Benzos Alcohol withdrawal and Ativan

[Jabberwocky]

So, I feel tired and every time I close my eyes it’s like my brain is being zapped and I wake up from a 10second nap. It’s Like I am being forced To get up. It’s not my usual insomnia whereas I know I ain’t sleeping And I am just suffering all night.
I am so tired, I just can’t stay asleep. Weird.

when I try to quit drinking I get hypnagogic jerks (the zaps) with accompanying auditory hallucinations

it happens right when you start to drift off to sleep, it kicks you out of it and right awake

sounds like that might be what you are experiencing

I know it sucks, but you just gotta power through it and eventually I will get to sleep, usually it only happened 1-3 times per night, then I got to sleep

they go away once you get some sober time under your belt

 

[Cloudman115]

when I try to quit drinking I get hypnagogic jerks (the zaps) with accompanying auditory hallucinations

it happens right when you start to drift off to sleep, it kicks you out of it and right awake

sounds like that might be what you are experiencing

I know it sucks, but you just gotta power through it and eventually I will get to sleep, usually it only happened 1-3 times per night, then I got to sleep

they go away once you get some sober time under your belt

Thanks for that explanation. That’s exactly what I was experiencing. Yeah, first time having that during my alcohol withdrawal, but at this point, my kindling has grown exponentially So i am/ did have weird side affects. Maybe thought it was benzo related.

 

[Cloudman115]

You're doing great.
I'd like to re-emphasize the importance of B vitamins-- especially thiamine (B1). Really helpful. Remember to take all vitamin supplements with food.
Hang in there! It appears that the worst is probably behind you!

I gotta go grab some from a health store.
the withdrawal is definitely over I say. Now it’s onto the PAWS.

 

[allone]

for the OP, how old are you and whats the main reason you decided to quit? im still drinking and im like you, more of a binge drinker, not like continues to keep the tempo. then when i sleep the alcohol is kind of paused in me so it keeps me going until late in the afternoon after i wake up. so im like you in a way, i can hold on up to maybe 12 hours until i start feeling like i need AIR kind of urge to drink, or more like just needing food or water but i get it from beer instead. i cannot eat without alcohol in fact. i just cant see it as good time to stop drinking as im going through a lot of issues right now and ill just become psychotic. but main reasons being, running out of money and very inflamed liver. thats why i wonder how old you are, you probably at least have your liver still intact and gives you a good reason to keep going. mine is so bad, quitting wont make it better but ill just slow down the degradation which is not really encouraging.

 

[Cloudman115]

for the OP, how old are you and whats the main reason you decided to quit? im still drinking and im like you, more of a binge drinker, not like continues to keep the tempo. then when i sleep the alcohol is kind of paused in me so it keeps me going until late in the afternoon after i wake up. so im like you in a way, i can hold on up to maybe 12 hours until i start feeling like i need AIR kind of urge to drink, or more like just needing food or water but i get it from beer instead. i cannot eat without alcohol in fact. i just cant see it as good time to stop drinking as im going through a lot of issues right now and ill just become psychotic. but main reasons being, running out of money and very inflamed liver. thats why i wonder how old you are, you probably at least have your liver still intact and gives you a good reason to keep going. mine is so bad, quitting wont make it better but ill just slow down the degradation which is not really encouraging.

Almost 42, health issues that include, hypertension, internal organ pain probably pancreatitis, kidney issues, definitely fatty liver, bouts of anxiety and depression that alcohol definitely contributes to.

sorry to hear of your issues, I would say anytime you can slow down the better. The liver and body can work miracles!
don’t give up.
this shit is poisonous and one of the worst drugs In the world.
got access to a doctor?, grab some benzos to try and quit. Just read all the helpful information in my posts from people. No doctor, try to taper down.
Keep me posted. A lot of people struggling your not alone.
how old are you?

 

[allone]

my alcoholic sister died at 42 from vodka abuse. she was a continues maintenance alcoholic. drinking 2 liters of vodka in 24 hours from that garbage poison plastic Skol. if she drank any better quality vodka, maybe would have not suffered as much. her kidneys failed, then her liver. when i saw her in the hospital, she was half aware coma state. yellow swollen ball of a face with her eye leaking yellow liquid. in fact, she did not have eyes! she was making some weird noises and one of her hands were paralyzed, the other one was flapping around aimlessly. it was a nightmare. instead of quiting , that night i got super wasted to forget the imagery!

but im going there too, im 38 now, and have a lot of health issues. but i do not think its all because of the alcohol. i have been a heroin addict for many years and probably caused a lot of internal damage from impurities injecting myself with toxins. also used to eat cheapest shittiest food and had constipation for weeks at time lol i bet i shorten my life by decade! anyway im too depressed and sad about life to really have the excitement or encouragement to stop. i thought maybe you know if you have a loving family, kids, and so on thats what keeps you going. my father just died recently and it was the end of an era for me. got nothing going really.

 

[allone]

this is something i find interesting about alcohol https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congener_(beverages) and it says beer and vodka have the least. RIGHT! vodka like Skol probably have the most if you ask me. especially those plastic bottles. Im pretty certain my father's habit of smoking 2 packs a day plus adding vodka to the mix is what caused his stroke.

