Anxiety/withdrawal after quitting drinking alcohol?
I decided a month ago that I was going to reduce my alcohol consumption to nothing over a period of one month. I was regularly drinking between 13 and 16 beers a day everyday for going on 3 years. I reduced 1 beer about every 3 days until I was at 0 at the end of my month. I felt ok for the first 2 days on 0 but now after 4-5 days the anxiety is really bad along with ringing ears (more than normal for me) and trouble thinking. I feel like I am in a fog all the time! I was hoping that cutting down over the month would help to avoid any withdrawal but I don’t think it eliminated it altogether. Are the symptoms I am referring to normal in my situation and how long can I expect to have them. Thanks for the input.
Tagged with: after • Alcohol • Anxiety/withdrawal • Drinking • quitting
Filed under: Alcohol Withdrawal Anxiety
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16 beers a day for three years constitutes alcoholism. you should seek out rehabilitation.
I just posted a problem similar. I think your gradual reduction is safe so you dont experience harsh physical withdrawal symptoms. Make sure to take vitamin B supplements so you dont get wet brain, I just read up on this.
Ok you did what your suppose to do now when your at zero you have to find something to get or stop thinking about drinking beer. When you can do that then it should be easy to forgot about it and you don’t want it anymore. But it that doesn’t work I suggest rehabilitation.
First, I applaud your efforts to quit drinking. Congratulations. I have seen numerous cases of alcohol withdrawl (delerium tremens or DTs). Typically, the medically significant signs & symptoms last somewhere between 5 & 10 days depending on the severity. I would expect your symptoms would slowly improve over time and that you will return to ‘normal’. I can’t tell you when but should be less than a couple of weeks. Maybe a month. Again, hard to say.
Additionally, make sure that you stay well hydrated and get proper nutrition (vitamins & minerals).
Hope this helps.
The anxiety you are experiencing is associated with your withdrawal symptoms. And when you are withdrawing from alcohol, it is important that you consult with your physician as their can be negative physiological consequences to abstaining on your own after using for so long. You may need a medication evaluation to help you through your transition. It sounds like you may also have an elevated blood pressure (anxiety, ringing in the ears) which may be due to the heavy; long -term use of alcohol previously, and then not using. Do consult your doctor. I commend your efforts in taking care of yourself. Take Care.
Hot Damn – good for you! No…. alcohol changes the very way your nerves work. In other words your body gets used to this poison very quickly – one big binge will do it actually. Now it finds itself without any alcohol – and those nerves have to learn to be normal all over again. Couple weeks – couple months or weird feelings.
But alcohol also has a big psychological component – probably you liked to sit at the bar and talk to your friends and can’t do that anymore. So NOT drinking is a big change – and big changes scare the crap out of people – look how terrified the republicans are of a change in healthcare!
So your anxiety could be simply psychological – probably something in there doesn’t want to change and go back to being normal. However, psychology is nerves – and nerves are physically changed by alcohol use – so I suppose it could be argued that your anxiety is physical…
Get a really good book …. used…. called “Under the Influence” off Amazon.com. All the drunks in AA read this thing so there’s a zillion used copies around. It’s a really fun book about alcohol and addiction and recovery and all that.
You can go to the AA meetings too – they’re pretty neat. One of my formerly drunk friends took me once. It was neat watching these real booze hounds deal with their issues.
Not sure what you can do about the anxiety/withdrawal deal… Atkins mentions taking glutamine for this – it’s an amino acid which is used to build muscle – but it probably also protects nerves. Another thing you can do where there’s anxiety is get some B-100 pills – bombers – and take 3 or 4 of those a day for a couple weeks. One thing that “Under the Influence” says is that people who use alcohol tend to be low on their B vitamins – and perhaps that’s what got you to drink this bilge in the first place.
If you want to read about vitamins, minerals and supplements in general, get a USED copy of Dr. Atkins – “Vita-Nutrient Solution” – off of Amazon Books. That is all the vitamins and minerals and amino acids and fats and his experience with them in his practice. He was a heart doctor in NYC for many years. It can be a real help in treating yourself for many problems.
