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Alcohol gives me WD-like symptoms every time

Cyanoide

Cyanoide

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Joined
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Some background information. I've been in alcohol detox after drinking straight for about 2 months over a year ago, and went through benzo detox after that. I had been addicted to various benzos for approx 15 years.

Back then I didn't experience any WD when I stopped drinking (altough my daily dose of diazepam was temporarily raised). I did, however, experience horrible WD
s from diazepam.

I still occassionally use benzos without bigger problems, but alcohol is something different.

Every time I drink enough to be more or less drunk (1-2 glass of wine is still OK) I get horrible symptoms the following day which are unlike any hangovers I've ever had. I get tremors, panic attacks, severe anxiety, confusion and heart palpitations a few hours after the alcohol wears off. The only thing that helps for these symptoms are benzos and pregabalin (Lyrica). I feel intense fear during these symptoms, thoughts of going crazy and losing my mind.

Many of the classic hangover symptoms like nausea, headache, dry mouth etc are not present. In fact, my symptoms remind very much of WD from diazepam.

For this reason I can no longer drink more than a few drinks, because my body reacts to alcohol intoxication with WD-like symptoms every time the day after drinking.

What could be the cause of this? It occurred in the last year, and strangily enough I do not get the same kind of symptoms after using benzos (even high-dose and for many days in a row). Is it some kind of extreme downregulation of GABA receptors? Why is alcohol, but not benzos giving this effect? I also can't but believe it is connected to my 2 month straight drinking in 2012 and my long benzo addiction in the past.
 
To an extent, the emotional effects of hangovers from ethanol are withdrawal in miniature in general. So it could be that sensitization of your receptors due to prior benzo-dependence and withdrawal made you more susceptible to rebound excitation induced in the wake of alcohol's effects on the GABA system. I would avoid use of GABAnergic agents for a little longer, or at the very least, never use to the point of anything resembling w/d afterward.

ebola
 
Isn't that called kindling? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kindling_(sedative-hypnotic_withdrawal)

I have experienced it even while being on benzos... so no more alcohol for me. Which sucks because alcohol was my drug of choice for quite awhile (its socially acceptable in most situations whereas tripping or rolling is not and I can't smoke weed without having panic attacks) and it appears I won't be able to use it at all anymore.

I'm curious though if taking some memantine before drinking and the next day would curb the over the top glutamate response though. It would certainly be worth a try.

They mention acamprosate for treatment of it but I would think memantine would be a safer bet for use with alcohol rather than specifically for the withdrawal.
 
that kindling page has lots of bits where it tells you what alcohol is doing in the brain and then is missing citations to journals. its all words like "believed" which are not science, they are opinion.
 
the thing is that even real research is kind of open to interpretation due to how good people are at noticing confounding variables

i too have experienced that alcohol during benzo withdrawl is unpleasant but it did for me go back to normal-time heals a lot of things
 
Kindling is controversial, but it's hard not to suspect it in this situation. The phenomenon has its roots in old studies of classical conditioning, essentially, the theory stated that the body "expects" withdrawal because that's what happened the last time you took strong GABAergics, viz benzodiazepines. See eg:

http://alcalc.oxfordjournals.org/content/28/5/593.short

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1530-0277.1990.tb00492.x/abstract

http://m.alcalc.oxfordjournals.org/content/26/2/221.short

Et cetera. The controversy arises because people like to specialize, ie a common assumption that if the phenomenon exists it must happen to everyone. That's certainly not true; for almost any variant of addiction or related symptom there seems to be a group of people who aren't susceptible, from heroin chippers to those people who never experienced severe benzo Ed's. of course it tends to be a bad idea to glorify being z member if any of these groups, because there's nothing particularly special about it, and people who are likely to become addicted are not in any way "less strong" people, they simply weren't lucky in this particular way.

That may be an important message for you, OP, there's nothing special or admirable about a drinking habit. It would probably be a good idea not to get very drunk for at least a couple years, until your spate with benzodiazepine addiction is a distant memory. There are better drugs anyway.
 
Thanks for the information. Much appreciated. I've now decided to stop taking alcohol (apart from maybe a glass of wine at some party). Basically I'm trying to avoid GABAergics as much as I can. For anxiety I now prefer Lyrica, and I only take benzos for severe anxiety (which fortunately is rare).

I absolutely agree that there's nothing admirable about a drinking habit. In a way these symptoms were a good wake up call not to mess with GABAergics. Fortunately I don't have any cravings for alcohol or benzos, and for anxiety my first choice is Lyrica (I have huge benefit from Lyrica, as it also more or less kills any cravings for alcohol or benzos). I don't take Pregabalin continuously, so there shouldn't be any issue with addiction.

I've also decided to stop taking stimulants. The reason is that I need huge amounts of benzos for the comedown. I had to take Etizolam and Diclazepam today because of a quite horrible comedown from MPA.

I actually feel comfortable with these decisions. Messing around with GABAergics has a too high price for me. I'll be more than happy to dive back into the world of dissociatives and psychedelics instead.
 
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