livingintegrity

Day 33.... Sleeping has always been hard in the beginning of quitting for me. At first I can't sleep at all, awake for days on end. That worked well for me in college and grad school, but it sucks when you're counting the hours of sobriety. Then after a few weeks something changes and I literally can't stay awake. I could fall asleep, deep sleep on a dime, anytime of the day the wave of exhaustion comes over me. Heavy eyes lead to a deep sleep, but I wake up in extreme pain. You see I have extreme neuropathy which not only causes numbness in my feet, calves, hands tingle...I'm always in a state of extreme soreness throughout my entire body. The alcohol and Mary Jane helped to numb the pain, knock me out so I could sleep. When I'd wake up in pain....well you guessed it, I'd drink or smoke some more and then fall back asleep. Now I just have to cope with the real physical pain which is haunting, relentless and never ending. I've never been prescribed, nor wanted to be, harder pain killers out of fear of liking and abusing them. I've tried taking supplements, an entire cupboard is full of B Complex, Milk Thistle, Magnesium, electrolyte's etc.... I've tried frankincense, lavender, soaking in piles of Epsom salts and other holistic oils, heck I've gone to shiatzu, acupuncture, acupressure, traditional massage and even a healer in addition to traditional medicine. I've had every test, scan, ultra sound and blood test to no avail, learning to live with chronic pain and be sober maybe the hardest challenge of all. As the day count goes up, this is one thing that challenges me...stay strong and carry on. Here's to putting mind over the matter of chronic pain. STAY!

Dee74

Hi livingintegrity

I suffer from chronic pain too - some of it nerve related.
I'm sorry that you suffer too.

I've tried a lot of things too - I work with my doctor and I've found Amitriptyline helps with the nerve stuff - the other joint pain and injuries...I try to keep active, eat sensibly and exercise...I have prescribed pain relief for intense pain...but I can't and won't use that daily, so In the end I have to accept a threshold of daily pain.

The thing for me is alcohol and weed didn't actually often do much for my pain and when it did the relief was fleeting and I needed to reapply the medicine - which brought with it mire and more problems.

Don't stop looking for solutions
D

Surrendered19

I come at this from a different perspective but with similar present challenges livingintegrity. I drank SO much that I did permanent damage to my body that I cope with every day now. 18 months sober there is improvement but not noticeable day to day. Just incremental healing and small victories. But in my case, it is so apparent that drinking did this to me and will provide no relief, but only more pain. So it is perhaps easier for me to know that drinking or weed would only undo what healing has taken place in my body.

Each of us is different, but I dare say masking symptoms with alcohol or weed might eventually make it worse?

BarbieKen

Hi,
I also have neuropathy in my feet and just starting in my calves. Please discuss this with your doctor. I’ve learned that I have a sliding scale of options ... not just the 2 extremes.
There is help . Again, reach out my friend to your doctor. Just ONE of the tools in our tool box for continued recovery.
Bobbi

anxiousrock

I cant imagine having chronic pain, that must be awful. I have mild pain from over exercise but nothing I can't deal with.
of course, alcohol has always been able to help me relax, and that's the only time I dont feel guilty about eating what I want, and not exercising.
Weed, tried it and it makes me paranoid.
I've been afraid to try anything harder than Tylenol 3, which makes me puke my guts out. To me this is all positive, no drug temptation I guess.
what help me is stretching lots, keeping electrolytes up, lemon water.

Good thread though, it's interesting to see how others deal with things.

stickyone

I also deal with chronic pain. You will have good days and bad days. Especially if your not masking it with hard pain medicine like myself for may years. You really have to stay dedicated to healthy eating and self care like natural supplements that help relieve the pain. But yes the mind is very tricky it can make a sore muscle feel like the end of the world. Cold showering have work wonders for myself .

enaiddes

Thank you so much for the post and I wish you success in your endless search to find answers. You’ve been so dedicated and thorough, you certainly deserve to finally arrive at solutions that can provide at least partial relief from your extensive physical pain.

