Announcement

**Sober Visitor** · August 12, 2012, 10:03 AM

please help! withdrawal symptoms??!!

Hi Aive&Here,

Just wanted to let you know that the symptoms you have described between your drinking binges sound like withdrawal to me, especially since they go away when you resume drinking. It's really just the nature of the beast! Speaking from my own experience, our addiction doesn't generally get better when we continue to drink, even if we switch to something else that we perceive to be less damaging, such as light beer. The liver really doesn't care if the alcohol comes in a mixed drink, a glass of wine, a regular beer, or a light beer. It still has to process the toxin (alcohol) regardless. Each of the following typical serving size delivers the same amount of alcohol to the liver:

1 oz. of 100 or 110 proof spirit
1 oz. of 80 proof spirit
4-5 oz. of wine
8 oz. of dark beer
12 oz. of regular or light beer

What you might save yourself by switching to light beer is a few calories, but the alcohol will still be feeding your addiction and damaging your liver as well as other organs. I personally think your doctor gave you some very bad advice if you were being as honest with him as you were in this post. Trust me, there are much younger alcoholics than you are now. My neighbor's son was an alcoholic in high school and had to go to rehab twice. He is now 29 years old and has been sober for 9 years. I was also an alcoholic at a young age but chose to ignore the blatant signs so I could continue to drink.

Addiction is so strong it will tell us anything to get us to keep feeding it. My addiction started out with beer, but since I couldn't seem to control my intake, I had the not so brillant idea in my 30s to switch to wine, since I really didn't like the taste. Predictably, I became a raging wino. Truth is, I really wasn't drinking for the taste. I was drinking for the buzz. It wasn't the beer I was addicted to, or the wine. I was drinking because I was addicted to the alcohol that each contain. It didn't solve my problem to switch to wine or stop the damage to my liver. My addiction got progressively worse and so did my health.

The withdrawal symptoms are not pleasant, but I can assure you that they do not last forever, and there are things you can do to help minimize them. Some people bounce back quicker than others and may only have them for a few days. Mine lasted for several weeks, but I did eventually come of the fog and into the light. My best advice to you would be to stop drinking for at least 30 days to allow the miracle to happen. Anything less than that and you are not giving yourself or sobriety a fair chance. It may seem like you have nothing to be sober for right now, but trust me, that is the voice of your addiction. The key is to stop listening to that voice.

Check out the Tool Box thread linked below for some things you can do to help you through and join in some daily threads. There's one in the General Discussion forum with Underoo's like yourself.

https://www.mywayout.org/community/f1...box-27556.html

You might also want to check out this article as well as the MWO book. They both helped me a lot when I first quit and gave me the upper hand to beat this. I've been sober now for 3.5 years and don't miss AL one bit. Back then, I honestly didn't think I could live a day without alcohol, and now I can't imagine ever going back. It's amazing how much our perceptions change when we come out from under the influence and start living again.

Detoxification Programs: Nutritional Program for Alcohol Detoxification

Best wishes.

**aliveandhere** · August 13, 2012, 05:52 AM

please help! withdrawal symptoms??!!

Hi,
Thanks so much for replying and shedding a bit of light on my situation. Sounds like you have some experience in the matter.

I do think also its alcohol withdrawal im experiencing. I think even though i have drank heavily most of my life, i never used to drink the next day if i was hungover, whereas the last couple years and especially this year i was probably drunk more than i was sober, i think the 3/5 day binges were a bit too much for my system and it started to get fixated on it i guess.

I had one really big night last week followed by a couple more slower binges and then generally tapered off until last night which was alcohol free, and as usual i didn't sleep which always happens when i dont drink after drinking alot. I had moments of clear headedness today which made gave me an inkling of what it used to be like.

I guess i have to see how i go with all this, hopefully my body gets over these withdrawals and i feel normal again, that would be great. I am seeking employment now so if im working i wont wanna be hungover in the morning, should be an incentive.

Im probably speaking like a true alcoholic here but even though i get these withdrawals after heavy periods of boozing, if u clean up for a while and then say ,get drunk every now and again, are u still going to suffer? or does ur body get used to just the occasional bout and u feel normal alot quicker like i used to.

I do ask this because part of my indulgence over the last couple years has come from complete free time, no responsibility and no worries ( well not ur everyday worries ). If im working and busy the situation is a bit different.

I definately know i cant go on like i used to, all those years of abuse cant have done my body any favours im thinking.

thanks for ur help

**Supercrew** · August 13, 2012, 06:43 PM

please help! withdrawal symptoms??!!

