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Alcoholism Thread v. A sober life is a good life <3

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n3ophy7e said:
Yep, this is my exact cycle at the moment too man. Hey, it's better than drinking every day, which is what I was doing for the previous few years up until about 2 weeks ago. But seriously, I can't make it for longer than 3 days sober either.....
How long have you been drinking again thujone? Was there something that triggered you specifically?


I'm actually going to my doctor tomorrow to see if they can prescribe me Wellbutrin, after my complete mental breakdown yesterday....does anyone know if it helps with reducing alcohol cravings?
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oh no!! we're terrible :( i'm not sure if i made it a whole three days this time... i think what triggered it is i went to see a shrink at my doc's behest and he pretty much said i have a schizoid personality which i never heard of then i went and read up on it and found out a lot of it applies.

for me it manifests in being intimately inept and compulsively avoiding intimacy in my relationships with people but yeah there's a section on alcohol and mary jane abuse that's pretty clear it has to do with having that sort of personality. it frustrates me that i can't think of what caused this "disorder" in the first place even though i think i know about when it started... hence i drink, to help me remember :D ... :(

i agree with others that i dont think wellbutrin will help. i mean, if you take the things written on the side of pill containers seriously you won't drink with it (increases risk of seizure iirc) but ime it won't do anything psychological to help you stop wanting drink.

i found bromazepam to be the best for me, because it's got that GABA effect and also some of that euphoria of booze. problem with benzos is that the side-effects of long-term use are even worse than those of the kind of half-assed alcoholism we have.
 
approaching 24 hours. sweaty, shaky, a little anxious but then i guess thats from the meth i smoked this morning (I hate cleaning my house). And that was the first time in 2 years that i touched meth.

Valiums and ativans are helping me ride this out atm.
 
So its 24 hours now and I'm beginning to hear voices "just go to the store, 1 more". I always hear things when i am wd from alcohol and have hallucinated crazy stuff.

Does anybody smoke pot while detoxing from the booze? In general, smoking weed has always kept me from sweating a lot, but while detoxing, would it cause the voices in my head to be louder? I fear rebound anxiety and going into a weed panic attack.

I'm also worried about the high blood pressure that comes and goes, and since weed lowers BP, I wouldn't want to faint or anything. A toke would be good for my stomach I guess.
 
thujone said:
oh no!! we're terrible :( i'm not sure if i made it a whole three days this time... i think what triggered it is i went to see a shrink at my doc's behest and he pretty much said i have a schizoid personality which i never heard of then i went and read up on it and found out a lot of it applies.
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I've read parts of that Wikipedia article on SPD several times in the past, but only now have I read it in its entirety and realized that this describes me to a T. Especially the "secret schizoid" portion of the article. I suppose this is the life that I must resign myself to. Suddenly my mind makes a lot of sense.

I don't mean to demand any sympathy here, but I'm gonna get even drunker now.

The 'secret schizoid'
According to Ralph Klein[19] there are many fundamentally schizoid individuals who present with an engaging, interactive personality style which contradicts the timidity, reluctance, or avoidance of the external world and interpersonal relationships as emphasized by the DSM-IV and ICD-10 definitions of the schizoid personality. Klein classifies these individuals as secret schizoids[19] who present themselves as socially available, interested, engaged, and involved in interacting in the eyes of the observer, while at the same time, he or she is apart, emotionally withdrawn, and sequestered in a safe place in his or her own internal world. So, while withdrawnness or detachment from the outer world is a characteristic feature of schizoid pathology, it is sometimes overt and sometimes covert. While it is overt it matches the usual description of the schizoid personality offered in the DSM-IV. According to Klein, though, it is "just as often" a covert, hidden internal state of the patient in which what meets the objective eye may not be what is present in the subjective, internal world of the patient. Klein therefore cautions that one should not miss identifying the schizoid patient because one cannot see the patient’s withdrawnness through the patient’s defensive, compensatory, engaging interaction with external reality. Klein suggests that one need only ask the patient what his or her subjective experience is in order to detect the presence of the schizoid refusal of emotional intimacy.[19]

