS isn't "explained" at AA meetings.
One is that it simply wasn't recognized when the Big Book was written and thus isn't considered by the program as it's traditionally practiced. PAWS isn't officially recognized as a medical condition even today -- and even if it was, it might be considered something of an "outside issue" in AA as it doesn't relate specifically to spiritual fitness.
The other reason is that people (and especially alcoholics) being only human, they sometimes try to use PAWS as an excuse for emotional instability when at least some of what they're experiencing could be relieved by working a program of recovery more vigorously.
That said, I certainly had a variety of odd and debilitating symptoms in my first few years of sobriety that had nothing to do with the state of my emotional or spiritual recovery, although recovery work did help me to cope with them better. I believe they had a neurological basis even if the current state of the medical arts was unable to diagnose them.
These days, I'm tending to think of PAWS more as a continuum of withdrawal rather than a separate syndrome. I think the range of withdrawal experiences is incredibly wide -- from none at all in some cases, to symptoms that recur or persist for years in others -- based on a variety of factors that are not well understood yet.
Perhaps someday both the medical profession and recovery programs will have a better understanding of this.
I can think of a couple of good reasons PAWS isn't "explained" at AA meetings.
One is that it simply wasn't recognized when the Big Book was written and thus isn't considered by the program as it's traditionally practiced. PAWS isn't officially recognized as a medical condition even today -- and even if it was, it might be considered something of an "outside issue" in AA as it doesn't relate specifically to spiritual fitness.
The other reason is that people (and especially alcoholics) being only human, they sometimes try to use PAWS as an excuse for emotional instability when at least some of what they're experiencing could be relieved by working a program of recovery more vigorously.
That said, I certainly had a variety of odd and debilitating symptoms in my first few years of sobriety that had nothing to do with the state of my emotional or spiritual recovery, although recovery work did help me to cope with them better. I believe they had a neurological basis even if the current state of the medical arts was unable to diagnose them.
These days, I'm tending to think of PAWS more as a continuum of withdrawal rather than a separate syndrome. I think the range of withdrawal experiences is incredibly wide -- from none at all in some cases, to symptoms that recur or persist for years in others -- based on a variety of factors that are not well understood yet.
Perhaps someday both the medical profession and recovery programs will have a better understanding of this.
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Join Date: Oct 2012
Posts: 5,937
Welcome to SR, 48Canada! It's good to have you with us. I imagine everyone has a different experience when they quit. My first three days were a nightmare, no doubt about it! But things got better pretty steadily after that. I'd have days where emotionally I took a couple steps back but I didn't try to drink my way out of it, I just stayed the course. Now when I have a bad day I realize that it's because I'm a human and humans have bad days sometimes.
The PAWS though, however you experience it, will get better with time.
I drank like a fish for 25 years, and I don't know how many more I could have kept it up before it killed me. So anything short of actually dying is a win as far as I'm concerned!
The PAWS though, however you experience it, will get better with time.
I drank like a fish for 25 years, and I don't know how many more I could have kept it up before it killed me. So anything short of actually dying is a win as far as I'm concerned!
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Join Date: Apr 2014
Location: UK
Posts: 6,902
I dunno. We're told that things will get better if we thoroughly follow the path laid out in the program of recovery. PAWS became a growing issue for me (although I was going to AA meetings) because I hadn't been willing to do those things.
When I was really getting desperate I chanced upon this article on PAWS....
https://digital-dharma.net/post-acut...r-immediately/
The article explained a lot of stuff and suggested certain things. A light came on for me, not because it was new information, but because it was the same stuff I'd been la-la-la-ing when it was suggested to me in meetings, just they'd not called it PAWS.
PAWS just stands for Post-Acute Withdrawal Syndrome.
Post - subsequent to / after
Acute - severe / critical
Withdrawal- Removal / taking out (of whatever we were addicted to)
Syndrome - A set of signs and symptoms that appear together and characterize a disease or medical condition.
So, dealing with PAWS is just dealing with a commonly experienced set of signs and symptoms felt after those more severe or critical stages of withdrawal. Isn't that what AA is at the heart of things? AA doesn't realky deal with getting us sober as such, it deals with what comes next.
Any good meeting that is recovery-focussed consists of people taking about what it was like (the syndrome post withdrawal if we like), what happened (the post-acute care that worked for them) and what's it's like now.
