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Big_Chan
5,088 Posts
DELETED
Big_Chan
5,088 Posts
Comments
peace, stein. . .
You will get over the hump and realize alcohol is the devils pie.
... and that you don't want to be spending all that money.
Alcohol makes me a better person. Maybe I should try yoga.
Good luck Chan, it's worth the fight. Sober dial me if you need to be entertained!
not drinking heavily is awesome. good luck.
When you say withdrawal. What do you mean? Are you having physical symptoms?
When you feel tempted to have a drink, try to focus on the fact that you're a non-drinker now. Cement that in your mind as being an irreversible personal trait. At least, that's what's kept me from relapsing when I quit smoking.
Good luck!
If you have physical withdrawal and have likely developed tolerance over time, then you may be dependent. This is serious and probably has psychological roots. I'm not saying you are crazy, just speaking from epidemiological data. What we call comorbidity or co-occurring is widely accepted as the rule rather than the exception. For example, the most common comorbid diagnosis for men is depression. "Drink your bad feelings away". Anxiety is also very common. "Drink to not feel nervous--especially in social situations."
At some point your neural pathways expect help from alcohol to overcome behavioral challenges. The tricky thing is that it works fine for a good while, but the tolerance inevitably catches up and you find yourself consuming almost toxic amounts to relieve the psychological stuff (and party). That's when you need to stop. And when you do, the withdrawal is the final wake up call. You're officially an alcoholic. That's not such bad thing though. A lot of people believe that alcoholism is a chronic disease that has to be managed like diabetes or MS. I disagree, because in a lot of cases, it can be cured.
This can start by looking carefully at why you drink too much. Or why you love the buzz of alcohol. I mean everybody likes it, but you LOVE it. Why? What are you getting away from? Clearly, this is something that needs to worked out in therapy. Not that pipe smoking Freudian psychoanalytic nonsense, but practical goal oriented assessment followed by brief cognitive behavior therapy. That just means thinking critically about your behavior as you move towards changing patterns that cause problems.
One more thing: Repeated cycles of withdrawal are dangerous. When you experience withdrawal and have headaches, your brain is possibly having mini-seizures that get worse over time and can cause very serious brain damage. (Just google ???brain seizure from withdrawal alcohol???, also in neuroscience we call this ???kindling???)
It's not that simple.
It sure isn't. I can never even remember how much I've had.
Surely there has to be some quantifiable combination of amount, frequency, and body weight that would lead to withdrawal symptoms.
If everyone was exactly the same then there would be.
It was surprisingly tough. Went through some ups and downs.
Had to DJ one night sober, it was trying. 5 Pints of soda water later, i wasn't feeling it. I then asked my partner if I could leave an hour before the club closed.
I was also smoking more often. I tend to not smoke much unless I'm drinking...but during the time off I found myself smoking cigs in the morning and shit....eck.
Weed intake definitely climbed.
I'm glad I toughed through a couple days, but it's not really for me.
i dont know you but good luck
please report back with a positive story
i am not a marathon drinker but for about the last six months a six pack a night or a couple pints is mandatory. sometimes i get headaches at 4pm and its starting to freak me out.
** edit. just so you don't think i'm trolling, i just came back to this thread to read my confession, then read that good medical type post before all the way through. i don't think i'm having any mini-seizures but the possibility of dependency for someone who has never been much of a drinker and isnt particularly depressed is scary.
Wrong.
I keeled over on a weekend away, just passed out on the tram (on the way to a big night out). Blood tests revealed impaired liver function. I decided then that I'd quit drinking in the week and it's took over 2 years to get rid of the slightly dizzy/nauseous sensation that I had permanently before.
Now I might get through a few bottles on a Fri/Sat night, not "Drunk" but just chilled. I am in good shape and love a drink but it seems to agree with me less and less.