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Archive for the ‘Mixed Drinks’ tag

Need some help finding help…

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First off - thanks to anyone who takes the time to read this and has any positive input / suggestions besides “stop drinking”, which I already have done.

Some background about myself as a person and my relationship with alcohol:

I am a 26 year old male (just turned), and started drinking at the age of 23. Before that I had not had a drop of alcohol besides that found in medicines. Since the age of 23 I have been going out and partying a lot on the weekends, mostly every weekend. It has been constant, but I do not drink every day nor do I possess any “cravings” for it. Honestly, the only reason I started to drink is because I found out it made me more open socially. I do however go for the harder kinds of alcohol (mixed drinks etc.) and shots.

Since Monday October 20th I've been having what I now think are alcohol withdrawal symptoms. It all started after going out to party for my birthday the previous Friday and Saturday nights (17th & 18th) and drinking hard. Since I work during the week I don't drink at all.

I've been to two different emergency rooms, an internal medicine doctor, and a Neurologist. I've had a brain EEG, MRI, and MRA done which I was told all came up "clean". I've had many blood tests from all the places I've been to and they have also came up "clean". No one has so far been able to help or tell me what direction to go in. The Neurologist was the one that suggested I was experiencing alcohol withdrawal symptoms, and when I asked him what to do about it he said "stop drinking" and left it as that.

My symptoms which seem to be completely random:
(I always feel "something" I have never felt 100% since this started happening.)

Fatigue, I don't feel "up to" doing anything that requires a lot of energy
Death is near feeling (not joking)
Brain fullness (feels like my head is swollen & going to explode)
Pain in lower back part of head (not a headache but a shooting pain)
Balance issues
Anxiety
Involuntary shaking at times (starts in chest region)

Some days I feel like I'm getting better, then the next I will be right back to where I was. I have been taking Vitamin B complex and Vitamin B1 hoping they would help some but haven't. I have also been trying to keep my diet on track by eating fruits and cereals with vitamins and drinking nothing but water. Everything is so random that I really can't tell what is helping and what isn't.

Total alcohol abstinence from now on. I do have the family and friend support already to make sure that will happen.

But for now if you can help:


With all the tests I've had done, would alcohol withdrawal not show up on any?

It's been 22 days since this began, how long should I expect it to go for?

What kind of doctor should I seek for help?

Shouldn't Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome or withdrawal symptoms show up on a MRI?

time to change

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I got up today and realized that something has got to change the drinking is really getting bad. I have to do something other than drink every day to handle the stress a work.
The drinking started out as 1 or 2 beers after work now it is 12 or more beers or mixed drinks 5 or 6 times a week for over a year now.
I am so glad I found this site because this is going to be a long hard road I am fixing to travel down. And will need the help of other people to get me through.

Written by TJ2

October 10th, 2008 at 11:56 am

Where was I?

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Lying in bed after drinking like 12 beers, several mixed drinks, a few whiskey shots, and taking 5 Tylenol w/ Codine at a wedding. Oh and then smoking some pot when I got home at like 2am. While lying there feeling like death, I knew I'd reached the end of the line. I had to drink so much water and take ibuprofen and ginko biloba, and multivitamin just to get to sleep. That is when I knew this lifestyle was going to kill me and that I had to do something. Usually that bad feeling leaves after a while and more drinks are sure to follow but I can remember feeling like I was gonna die and that feeling has not left me, it motivates me now. It's right there.

Written by getr345

October 7th, 2008 at 10:47 am