We might not call it a syndrome, but its suggested that we focus on the similarities rather than the differences (those signs and symptoms that tend to appear together).
I was stubborn and frankly wanted to blame everything and everyone else in my life for my situation, what I'd done, and how I felt. I didn't see the need for me to change or want to change. And I certainly didn't want to get a sponsor, or do service or any or the other things that were suggested. But my desperation combined with hearing / reading the same suggestions from a different source brought me the willingness and acceptance that I'd be lacking I suppose. I do point people in the fellowship towards that PAWS article (other stubborn-arsed people like me who are sitting there wondering why it's not getting better despite the fact that they're not willing to do-the-do of the programme). Not because it's new or different info than we hear in the rooms, but because its suggesting just the same kind of action as the program gives us the opportunity to do in a structured way. Nowadays I can look back and say I WAS told all the stuff in that article. I just wasn't ready to listen and Hear it. I just heard the bit I wanted to, which was the, 'It gets better' bit and ignored the 'thoroughly followed our path' bit of How It Works.
Anyway, all that aside. I hope things are getting better for you. How's your program going?
BB
When I was really getting desperate I chanced upon this article on PAWS....
https://digital-dharma.net/post-acut...r-immediately/
The article explained a lot of stuff and suggested certain things. A light came on for me, not because it was new information, but because it was the same stuff I'd been la-la-la-ing when it was suggested to me in meetings, just they'd not called it PAWS.
PAWS just stands for Post-Acute Withdrawal Syndrome.
Post - subsequent to / after
Acute - severe / critical
Withdrawal- Removal / taking out (of whatever we were addicted to)
Syndrome - A set of signs and symptoms that appear together and characterize a disease or medical condition.
So, dealing with PAWS is just dealing with a commonly experienced set of signs and symptoms felt after those more severe or critical stages of withdrawal. Isn't that what AA is at the heart of things? AA doesn't realky deal with getting us sober as such, it deals with what comes next.
Any good meeting that is recovery-focussed consists of people taking about what it was like (the syndrome post withdrawal if we like), what happened (the post-acute care that worked for them) and what's it's like now.
We might not call it a syndrome, but its suggested that we focus on the similarities rather than the differences (those signs and symptoms that tend to appear together).
I was stubborn and frankly wanted to blame everything and everyone else in my life for my situation, what I'd done, and how I felt. I didn't see the need for me to change or want to change. And I certainly didn't want to get a sponsor, or do service or any or the other things that were suggested. But my desperation combined with hearing / reading the same suggestions from a different source brought me the willingness and acceptance that I'd be lacking I suppose. I do point people in the fellowship towards that PAWS article (other stubborn-arsed people like me who are sitting there wondering why it's not getting better despite the fact that they're not willing to do-the-do of the programme). Not because it's new or different info than we hear in the rooms, but because its suggesting just the same kind of action as the program gives us the opportunity to do in a structured way. Nowadays I can look back and say I WAS told all the stuff in that article. I just wasn't ready to listen and Hear it. I just heard the bit I wanted to, which was the, 'It gets better' bit and ignored the 'thoroughly followed our path' bit of How It Works.
Anyway, all that aside. I hope things are getting better for you. How's your program going?
BB
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Join Date: Feb 2018
Location: Stockport/Greater Manchester/Cheshire
Posts: 911
I liked to put a label on my episodes.
I called them paws.
That way I could acknowledge the way I was feeling ,look for the early signs and be prepared for a bit of a rocky few days or so.
A label helped me say, take it easy this will pass I am doing enough & my brain is healing.
I called them paws.
That way I could acknowledge the way I was feeling ,look for the early signs and be prepared for a bit of a rocky few days or so.
A label helped me say, take it easy this will pass I am doing enough & my brain is healing.
Member
Join Date: Apr 2014
Location: UK
Posts: 6,902
Originally Posted by Winefreegal 
What are PAWS????
The article explains it all very well... https://digital-dharma.net/post-acut...r-immediately/
BB
Member
Join Date: Mar 2017
Location: Colorado
Posts: 1,298
PAWS seemed to hit me hard around 100 days. I didn’t know what the problem was, it kinda felt like the first 30 days for a week or so, but different. When I read about PAWS, the light came on. At nearly a year sober, I feel much better.
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