Hi Alive,
Lots of great info given. I too was a binge drinker, and would drink anything, for the better part of 20 years, then I found some free time and drank through my hangovers for a 3-5 year span. Like you I finally realized that I was drunk more often than not, and I was physically addicted to alcohol. The problem is once you hit that point you can turn it off. You have affected your body to the point that it will never be able to drop its tolerance levels back down. It was a tough realization for me, being that my whole life revolved around alcohol and my body can't process it effectively ever again. Any doctor who would tell you you aren't old enough to have that problem should probably study the effects of alcohol of the brain a little closer. Anyways good luck on your journey, sobriety has been the best thing that ever happened to me!

**aliveandhere** · August 14, 2012, 05:57 AM

please help! withdrawal symptoms??!!

Thanks for taking the time out to reply guys, every little bit of info from personal experience is really helpful.
I guess like u guys say, you come to these forums for a reason. Mine would be this shitty feeling in my head every time i sober up. I suppose when these symptoms came up in the lsat 6 or 8 months before it must have passed and i eventually started drinking again. In the last year i think i did a few sober periods, 2 weeks, 6 weeks, 3 weeks and now, i remember it in those periods but wasn't sure if it was withdrawal. I really hope it goes away cause right now its really messing with me.

Anyways, if i have crossed the line, its probably the best thing for me. Ive already consumed my lifetime of drinks, im sure i had some good times, cant really remember!

I will have to see how i go in the future as to asses my personal relationship with booze, its a tricky one.
thanks guys

**aspman** · August 14, 2012, 11:44 AM

please help! withdrawal symptoms??!!

hi aliveandhere, my drinking story could be you just a few years down the track. I was bingeing according to the doctors 7 days a week. as far as i was concerned at the time it was light drinking 4 days with "only" heavy drinking the other 3 days/nights of the weekend.it is amazing what the body can tolerate for a time. you become used to functioning with AL in your system, then you stop and get dizzy, weird, sweats, headaches, insomnia due to you body missing its equiblium (whoa thats spelt wrong

). you can do it mate, its not easy, in fact its hard as hell,but is simple and so worth the effort.

https://www.mywayout.org/community/f9...rry-39482.html

I hope you find some peace here the threads are full of helpfull careing peeps!

**Cashregister** · August 14, 2012, 11:44 PM

please help! withdrawal symptoms??!!

Light beer in Oz is actually low AL beer FYI non Aussies

Best to try and stop for at least a month and see how you feel then. I'm on 18 days and feel sooooo much better and am functioning so much better.

Good luck.

**Kradle123** · August 15, 2012, 12:11 AM

please help! withdrawal symptoms??!!

aliveandhere;1362296 wrote: Hi

afew times of this i went to the Dr and asked about alchohol withdrawal symptoms which he said was not likely for a guy my age.
I brushed it off and continued drinking, but each time i sober up for afew days i dont feel

Hi Alive and Welcome :welcome:
Forgive me but I find your your Dr's response truly blizzare. Unless he's Dr. Scholl.

Withdrawel from AL is hardly dependent on age. I agree with all the good posts here. Just wanted to comment on this Dr and suggest you get a second opinion in order to get some more support. It's a long journey but so far, at least for me, one I need to make and MWO is the best support I have ever found.

Godd to meet you !

**aliveandhere** · August 15, 2012, 06:25 AM

please help! withdrawal symptoms??!!

Hey thanks again guys, good to read ur stories

.

I definately will persist with the abstinence, even though i tapered down my intake over that last week, im only 4 days sober so still a way to go.

As for the DR, i think he just thought i was over reacting as i came in after not drinking for afew days, i look a bit younger than i am and i still exercise and get in the water alot even though i drink alot (only cause i wasn't working and had the time). He said he'd seen alot worse than me!, which im sure he had but yeah, he still should have taken me a bit more seriously. If i came in the morning after 5 days of boozing maybe he wouldve been different.

Is there any sort of testing to see if you have done any damage,ie, liver or brain damage?

**Sober Visitor** · August 15, 2012, 06:30 AM

please help! withdrawal symptoms??!!

Thanks for pointing that out, Cash. Back in the day, my inner junkie would have fallen into that trap. In fact, my inner junkie fell into a lot of those traps back in the day. When I drank beer, I always drank the light beer (albeit higher in the U.S.), but I probably drank twice the amount I would have had it been regular beer so I could get my buzz on and was addicted just the same. I think the key for all of us is to know thyself. I tried to outsmart my addiction by switching to light beer and then to something I didn't like the taste of, and the only person I was fooling was myself. In retrospect, I exhibited classic addict behavior. I would tell myself that I was reducing the harm, but in actuality, I wasn't because I was drinking more. I think some key quetions that we all need to ask ourselves and answer honestly based on our own experiences are:

1. Would I really be happy only drinking 1 or 2?
2. Was I ever able to control my drinking in the past once I started, more times that not?
3. If I wasn't able to control my drinking in the past once I started, more times than not, what makes me think that I'll be able to do so now that my addiction has progressed further down the slippery slope?
4. How much more am I willing to risk losing in my life so I can continue to keep my addiction alive?

