DOSE:

repeated

oral

Alcohol

(daily)

BODY WEIGHT:

130 lb

I began drinking when I started college in '03. As a skinny girl, my tolerance was about 3 beers before I was feeling pretty drunk and would want to go to sleep. After a bad break up in '04, I started drinking everyday, and saw my tolerance skyrocket. I would begin my drinking in the afternoon and continue until I blacked out, just about every day. At my worst point, I was consistently drinking nearly a liter of Jack a day. I know this for a fact because everyday I would have to go buy a new bottle.

In my last semester of college, I was an absolute, alcoholic mess. I came to a realization that 'fuck it, I'm not going to graduate anyway' and stopped going to class and woke up everyday, had three top shelf margaritas for lunch, and continued drinking beer or whiskey throughout the rest of the day. I would rarely be able to eat. I was usually black out drunk by 8PM. This bender went on for nearly a month--I never ever sobered up. Towards the end, I woke up, went to class, and WHAM. The withdrawl hit like NOTHING I had ever felt before. I ran out of class, but my muscles could barely hold me up. I stumbled out side where I was violently ill to my stomach, and began to hallucinate lights all across the sky and was unable to focus my eyes. I blacked out on the grass and woke up and began to have a full on panic attack where I was shaking uncontrollably. I had a friend call the hospital right when my body was going into shock--my arms had seized to my chest and my mouth was blue.

The EMTs were complete assholes who kept asking me 'if I was having a bad day.' I explained to them that I was an alcoholic, and I was pretty sure these were some pretty fucked up DTS, but they couldn't believe a little 21 year old girl could have such a problem, so they just helped slow my breathing and my friends drove me home while I continued to hallucinate lights flashing and dashing across my field of vision and I felt like I had absolutely no brain function at all. I had no motor control for the first 24 hours, if I tried to grip anything, even a soup spoon, I would begin to shake uncontrollably.

This was the beginning of a literal 3 1/2 months of hell. I drank occasionally, which helped but prolonged the withdrawals. I was violently ill to my stomach 24/7 and developed a hernia from retching so much, so my esophagus was so raw I couldn't even physically swallow alcohol without it burning so badly I would cry. Whenever I laid down, the contents of my stomach would spill into the back of my throat because my stomach was literally lodged up there. I had SEVERE anxiety and couldn't drive my car, go into anywhere with bright lights, and if I heard any loud noises my body would go into a violent panic attack where I basically went blind and couldn't breathe or walk. I went to several doctors but nobody would believe I could be withdrawing for this long of time, so they assured me it was psychological. My skin itched so horribly I scratched my skin raw. I couldn't digest food and became basically agoraphobic--I was so afraid of having a panic attack in public I caused them everytime I went out into public. This included several complete meltdowns in grocery stores where I tried to hand the teller my credit card only to begin shaking so violently I couldn't even hand it to them. I developed hemorrhoids (I know, gross) because all I could do during this tie was sit alone in the dark for weeks on end.

I stopped drinking completely after the first month of cutting back, and the anxiety slowly tapered off. Eventually I was given Ativan, which REALLY REALLY helped and I WISH that doctors would have taken my problems more seriously and given it to me sooner, because it would have saved me so many months of torture.

I tried drinking again last week after 100 days sober, and have been going through mild withdrawal all week --basic anxiety and nausea with some mild visual hallucinations. I did some research and found out this is from the 'kindling effect' which means once you withdraw seriously one time, your body is more sensitive to alcohol and will go through withdrawal more severely even with less drinking. I'm now ON the wagon because I can't imagine EVER living through that again.

Exp Year: 2007	ExpID: 66496
Gender: Female
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Sep 23, 2020	Views: 1,401
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Alcohol (61) : Combinations (3), Difficult Experiences (5), Addiction & Habituation (10), Hangover / Days After (46), Not Applicable (38)