Blackout- if I've understood you correctly kindling is when withdrawals from alcohol become more severe each time you stop drinking. Personally I believe that I may have suffered from this, and that many other people (most non-alcoholics) also do. Let me explain.
Although scientific research is inconclusive on the subject (and I am by no means an expert), from what I have read I believe that many peoples hangovers are in fact a very mild form of withdrawal. If you only feel nausea and a headache after drinking, then that is just a hangover, but if you have anxiety, sweating, insomnia, nightmares the following night, and of course sweating, shaking, hallucinations etc then these are wd symptoms. Yet they can be felt after a single drinking session. I can attest to that through my own experiences.
When I was 18 I went to the Reading festival, and got drunk all day for five days and five nights. When I got home I had what I believe to be a mild form of wd, which culminated in my first panic attack. After that I always suffered some form of anxiety after heavy drinking. I think this is because the first withdrawal led to semi-permanent changes within my brain, so that it would always 'expect' more alcohol when I was drunk. The same or similar changes caused my tolerance to increase significantly after that point.
Heavy drinking (but never more than two nights in a row) caused this to gradually get worse, (this is kindling I think), but it was perfectly bearable until the summer just gone when I drank daily for three months. After that I needed to withdraw using librium; I could not do it on my own as the panic attacks kept causing me to drink. I was not drinking to get drunk, just to stop the panic attacks, as they were unbearable.
Now when I drink heavily, I get shaking, muscle spasms, insomnia, nightmares, hardcore anxiety and sometimes mild hallucinations the next day. I think this is a culmination of all my years drinking and especially the two binges. It is perhaps unsurprising that I get such bad after effects when I can, and have, drank 50 standard drinks or more per session. I believe a lot of people suffer from a less severe manifestation of kindling, which explains why a lot of peoples' hangovers get worse as they get older. This could, of course, be explained by other factors, it's just a theory I have.
However, I have also found that if you do not drink, the changes in the brain which have caused this withdrawal slowly reverse over time. If I don't drink for a month, the symptoms won't be as bad. Therein lies your idea of drinking only once every two weeks, which may well cause a slow reversal of the brain changes, or at least stop them getting worse. You have said before that following the 'once every two weeks rule' stops anxiety and tolerance issues getting out of hand.
Well, I admire you for sticking to it and I seriously plan to follow a similar pattern of drinking at one stage. At the moment I keep fucking up when the weekend comes around. I always end up drinking at least once a week. Still, it is an improvement from drinking every day.
ooo