Alive, I can assure you that if you go 30 days without alcohol, the fog and other symptoms that you are having will lift and you will start to feel more alive. It will also give you a better sense of how dependent your are on AL. It's so easy for us to equate the bad feelings we have when we first stop drinking with being sober, such as "I always feel terrible when I stop drinking," but they are only happening because of our drinking.

Just a tidbit about me. I was out of work when I quit drinking. After wallowing in my alcohol for about 3 months, with the MWO book and supplements taking up space on my kitchen counter, I finally realized that it was "DO or DIE" and fully committed myself to quitting. Being out of work actually turned out to be such a blessing in disguise for me because it allowed me to devote 100% of myself to the task of quitting without the added stress triggers that a job can cause. I quit in March 2009 and got a new job three months later. I felt very fortunate to have that time off, and can look back and feel proud that I made the best out of a bad situation and what seemed at first to be a reason for me to continue to drink. It was time I spent very wisely.

Keeping reading and see what resonates for you.

SV

**COSGringo** · August 31, 2012, 09:36 PM

please help! withdrawal symptoms??!!

Just know on the elevated enzyme count, it's not an end all-

This typically includes AST (Ref-Range 5-40) & ALT (Ref-Range 7-56).
Keep in mind this alone gives you very little information beyond the fact that the the liver may be inflamed ( if AST & ALT are elevated) and generally speaking( but NOT always) when the AST number is more out of range than the ALT, this is often indicative of alcohol or medicinal damage.

Bear in mind, that your liver enzymes could be slightly out of range and you could have serious issues;likewise, they could be hundreds of times elevated and your liver could be fine. Viral Hepatitis A often causes a huge elevation in liver enzymes but is quite easily managed and fixed. Hepatitis C may cause just a slight elevation in AST/ALT panels and yet liver damage could be severe.

Heavy exercise can cause a short term spike in liver enzymes.Fatty liver , which is quite common in overweight persons and alcohol drinkers can cause long term elevated liver enzymes.

Long story short; this is one tool useful in deciding whether further diagnosis is indicated, but without a lot more information , it doesn't mean much. Elevated Liver Enzymes ( without obvious cause or history) simply indicates that further investigation may be warranted.

**aliveandhere** · September 6, 2012, 02:22 AM

please help! withdrawal symptoms??!!

Hi guys,

Well, i think i went about 6 days sober with the withdrawal symptoms probably easing enough for me to not be worried a bout getting properly drunk again, which i did, and then have continued on the bingeing and topping up path for the last few weeks.

Probably what kept me going was i saw a drug and alcohol counselor who said its best not to abstain totally but to try and cut back a bit. I guess i took that as green light to continue bingeing and have been pretty steady at say 10-15 drinks each day for afew days then say, 3-7 drinks each day for afew days.

However in the last week i got a Job and the last few nights i only had 1 or 2 each night and the withdrawals are coming back (if thats what they are?) The job is great but it requires a bit of working closely and communicating with others and working quickly. My withdrawals are really kicking in and im forgetting stuff and making mistakes, getting anxiety,stressed and confused and feeling like im gunna lose it. I dont know if its visible to the other employees or not.
And its messing with me, im getting paranoid, and the fact that im struggling with a job i could normally do with ease is messing with my confidence, and my whole head in general, thougts like, "i'm losing it, im going crazy, what happened to me?"

I think i still had alot of alcohol in my system on the first few days as i was alot more clear headed when i started, i drank atleast 6 on the night before the first day and so on for the next few days untill the weekend where i drank heaps again. As ive cut back the last few nights to 1 or 2 , im feeling shitty and going through this shit again, which i wonder in the back of my mind all the time that it wont go away.

Should i keep going on the 1 or 2 each night or just cut it out before i lose it???????

Is cutting back like i have enough to induce withdrawals?????? IF you persist with just a couple each night will u eventually have less alcohol in ur system and this shit will stop?
The Job is 6 days a week so there is no way i would get proper drunk the night before which only leave's Sat night to bend the rules (which is good).

Also , i have a couple of strong black coffees each day, is this bad for withdrawal????

thanks guys, any input is much appreciated.

Welcome Guest to My Way Out Forums.

Announcement

please help! withdrawal symptoms??!!

please help! withdrawal symptoms??!!

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment