Poll of the Day > Day one of quitting drinking

(+) Yeah! (+)

I was at work yesterday and was getting extremely dizzy, confused, and nauseous, and I felt like I was going to collapse. My gut is bloated. I'm showing signs of liver failure, and the bags under my eyes are so large that if I look down my eyes close.

I'm actually a much heavier drinker than I thought I was, I worked out that I'm at >10 drinks a day.

Last time it took me 2 days before I got serious withdrawals. I don't crave the alcohol, I just use it to deal with trauma. No money for rehab or benzos, tapering off hasn't worked in the past.

I will document how absolutely shitty I feel in the following days.

You should see a doctor about this. 10+ drinks a day is pretty intense alcoholism. I'm no expert but it would probably be wise to get medical advice from your doctor, especially since you say you've had serious withdrawals before.

If you're from the US and have to pay for a GP visit, just do it.

good luck, hopefully you can find something really captivating to do. the only period where I was consistently sober on weekdays in the last 5 years was when I was grinding competitive games daily.

nowadays I am too busy with work and unfortunately I find that beer makes overtime a lot more enjoyable.

Have you thought of taking up smoking? Give your liver a rest?

Then quit smoking to?

faramir77 posted...

You should see a doctor about this. 10+ drinks a day is pretty intense alcoholism. I'm no expert but it would probably be wise to get medical advice from your doctor, especially since you say you've had serious withdrawals before.

If you're from the US and have to pay for a GP visit, just do it.

Sorry, he would probably refer me to an outpatient rehab which would cost me $1500 just for the benzos.

do you need benzos to quit heavy drinking? i only drink beer but have been saying im going to cut back for almost 2 years

SinisterSlay posted...

Have you thought of taking up smoking? Give your liver a rest?

Then quit smoking to?

Gonna go with a hard disagree on that advice, smoking is much harder to quit than drinking in my experience

acesxhigh posted...

good luck, hopefully you can find something really captivating to do. the only period where I was consistently sober on weekdays in the last 5 years was when I was grinding competitive games daily.

nowadays I am too busy with work and unfortunately I find that beer makes overtime a lot more enjoyable.

I'm fine being sober if I'm not actively feeling helpless about things

DirtBasedSoap posted...

do you need benzos to quit heavy drinking? i only drink beer but have been saying im going to cut back for almost 2 years

Benzos will all but cure the withdrawal symptoms after quitting cold turkey but are administered carefully by a professional. In a better world this wouldn't cost a small fortune.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEVPSNcNR0Q

Haven't had a drink in 4 years
Weed is so much better

Yellow posted...

Gonna go with a hard disagree on that advice, smoking is much harder to quit than drinking in my experience

If it's hard for you to quit addictions then yeah. Not sure how to help. Usually you replace the addiction with something less dangerous.

Would be great if you could replace it with say, hiking, but that's a dream world for most of us.

Just keep water at hand at all times, every time you want a drink, drink that water instead.
If it helps, alcohol makes your depression symptoms worse. So try to remind yourself every time you want a drink, that there is a future you that won't feel that way anymore if present you just avoids that drink.

But you also need to deal with your depression, in my opinion as someone that suffers depression it is much much harder to fix. You can't just choose to not be depressed, it doesn't just go away. And it's super easy to relapse with nothing but a sad movie.
The only trick I have found that worked for me is to stop each time I feel depressed, think about why I am depressed at that moment, and then think of happier thoughts, positives of the situation you are thinking about.
And the most important thing, do not talk to anyone you love about why you are depressed, it just pisses them off. You have to keep it to yourself. I know its not logical but it seems to be the truth. You will ruin your relationships if you talk about your depression with anyone.

This might not be ethical but if you have insurance just go to rehab anyways and don't pay your bill. That's what I did because they tried to dick me around with incompetent billing practices. I have an outstanding bill of over $10k for my rehab. If it hits my credit, it hits my credit. I'm still sober and I still got what I needed.

All I know is I've been told to cut back on drinking and not go cold turkey. I'm still drinking each day for this reason. Good luck man.

What were you drinking mostly? Beer? Hard liquor?

hows it going?

DirtBasedSoap posted...

hows it going?

I... was waiting for something to happen. Nothing did. I even slept normally. If anything I was slightly more anxious than normal. Any symptoms I had were overshadowed by not waking up hungover, and those were gone in 2 days.