And good luck – you just have to hold on and let the creepies crawl all over you!
you are a good quitter,the amount of alcohol you were taking and the reduction were fantastic.now you must do the following procedure take deep breats through nose hold it and exhale through mouth,it is mandatory that during this priod slowly stop thinking about anything initially it is difficult then it becomes easier.a strict no no is to use a alternate drug to bring down the effects when you feel like taking alchol please do this.om namo narayana dr kris india bangalore
I also would like to applaud your efforts at battling alcohol, nobody seems to realize that yes it is a battle, you are doing well so far, keep it up if you ever feel the need to drink try going to support groups, you would be surprised at how many people out there are just like you. Good luck
Great decision. Probably the best of your life even if you make many more good ones henceforth. I drank for 30 something years. I drank every single day for years at a time. A 16 beer day would have been a very slow day for me. I would have considered that a ‘slow down and heal up’ sort of a day. I have finally been in recovery for quite a while now. I realize that everyone doesn’t go through what I have with alcoholism but I’m afraid that the answers you’ve gotten so far make long term successful recovery sound much too easy. On the encouraging side, there is almost no possible way that you can go through full blown DT’s at this stage of the game. That almost if not always happens about 72 hours after an abrupt stop from heavy drinking. I have stopped abruptly for a few days or weeks, probably 75 to 100 times or more. I don’t know. But I have only experienced full blown DT’s twice. I’m sure it would have been more than that except for the fact that I have been medically detoxed several times since I have been through full length rehab about 14 times. Each time lasted from 3 to 6 weeks.
Don’t take this as discouragement. I know hundreds of recovering alcoholics. Very rarely do you meet one who succeeded in staying sober with their first attempt. Not that it’s anywhere near impossible. It’s just that most people do not realize at first what all it takes to successfully recover. They usually are not aware, much less prepared for the effort involved in successful recovery. I am not a medical professional but am extremely well versed on the issue. Think about it. Your system is not going to adjust in a few weeks to something your body and mind have been getting used to for years. You have been much more disciplined than I am already by actually sticking to your tapering off plan. You are only a few days away from your last drink. The experts say that it actually takes at least 72 hours for you to metabolize all the alcohol down to zero blood alcohol level. So you have only had a few days of zero to get used to. After initial withdrawal (aka acute withdrawal) is over, you will then encounter a set of symptoms known as post acute withdrawal. You did yourself a big favor by minimizing the acute withdrawal symptoms by not stopping abruptly. We drink basically to change the way we feel. Why would we want to change the way we feel? Because we didn’t like the way we felt without alcohol in us. Ok, now that you don’t have your feelings changer in you any longer, is it not logical that you are not going to like going back to the way you feel without alcohol. Most of us didn’t even realize how miserable we were before we started drinking until we got our first alcoholic relief, false courage etc. Now that you have gotten used to the relief what you have to go back to is most probably going to be somewhere between miserable and uncomfortable for a while. I am making the mistake of assuming you are an alcoholic. That is not for me to decide. I’m very sorry. We each have to decide that for ourselves. I’m just trying to spare you years of pure living hell that I went through, in case you are an alcoholic. A true alcoholic is absolutely powerless over alcohol. Once we start we can’t guarantee how many or how long we will drink. It sounds like you have exercised some control with your tapering off detox method. That’s great. But as you know loss of control, ever so subtly progressively gets worse. I guess I’ll finish by saying, don’t be surprised by any unexplainable feelings, good or bad, for a while. You have a lot of slow adjusting to do. There is so much more that needs to be said to answer your question that it would take pages. I’ll praise you once more for your decision and efforts. It’s the right, and smart thing to do. I let it take two wives (well, no. us drunks don’t get married. we take hostages), a booming business, new house, acreage, equipment, shop, vehicles, horses etc. and almost my life many times. I was going to be smart enough to stop if I saw that it was causing me trouble. I thought for years that I couldn’t live without it. Today, dry for a long time, I wouldn’t trade lives with anyone. Hang in there. I’ll hang in here in case I can be of help later. Feel free to email or IM. Best of luck.