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  • BDD Moderators: Keif’ Richards | negrogesic

Alcohol I can't taper off alcohol. What can I do to make going cold turkey easier?

Lysosomalstorage said:
I don't think he's going to be getting any significant withdrawal symptoms from 5 beers a night. Facility is a bit overkill.
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i know
F.U.B.A.R. said:
Booze is to benzos as weed is to spice.

Substitute booze with benzos and you'll make the situation 10 times worse - unless on a medically supervised reduction program.

(Probably better for your liver though)
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not if you want to quit
 
simstim said:
I wish I had some benzos for tapering purposes. Haven't had a drink all day but was considering having a couple. I need to just stop before I get bad. It isn't bad now. I know from experience that after a couple days with no alcohol I'd be feeling fine again and if I have beer tonight I'll feel like this again tomorrow.
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Yep it all basically depends on how far down the physically dependent route you are. Personally I never drank enough for long enough to experience real alcohol withdrawal ; but if I do stop completely from one day to the next I will get some mildly unpleasant symptoms like just general jitteriness and a bit of recurrent nausea.
Also somehow detached from myself and like I'm not quite real. This is unsettling but it goes in a day or two.
 
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V82 said:
Thanks for the replies everyone.

I feel like I mainly drink out of habit and I have bad general anxiety in the first place so it can be hard to see if I am just anxious about not drinking or going through withdrawal psychologically.

Me and my wife usually drink at night watching TV. Otherwise I don't drink during the day usually because I am driving.

I picked up some Taurine and I'm going to have 1 gram after dinner.

Hopefully stopping completely will be easier than tapering.

Good luck to everyone else trying to quit or cut down!
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OK, I'd say best of luck to you ; but this isn't really about 'luck'.
I cut down significantly but it 's nothing to do with me suddenly gaining some magical ability that I did not have before.
 
V82 said:
I had made a post a couple months ago about wanting to stop drinking.

I drink about 5 or 6 330 ml bottles of 5% beer a night. 5 during the week and 6 or rarely 7 on the weekend.

I tried to taper my use but every time by cutting down a beer every two days. But every time the weekend came I would give into temptation and have 6 again. I think I have poor self discipline.

I have 7.5 pills of 7.5mg zopiclone. Will this help me any psychological withdrawals and hopefully help me sleep?

I really want to stop drinking for a while. But I am unable to taper off properly so I am going to try cold turkey.

What else can I do to make it easier? I have the zopiclone.
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Do you experience withdrawals when you don't drink? Are you drinking only at night? Everyone is different, but I have had long periods of time (years) where I drank more than that every single night, and never experienced any withdrawals. usually people just get withdrawals when they drink every day throughout the day.

If you don't experience withdrawals when you don't drink, then my recommendation is not to use anything, because you're risking a dual addiction. Benzos substitute for alcohol quite well, but it's much easier to get addicted to them and the withdrawal lasts for weeks instead of days. You can't take a benzo every night for all that long before you develop dependence, either. If I took a benzo every night for years, I'd be dependent, but I can do so with alcohol as long as I never drink before night time.

If you ARE experiencing withdrawals, then it's a different story, and you will need assistance to come off safely. In that case I would recommend getting a long-acting benzo, and dosing once per day, or at the very most, once in the morning and once at night. Gradually decrease your dosage and do not take them for more than a week or you risk switching addictions to benzos, and you'll regret ever trying to use benzos to get off alcohol.

If you have withdrawals, it would be best to seek medical attention. They'll put you on a short prescription for a benzo, probably Librium, which is ideal because it is a weak benzo that works great for alcohol withdrawal, and one dose lasts a whole day.

If you do NOT have withdrawals, then you can definitely do this and the best plan is to just stop, rather than try to use another drug to substitute, you just need to restructure your life a bit to spend time doing things that fill that void without alcohol.

Either way, whether you cold turkey because you don't have withdrawals, or you get off with benzos, it is very important to find other activities to replace the time you spent drinking with. Otherwise you'll most likely start drinking again, or be unable to just stop, because you'll still want alcohol for the same reasons. Filling your time with a hobby is really important. Also a daily workout helps a whole lot. Everything feels better when you're in shape, and the endorphins and dopamine produced will help you feel satisfied and content without substances. Whenever I have gotten off addictive drugs entirely for any length of time, it's always included daily working out. It's SO MUCH easier with that as a part of your plan.
 
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F.U.B.A.R. said:
That amount of booze isn't a great deal in the grand scheme of things and the fact he hasn't graduated onto hard liquor yet is encouraging.
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Yep. But there is another way to fuck up also, from like 5-7 beers forward, than hard liquor. Really binging the beer. For decades. Building up tolerance, while tearing everything else down, including physical and mental health. I can make a 24 pack disappear in 10 hours. This shit has been going on about 200-250 years, every now and then sons bury their father, finish their drinks and continue from there.