I don't think 10 standard drinks in a day is enough to cause serious withdrawal? I even looked up some studies and found only 10% of the heaviest drinking patients in rehab even have serious symptoms. I think my other withdrawal was caused by other drugs I quit at the same time.

I would have posted earlier but I thought it was just delayed. Nope.

Aculo posted...

What were you drinking mostly? Beer? Hard liquor?

Gin, transitioned to chardonnay at the end of it.

wwinterj25 posted...

All I know is I've been told to cut back on drinking and not go cold turkey. I'm still drinking each day for this reason. Good luck man.

I wouldn't worry about it unless you are a really heavy drinker tbh, like drinking every hour of the day. But you can work out how many standard drinks you consume in a day and go from there. I just had 3 hours of getting as drunk as I could daily.

Jen0125 posted...

This might not be ethical but if you have insurance just go to rehab anyways and don't pay your bill. That's what I did because they tried to dick me around with incompetent billing practices. I have an outstanding bill of over $10k for my rehab. If it hits my credit, it hits my credit. I'm still sober and I still got what I needed.

My only regret is not stealing from rehab, tbh.

I still am having mild "cravings", but these are mostly habit. Like, now I'm just bored at nighttime.

thats awesome, dude. i always assumed that people who had severe withdrawal symptoms from alcohol were people who were waking up and drinking handles to start their days but im not a doctor and im also an idiot

how's it going so far TC

Zareth posted...

Haven't had a drink in 4 years
Weed is so much better

this

except i probably still smoke too much.

Hey man. Glad that you haven't had any serious withdrawals after quitting. Hopefully it stays that way. Everyone is so incredibly different it's crazy. So maybe you won't need the long process of detox and withdrawal like a lot of people do after quitting.

I think you see a doctor as soon as you can. Good luck and I wish you well.

acesxhigh posted...

how's it going so far TC

All my nervous tics came back and my ADHD is amplified to the point where I hyperfocus over little things like the hissing noise that comes out of the cheap charger used at work. A quiet hissing noise caused by a cheap transformer circuit stepping 120v AC to 5v DC (I was told by the internet or misread it) resonates at around 20,000 hertz, which is too high pitched for most people to hear and should be a D# note, was way too low frequency to be over 16000 Hz, but I can't verify because all modern OSes filter out frequencies higher than 16000 Hz. I asked an older woman to listen to it and she heard it, which rules out it being 20000 Hz. That makes sense because in a cheap circuit like that it wouldn't have more than a single transformer that's operating at 60 Hz, and the rattling is caused by the ferromagnetic iron sheets rattling as the eddy currents alternate through them, not adhered correctly due to a cheaper manufacturing process, which means that it's a B note, something I was able to infer after listening to it for a while anyway. That still leaves the question of why did someone say 20,000 Hz? Which is another rabbit hole. I have to do research and teardowns of higher wattage power supplies, but I've already been at this for 2 hours and have to get more than 3 hours of sleep.

ZayKayWill posted...

Hey man. Glad that you haven't had any serious withdrawals after quitting. Hopefully it stays that way. Everyone is so incredibly different it's crazy. So maybe you won't need the long process of detox and withdrawal like a lot of people do after quitting.

Apparently some people can just smoke cigarettes socially which is crazy to me.

BUMPED2002 posted...

I think you see a doctor as soon as you can. Good luck and I wish you well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IncHyS5G_iI

Just do whatever you gotta do to stay the course. A buddy of mine died in his 30s from liver failure due to his alcoholism. I worked with him for a while and he would start drinking gin early in the morning before work. He finally kicked it and got sober for a while because his doctor told him he was going to die, but I guess he must've relapsed

faramir77 posted...

You should see a doctor about this. 10+ drinks a day is pretty intense alcoholism. I'm no expert but it would probably be wise to get medical advice from your doctor, especially since you say you've had serious withdrawals before.

If you're from the US and have to pay for a GP visit, just do it.

.....I was drinking 20 to 30.....

Anyways good luck man

Proud of you, keep at it. Bf and I are currently premium alcoholics

Jen0125 posted...

This might not be ethical but if you have insurance just go to rehab anyways and don't pay your bill. That's what I did because they tried to dick me around with incompetent billing practices. I have an outstanding bill of over $10k for my rehab. If it hits my credit, it hits my credit. I'm still sober and I still got what I needed.

queen

You can do it! Best of luck!