Descriptions of the schizoid personality as hidden behind an outward appearance of emotional engagement have long been recognized, beginning with Fairbairn's (1940) description of 'schizoid exhibitionism' in which he remarked that the schizoid individual is able to express quite a lot of feeling and to make what appear to be impressive social contacts but in reality giving nothing and losing nothing, because since he is only playing a part his own personality is not involved. According to Fairbairn, the person "...disowns the part which he is playing and thus the schizoid individual seeks to preserve his own personality intact and immune from compromise."[20] Further references to the secret schizoid come from Masud Khan,[21] Jeffrey Seinfeld,[22] and Philip Manfield,[23] who gives a palpable description of an SPD individual who actually "enjoys" regular public speaking engagements, but experiences great difficulty in the breaks when audience members would attempt to engage him emotionally.[24] These references expose the problems involved in relying singularly on outer observable behavior for assessing the presence of personality disorders in certain individuals.
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michael said:
the beginning of last october.
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Absolutely no reason to start again now mate. Just keep going like you have been. If there are some things going on in your life that you need help with, maybe consider seeking some counselling just to get things off your chest, rather than bottling up the stress. Otherwise if you keep it all in you're more lkiely to resort to drinking as the "solution".

justsomeguy said:
approaching two weeks woot. going to stop counting now i think
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You're awesome :) Keep it up <3


chompy, I have heard of some people who have smoked pot to ease the psychological withdrawals of alcohol, but one has to question whether that's just using another drug to keep running away from the root problems which are causing you to drink in the first place.

Benzos can be good (and sometimes very necessary!) for the physical withdrawals off alcohol, but in my opinion the best way to deal with the psychological withdrawals is to get counselling, and/or by mental distraction, and/or good ol' talking to your friends and family about what you're going through.

If you're having withdrawal anxiety and hearing voices/inner monologue, it sounds like you could benefit from getting some counselling anyway mate, honestly. Is this something that you've considered??
 
oh, i can't go on a bender. too many people are counting on me right now. my younger brother was recently diagnosed bipolar and pretty much needs to have someone around him 24hrs. a lot of this responsibility has fallen on me.

the other thing is that i would have absolutely no way to hide it. and i would have to - too many people would lose the trust and respect for me i have managed to build up over the last few months.

in short, too much to lose, nothing to gain.
 
michael said:
a lot of this responsibility has fallen on me.
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Do you think the stress from this making you feel like drinking? If so, like I said, you should consider telling someone how you're feeling, e.g. friend, relative, counsellor etc. If you want to chat with someone a little more anonymously please feel free to PM me.
 
^^ What activities are you doing to keep yourself occupied jsg? I find that if I keep myself really busy it helps to keep that melancholy at bay.

thujone said:
oh no!! we're terrible :( i'm not sure if i made it a whole three days this time... i think what triggered it is i went to see a shrink at my doc's behest and he pretty much said i have a schizoid personality which i never heard of then i went and read up on it and found out a lot of it applies.

for me it manifests in being intimately inept and compulsively avoiding intimacy in my relationships with people but yeah there's a section on alcohol and mary jane abuse that's pretty clear it has to do with having that sort of personality. it frustrates me that i can't think of what caused this "disorder" in the first place even though i think i know about when it started... hence i drink, to help me remember :D ... :(
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That's interesting to hear about your diagnosis and I can understand that it triggered you to drink that day. Sometimes it helps to get a formal diagnosis so that we can qualify our symptoms and make sense of everything, but sometimes it can make us feel inferior because it means something is officially "wrong". But really, it doesn't change you. "Schizoid personality disorder" is just a name man, don't let it get you down or make you feel like less of a person, or even a different person at that.
Did your doctor suggest any treatment or therapy?
 
I think what is making me want to drink more is not so much the stress, but the fact that I have historically dealt with stressful situations by drinking myself into a stupor. if it gets to be too much for me I will definitely start seeing someone.
 
