Moderate alcohol withdrawal - will opiates help?

[redirectleft]

6 months ago I started drinking a few beers in the evening, first 2-3 beers, then 4, sometimes 5. Then 3 weeks ago I started to note cravings for a drink in the morning to which I stupidly gave in at some days. Now it seems like dependency has already set in, I can feel how the first 1-2 beers in the morning actually only make me normal again. Right now I'm at 6-7 beers/day and the dependency seems to grow faster and faster with every day and every beer. So, this shit has to stop now, I cannot drink any more of this f*cking poison. The last 3 days I've gone more and more downhill, vomiting in the mornings and waking up all the time during the night sweating like crazy.

Yesterday I tried to find out about the extent of the physical dependency so I refrained from drinking in the morning. At about 3PM I started experiencing withdrawal symptoms, most notably very strong agitation, some undefinable pain all around my body, sweating, very rapid heartbeat and light vertigo. I resumed drinking shortly after but the "feeling" of withdrawal didn't really go away, I was plagued by horrifying nightmares all throughout the night and woke up every hour or so.

So today I decided to go to the doctor. I told her all about what happened and how f*cking stupid I was, told her about the withdrawal symptoms and so on. When I was finished she shrugged and asked me if I wanted to go to a closed mental hospital for detox. I told her no, I'd really rather not because I do not drink 2 bottles of vodka a day yet and do not believe a closed mental institution to be a good place for withdrawal, especially because I'm only 22 years old. She asked me why I was in her office then and I told her that I needed a doctor to go to if shit hits the fan during my self-detox and to please give me 3 or 4 days worth of Benzodiazepines so I wouldn't die of a heart attack in 2 days. She told me to get out of her office.

Anyway, my mum happily gave me 20 x 50mg slow-release tablets of an opiate called Tilidin. It's not available in the United States at all as far as I know but in Europe it is widely used for strong pain. I do not know how strong it is given my lack of experience with opiates but I've taken both 50mg Tilidin and 3mg Morphine once and the Morphine felt approximately twice as strong.

Generally speaking, is it a good idea to use opiates during alcohol withdrawal? My physical health is not the best at the moment and my nutritional intake is HORRIBLE but I cannot continue f*cking drinking any more, I feel like the alcohol sucks up any vitamins and energy I happen to take in.

Thank you very much!

 

[HeadHigh]

No, it is not a good idea. Not only will it not really help your withdrawals, using something like that to cover up another problem is EXACTLY what leads to addiction and trading one addiction for another is really shitty. You should try to find something that works on the GABA receptors like phenibut (also super addictive), gabapentin, baclofen, pregabalin, etc etc

 

[trip407]

Try to get a benzodiazepine, preferably something long acting like diazepam, librium (chlordiazepoxid) or chlorazepat. Really go to the next doctor or larger train station and look out for junkys.

 

[RDP89]

How do you get a physical dependency drinking 6-7 beers a day? Anyway, yeah a benzo taper would be the best bet to quit, preferably with a doctors supervision. DO NOT quit cold turkey, and no, opiates won't help much. Alcohol withdrawals are nothing to play around with, Ive witnessed people have seizures from it, scary as hell.

 

[weekend addiction]

^I wondered the same. But some people are very sensitive to alcohol.

 

[w0w0mg]

I think it would help some of the physical discomfort from alcohol withdrawals but I agree with the previous posters,
Go to the hospital and tell them you're going through alcohol DT/WD and they will prescribe you Librium.
Detoxing off of Alcohol can be very dangerous, seizures occur in this process if you do not have an anti-seizure medicine or benzo.

 

[redirectleft]

Hello again,

thank you all for your input. I decided not to go to another doctor because I would have needed to pay for the prescription myself and couldn't afford to anyway right now.

I found contradicting reports about the effectiveness of opiates for alcohol W/D on the internet and decided to give the Tilidin a try anyway. And, for light to moderate W/D, it works! Apparently in these lighter cases it does not matter how the nervous system is being calmed down. I'm now 48 hours in and can feel the withdrawal subsiding already. I took 50mg slow-release in the morning which calmed me down enough all day and another 50mg slow-release at night to sleep. It got rid of pretty much all physical symptoms except for some light sweating and elevated pulse. Especially the sensory overload, the insane anxiety and the restlessness stopped dead in their tracks once the Tilidin hit. I was even able to start coding a webapp except around the 24h-30h period and was able to sleep like a baby for a full 7 hours.

I will continue with my 2x50mg regime until Monday and then stop taking the Tilidin. However, if you experience heavy W/D symptoms I would definitely *not* recommend trying stupid self-experiments like this. The combination feels very heavy on the heart and circulation.

Thanks again and all the best

 

[withlove]

it will ease the psychological discomfort.
opiates are my fav for a hangover.

you might not ( read prob do not) have full blown dts yet from stopping drinking, you are likely experiencing some minor wds and some anticipatory anxiety.
the main problem i can see you running into is if you do in fact have acute alcohol wds and are taking opiates being given valium in the situation might not be possible. like if the opiates arent working and you go to the ER and they find out you are taking opiates you may have to wait longer for them to administer a benzo.

good luck. stay safe.

you can also ween yourself off alcohol, drinking a bit less every day.

 

[Moreaux]

Don't know if you're still having wd, but if you are in lieu of opiates you can always taper off of alcohol. It's not the best solution, but if you can't get proper meds it will work. I would recommend having a sober companion administer the alcohol and you not have indiscriminate access lol. However, this may no longer apply as your initial post was three days ago.

Try to eat healthy and get as much sleep as possible. Take magnesium and vitamin b 12 if you have access, as heavy drinking with deplete b12 and magnesium will help tremendously with heart palpitations and tremors. Once off the booze keep sweets around ", as it helps with cravings. I ate tons of snickers bars and nerds early in recovery. I even went so far as to get a cotton candy machine for bad days lol. Don't worry about weight gain as you won't be needing the sugar for long.