 

[Cloudman115]

Almost 42, health issues that include, hypertension, internal organ pain probably pancreatitis, kidney issues, definitely fatty liver, bouts of anxiety and depression that alcohol definitely contributes to.

sorry to hear of your issues, I would say anytime you can slow down the better. The liver and body can work miracles!
don’t give up.
this shit is poisonous and one of the worst drugs In the world.
got access to a doctor?, grab some benzos to try and quit. Just read all the helpful information in my posts from people. No doctor, try to taper down.
Keep me posted. A lot of people struggling your not alone.

my alcoholic sister died at 42 from vodka abuse. she was a continues maintenance alcoholic. drinking 2 liters of vodka in 24 hours from that garbage poison plastic Skol. if she drank any better quality vodka, maybe would have not suffered as much. her kidneys failed, then her liver. when i saw her in the hospital, she was half aware coma state. yellow swollen ball of a face with her eye leaking yellow liquid. in fact, she did not have eyes! she was making some weird noises and one of her hands were paralyzed, the other one was flapping around aimlessly. it was a nightmare. instead of quiting , that night i got super wasted to forget the imagery!

but im going there too, im 38 now, and have a lot of health issues. but i do not think its all because of the alcohol. i have been a heroin addict for many years and probably caused a lot of internal damage from impurities injecting myself with toxins. also used to eat cheapest shittiest food and had constipation for weeks at time lol i bet i shorten my life by decade! anyway im too depressed and sad about life to really have the excitement or encouragement to stop. i thought maybe you know if you have a loving family, kids, and so on thats what keeps you going. my father just died recently and it was the end of an era for me. got nothing going really.

Hey man, I don’t have much in the way of family. I have a underlining health issue, instead of addressing it, I drank which only made it worse, but I forgot about it when I drank. I have had a lot of death around me as of late. Life’s not fair to so many. BUT I want to live!
I feel so much better when I don’t drink! yeah, we feel great when we do drink or when we’re planning our days around drinking, and the ritual of scoring. I sound like my oxy days, but it is the same with alcohol with me. I enjoy picking out my poison legally, than maybe cracking one on the way home, chilling at home, tieing one on, eating dinner, going to bed blacked out, pissing in a container next to your bed, waking up every hour to drink water because your so dehydrated your organs are latterly in survival mode. Waking up fucked up, driving to work hungover/ drunk as fuck 5 am,the anxiety of being around people as you work your shitty factory job. But than we start all over because we want to forget about our problems. I don’t want that , and I don’t want that for anybody, period!

 

[Cloudman115]

this is something i find interesting about alcohol https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congener_(beverages) and it says beer and vodka have the least. RIGHT! vodka like Skol probably have the most if you ask me. especially those plastic bottles. Im pretty certain my father's habit of smoking 2 packs a day plus adding vodka to the mix is what caused his stroke.

These companies don’t give a fuck about us. I am sure your right, the better quality or more you can afford to pay for premium alchol , the better off you are. Not saying those fucks aren’t gonna die, just not as quickly as the welfare drinking mother fuckers.

 

[Jabberwocky]

If you're just drinking alcohol it is extremely easy to stop drinking alcohol using benzos. If it takes more than 3-4 days you are doing something wrong.

Whatever drug abuse issues or relapse issues or addiction issues you have nothing to do with using benzos to get off alcohol because using benzos to get off alcohol is about as simple as it gets.

If you have any of those other issues you're fucked FME.

 

[Keif' Richards]

If you're just drinking alcohol it is extremely easy to stop drinking alcohol using benzos. If it takes more than 3-4 days you are doing something wrong.

Whatever drug abuse issues or relapse issues or addiction issues you have nothing to do with using benzos to get off alcohol because using benzos to get off alcohol is about as simple as it gets.

If you have any of those other issues you're fucked FME.

Bro, please. I am not normally pissed off by misinformation, but when you imply that this thing is easy, you're degrading everyone who has ever failed to get sober. It's not a positive or constructive thing to say. Logically, you're taking the time to comment that one of the "KNOW TO BE HARD, MOST PEOPLE FAIL, EXTREMELY ELUSIVE IN PROGNOSIS AND DIAGNOSIS" things that man might encounter and in a few short sentences, you imply that the collective mental experience of an entire race, is in fact, not how it is. Alcoholism and substance addiction are known to be one of the most hopelessly difficult mental conditions to treat.

Yes, normally I could say whatever, but I don't take kindly to the rhetoric you're using. You're argument is like, "Making a million dollars is easy, just save this much every week, invest in a diverse portfolio of low-risk bonds, don't spend money and you'll be a millionaire, it's that simple" "Getting a beautiful woman is so easy man. You just get a good job, maybe like 100k a year, make sure to hit the gym every odd day and don't forget the cardio, act confident at all times and the girl is yours"

There are people here whose lives have been fucked in gruesome ways by drugs and alcohol. There are people here who use drugs recreationally and don't and will never experience the kind of behaviors that we sit here discussing now. The people who find, after time, that they cannot in any way use drugs or suffer a life of misery and woe, then have to complete the herculean task of changing that behavior.