Had another seizure today. I'm not exactly sure if it's associated with alcohol withdrawal and not a full-blown seizure disorder. It only happens when I'm not consuming alcohol, although today I was halfway through my first beer when I began to seize. I wasn't experiencing any noticeable withdrawal symptoms.

Being the hypochondriac that I am, I'm beginning to wonder if it's a brain tumor or something. I'm calling a neurologist tomorrow for an appointment. I don't have any access to K-pins in order to avoid the seizures, so ironically the safest thing for me to do until I see a doctor is to continually drink. Not to mention being drunk helps me avoid thinking about the possibility of something worse than withdrawals.
 
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^Is a detox facility available in your area? Having had a seizure, a medically supervised detox is the way to go if available. Detox is shorter than rehab or treatment, they suggest followup but are mainly just about making it through withdrawal safely.
 
Enki said:
^Is a detox facility available in your area? Having had a seizure, a medically supervised detox is the way to go if available. Detox is shorter than rehab or treatment, they suggest followup but are mainly just about making it through withdrawal safely.
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I looked up some detox centers around here and there are a few. I suppose it would be my best option. For some reason I'm a bit hesitant. I live with my parents right now and I don't really like the idea of my family knowing that I'm going to detox, but I guess there isn't much of a choice.

Hopefully the seizures are secondary to withdrawal and not some kind of chronic seizure disorder. They don't seem to be accompanied by other withdrawal symptoms, but they do only seem to occur when I'm not consuming alcohol. Anyway, I guess you're right - I should look into monitored detox.
 
blahman8000 said:
I don't really like the idea of my family knowing that I'm going to detox, but I guess there isn't much of a choice.
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Come on man, what's worse: you having to tell your parents about the extent of your drinking problem and getting the help you need, or continuing to have seizures and possibly doing your brain some irrepairable damage from seizuring?

I recently had to tell my parents I had a drinking problem and it was so hard and embarrassing and shameful, but it was the right thing to do because now I have their full support.

Go and see the neurologist tomorrow and see what they say, then take it from there. It is in fact best if you keep drinking until you get this sorted out. But that doesn't give you a license to go overboard with the drinks ;) Just try and drink what you need to get by without having another seizure.

Keep us updated man <3
 
Theres no shame in admitting to yourself and telling your family that you have a drinking problem. It's a hell of alot better then letting the problem get worse or still worse by miles ending up with brain damage or possibly dying from the DT's. It takes a hell of alot more guts to admit you have a problem then to keep dnying it.

As for myself after saytuday nights epic fail of a binge i am still shattered by it. My nerves feel shot to hell completely and i still feel as depressed as fuck. Neither my brain nor body can take this shit like it used to be able to and this is the first reminder ive had in many years just how bad alcohol is on the body and brain. So perhaps i needed this in some odd way.

Hopefully i can stay off the shit this time because nothing really good comes from it.
 
I'm just worried that I've already suffered some kind of brain damage. I suppose it's not likely ... I've had 3 seizures, all of them only up to a minute long. The people that know about it don't think it involves alcohol. I hope it does, rather than being some kind of chronic convulsive disorder and/or the result of some kind of brain trauma. Guess I'll find out soon.

Thanks for all the support.
 
Only by dumb luck have i not suffered a alcohol induced seizure but i did think i perma fried my brain on alcohol after i quit. I kid you not my brain felt fucked for a good year afterwards.

If your getting alcohol induced seizures this is not something you can treat on your own. A benzodiazepine with good anti-convulsant properties would help it if it was due to alcohol. Some doctors use phenobarbital which is fine i guess but it's abit heavy in my opinion. Not to mention it can aggravate depression worse then benzos.

Good luck man
 
blahman, its possible you are dehydrated and your electrolytes are low. I've had a seize up one time from just drinking beers all day and no water and just junk food.

now i am 72 hours without drink. the sweats and shaking and voices etc lessened after the 60 hour mark.

I feel much better now, smoked pot and have an appetite now.

I'm not sure if drinking non-alcoholic "beers" would set me back....i just love the fizz and the taste. Its just this thirsty feeling that I'm sure you guys know about. I'm drinking gatorade and flavored beverages as a replacement.
 
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