I have been sober for 3 days now. This is day 4. No intention to stay sober, but i am meeting my social worker today. He is a cool dude, little younger than me i think. He "gets it". I can talk to him honestly and i will not get frowned upon. I want to be somewhat clearheaded when i meet him later. After the meeting, gonna buy beer and head to a park to just sit and drink.

So uh, look people, what i want to say to you all here... Is that it is shit. Alcoholism is shit. It is not a life, it is shit. Party days ended when the millennium changed, then it was ALL ABOUT numbing the pain. If i have to choose between pain and numbness, i choose numbness. I am in too deep and beyond saving. But there might be someone reading right now, drinking a 6-pack a day, thinking that it is a not a problem, or thinking that it is a problem... Reflect, think, contemplate, evaluate. What do you really want from life? What do you have to lose? What do you have to gain? Are you willing to play with fire called alcohol? Beer can be that fire too, and it burns as time goes by. Take my word for it, i am already ash.
 
Ghost fart said:
This shit has been going on about 200-250 years, every now and then sons bury their father, finish their drinks and continue from there.
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For millenia... since time immemorial. Alcohol is the oldest drug, it was accidental. People used to drink watered wine just because it was the only safe way to ensure clean drinking water, since the alcohol kills bacteria and other pathogens.
 
Xorkoth said:
For millenia... since time immemorial. Alcohol is the oldest drug, it was accidental. People used to drink watered wine just because it was the only safe way to ensure clean drinking water, since the alcohol kills bacteria and other pathogens.
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Yeah. Correct.

I meant my relatives. Family tree. The men. It ends with me. No sons, no daughters. Breaking the cycle.
 
Xorkoth said:
For millenia... since time immemorial. Alcohol is the oldest drug, it was accidental. People used to drink watered wine just because it was the only safe way to ensure clean drinking water, since the alcohol kills bacteria and other pathogens.
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Not entirely correct. To be specific, people in medieval Europe used to drink very weak ale because water was not safe unless you had direct access to a pure spring.
People in Ancient Greece used to mix their wine with water to set amounts in order to prevent drunken stupor / outrage at symposiums (a highly structured social drinking ritual)
 
Ghost fart said:
Yeah. Correct.

I meant my relatives. Family tree. The men. It ends with me. No sons, no daughters. Breaking the cycle.
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Also you don't INHERIT the habit.
It's just that it's much easier to ACQUIRE a habit when you grow up in a household where everyone is constantly drunk or drugged, because then this looks like 'normal' to you.
 
There is also evidence that predisposition to addiction is genetic. It's probably both though, with the greater emphasis on nurture rather than nature. In my case, addiction runs in both sides of my family, but my parents raised me withiout any of that in the house at all, and they have no issues. Neither do either of my siblings, but I've always had an addictive personality even before drugs.

The UltimateFixx said:
Not entirely correct. To be specific, people in medieval Europe used to drink very weak ale because water was not safe unless you had direct access to a pure spring.
People in Ancient Greece used to mix their wine with water to set amounts in order to prevent drunken stupor / outrage at symposiums (a highly structured social drinking ritual)
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Some cultures drank wine, some drank beer... the point is that at some point most cultures discovered that the stuff that forms when you leave sugar water out to ferment prevents you from getting sick from the water, and then they used alcohol as a way to purify water
 
The UltimateFixx said:
Also you don't INHERIT the habit.
It's just that it's much easier to ACQUIRE a habit when you grow up in a household where everyone is constantly drunk or drugged, because then this looks like 'normal' to you.
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I do not blame my genes for this shit. It is my own brittle hands, that down this shit down my throat. I think i should have some kind of control, about what my hands are doing. But that just not seem to be the case...
 
V82 said:
I had made a post a couple months ago about wanting to stop drinking.

I drink about 5 or 6 330 ml bottles of 5% beer a night. 5 during the week and 6 or rarely 7 on the weekend.

I tried to taper my use but every time by cutting down a beer every two days. But every time the weekend came I would give into temptation and have 6 again. I think I have poor self discipline.

I have 7.5 pills of 7.5mg zopiclone. Will this help me any psychological withdrawals and hopefully help me sleep?

I really want to stop drinking for a while. But I am unable to taper off properly so I am going to try cold turkey.

What else can I do to make it easier? I have the zopiclone.
Click to expand...
I found baclofen helps with alcohol cravings. I think I was on 30mg a day, but I'm small, they give bigger folks more!
 
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