I would love for you to meet face to face with some of the wet-brain mothers I've met in detox who are living at the sober house and still hallucinating, sweating, twitching and not sleeping a wink two weeks past-withdrawal.

Do not contribute information that you don't know to be correct and furthermore, please examine your reasons for making these statements in the first place. Are you truly trying to help someone? Misinformation is the enemy of knowledge and to be totally real, the incorrect knowledge can spell tragedy for an addict.

 

[Jabberwocky]

I think you totally misread my intent or something went off the rails. I'm a firm believer that in the end most of us do it our ourselves even if we don't know it at the time.

 

[Cloudman115]

I think you totally misread my intent or something went off the rails. I'm a firm believer that in the end most of us do it our ourselves even if we don't know it at the time.

That’s fair

 

[Keif' Richards]

I think you totally misread my intent or something went off the rails. I'm a firm believer that in the end most of us do it our ourselves even if we don't know it at the time.

Yea I can agree to that I have to admit that I have seen and experienced a lot as a result of Alcohol. I think I went over the top on you there and I apologize man. It's of course common to hear people say "getting clean is as easy as not using" and it's a hard thing to hear knowing the pain and suffering and the work involved in getting clean. I believe I put a lot of that jive on you for an off-hand comment. I still do argue with what you had said, but I think I'm seeing that we can both understand each others' words.

 

[Jabberwocky]

I thought about what I wrote.

I started off by establishing a context then used hyperbole as a rhetorical device then undermined the connection between context and hyperbole by using sarcasm to render a conclusory statement in the form of an absurd opinion, more succinctly put as:

If you can't detox off alcohol with benzos within 3-4 days you have serious issues. More or less.

This actually begs the question: is someone who can detox off alcohol with benzos in 3-4 days any better off than someone who can't?

Yeah, its absurd, an off hand comment. Black humour. I'll try to lay off it.

 

[BenzoEnthusiast]

Hi, I have done 3 clinical alcohol detoxes and many I have attempted myself. I'm not familiar with the drug you speak of. I have heard of it but that's it. But my main advice to avoid relapsing is that if you do relapse don't see it as a full blown fuck up, just see it as a one night lapse or whatever.
I wish I told myself this over the years.

EDIT - Oh and as Jasperkent said.. Thiamine, Vit B for sure.

 

[Cloudman115]

This actually begs the question: is someone who can detox off alcohol with benzos in 3-4 days any better off than someone who can't?

who Cares

I thought about what I wrote.

I started off by establishing a context then used hyperbole as a rhetorical device then undermined the connection between context and hyperbole by using sarcasm to render a conclusory statement in the form of an absurd opinion, more succinctly put as:

If you can't detox off alcohol with benzos within 3-4 days you have serious issues. More or less.

This actually begs the question: is someone who can detox off alcohol with benzos in 3-4 days any better off than someone who can't?

Yeah, its absurd, an off hand comment. Black humour. I'll try to lay off it.

I think if you read any of my posts you would know that I have been taking Ativan and alcohol on and off for two months Straight. So yeah I was withdrawing from alcohol the last couple days but also had the unknown benzo issues on top of it. I say unknown because I never used benzos before.

side note: day 5, no alcohol, also first day of trying no Ativan. Didn’t take any Ativan last night and I was okay sleep wise.

 

[andyturbo]

Keep up the great work. The way you are using lorazepam and the small doses I honestly dont see you having any withdrawal from the benzos. If you were taking 3x2.5mg daily for a month thats a different story.

I would highly suggest ending the alch and if you need to take a bit more lorazepam enough too manage the withdrawal. Taper over 2 weeks if you need that much.. i suspect on the doses you have mentioned a week should be fine.. say 3 days of the dose needed to get threw it, then another 3 days half that amount.. and if need be another 3 days halved again.

Its never good to drink with benzos although i admit i am guilty of it.

 

[andyturbo]

who Cares

I think if you read any of my posts you would know that I have been taking Ativan and alcohol on and off for two months Straight. So yeah I was withdrawing from alcohol the last couple days but also had the unknown benzo issues on top of it. I say unknown because I never used benzos before.

side note: day 5, no alcohol, also first day of trying no Ativan. Didn’t take any Ativan last night and I was okay sleep wise.

Keep up the great work man!

 

[Cloudman115]

Keep up the great work. The way you are using lorazepam and the small doses I honestly dont see you having any withdrawal from the benzos. If you were taking 3x2.5mg daily for a month thats a different story.

I would highly suggest ending the alch and if you need to take a bit more lorazepam enough too manage the withdrawal. Taper over 2 weeks if you need that much.. i suspect on the doses you have mentioned a week should be fine.. say 3 days of the dose needed to get threw it, then another 3 days half that amount.. and if need be another 3 days halved again.

Its never good to drink with benzos although i admit i am guilty of it.

Thanks turbo,
I doubt I will need any going forward but we will see.
Sometimes i read these horror stories, which I am not doubting don't happen but than I start thinking, what that is me? The mental aspect of abstinence is the hardest.