I also have 24/7 pain and have been diagnosed with fibromyalgia and arthritis amongst other fancy names. I’ve learned to cope with it without any kind of drugs, not even tylenol and such.

I do pressure point relief with a baseball although a tennis ball is usually prescribed but I like the additional firmness of the baseball digging into the center of my lower back which is one of pain areas.

I drink copious amounts of water which is nature’s painkiller. I do various stretches. Gosh, I cant even remember all the stuff I do in an attempt to deal with it all.

It’s been going on for years and I’ve been told that our bodies do get used to pain so that we don’t feel it as much as time goes on. I think this is true for me although I can’t speak for anyone else.

Best to you.

livingintegrity

Enaiddes - You are absolutely correct in many ways. I'm not sure what series of events lead to my permanent state. I'd been drinking for years, gradually more and more. I had actually quit, was on the road to recovery when I started getting sick, pre neuropathy. Turns out I had a VERY large gall stone and had to have emergency surgery to remove both the stone and ultimately my gallbladder. I was hours from septic and no real opportunity to evaluate the potential side effects. I had 3 opinions from emergency and my other surgeons and was under the knife within 24 hours. I had blood tests, scans etc...not a word mentioned about any liver abnormalities, everything was a-ok. Months after surgery and still not drinking I started getting extremely sick, vomiting for no reason, couldn't keep food down, pee'd constantly, that's when the tingling started in my toes, worked it's way up to my nose, couldn't feel touch on my skin, eventually I couldn't walk without a cane. Dr.s thought I had severe diabetes, but after tests, I didn't. There is a rare side effect of having your gall bladder removed called Postcholecystectomy Syndrome only impacting 10% with chronic issues. Basically the bile backed up and burnt my nerves, my body lost the ability to communicate with itself. Over the years it got worse to the point I was in a wheel chair, but I worked my way back with long periods of sobriety and other periods of drinking. I could never really tell you if the drinking caused my health issues, but they for certain probably never helped. I used to take the attitude that I was drinking and still getting stronger, I could walk up and down stairs finally, I wouldn't fall down anymore (even sober I used to fall due to the numbness in my legs)....so not to drone on, I agree with you. I could bend the state of my sobriety or lack thereof to drive the story of my recovery or physical state. I still don't know what lead to what, but at this point it doesn't matter much. I don't go to the Doctor anymore for the condition, they really didn't have any solutions. I've found that just pushing myself, exercise, gardening and riding my new horse have helped the most. Thanks for reading and responding!

D122y

Nobody knows what I am feeling for sure.

For me to try and tell you it will be ok might be wrong. Obviously, a Dr. is the most correct answer.

In my experience...

When I was less than 90 days off the drug (booze) I was going totally insane. You name it, I had it. Just think every bad symptom related to drug recovery minus just some of the most horrific. (e.g. flying elephants and shakes etc.).

All that hell is branded onto my brain. Like a big scary scar that nobody can see except me.

I wear that scar on the inside and I hope and pray I never forget the hell on earth I suffered to get this clean.

Your post reminds me.

Thanks for that.

I am of the belief that if you just suffer suffer suffer, you will come out the other end good to go.

Relapse and it starts over.

That is all I got for now.

Thanks.

tursiops999

Hi livingintegrity -- I empathize, chronic pain can really be a challenge. I had been on "hard' painkillers but I quit them at the same time I quit alcohol, for the same reasons you described. I have made progress over time with learning to manage my pain, mostly through exercise (pilates works wonders for back issues), good diet, ice and heat, and overall stress management. I used to get mad when people told me my pain could be magnified/increased by stress (as if they were telling me "it's in your head", which is not really what they were telling me). But after some years of sobriety and becoming more attuned to my mind and body, I see that it's true, stress is one of the things that can contribute to my pain. The good news is that the things that helped me with living a happy, contented sober life also helped me with managing my pain ... so there may be better days ahead if you stick with sobriety. Anyway, just wanted to say I feel for you, and am rooting for you.