tomorrow makes 3 weeks no alcohol. i had my last drink march 16, 2022 and i woke up out of a coma in the icu on march 18, 2022. mixing my psych meds with alcohol finally caught up to me after a few years and i had something called serotonin syndrome where my brain dumped a life threatening amount of serotonin into my system at once and i nearly died. thankfully my mom was over at my house having dinner when it happened, because i started heavily hallucinating and convulsing and my kids are too young to know what to do in that situation. i definitely feel like i wouldn’t have made it if she wasn’t there. the warning labels are all there- DO NOT MIX WITH ALCOHOL. definitely a wake up call for me because i have been binge drinking for several years and have been on and off meds throughout those years. and for some reason it wasn’t enough of a wake up call because i am having a really hard time sticking to this and in my head i am thinking “you are off all your meds, now you should be able to safely drink more than you used to.” i know 3 weeks is still very fresh, but this is really hard for me and i can’t wait for the obsession to leave my brain. one side of me is stoked to be off my meds so that i can continue to binge drink, and the other side of me knows this shit is going to kill me. so all i can do for right now is stay busy, work as much as i can, hit meetings when possible, and just not drink for the next 24 hours. but eventually i will have to address the bigger problem- running away from emotions…turning off my brain when an inconvenient feeling rises.
when i woke out of my coma, the first thing i heard was “feel your feelings. feel your feelings.” i’ve been thinking about that every day and putting a name to my feelings instead of drinking and drugging about them.
Welcome to the forum. Thank you for sharing your story. Serotonin Syndrome is no joke and I’m so glad that you are alive to be sober! Three weeks is amazing. Great job with that!
One thing that really helps me is to think of the most miserable parts of withdrawal, or the worst times when drinking or taking drugs. Because it’s easy to forget those things when you’re feeling good or when your brain tries to remind you of “the good times”.
It sounds like you’re working hard on staying sober. That’s really awesome. Seriously. The “feelings” part can be hard, but you can do it. One step at a time.
I hope you’ll come back to this forum often and let it be a useful tool in your sobriety toolbelt!
Welcome Tori and congrats on your sobriety.
Having to feel our feelings has been a challenge for most of us. What helps me is knowing feelings won’t kill me but drinking will. Unfortunately, there’s no way around them and sitting thru them can be pretty painful but the more I do it the easier it gets. In my early days, I shared about it very often at meetings and that helped. Hope to see you around the forum often.
One of my mantras in the beginning: saying no to a craving wont kill me, giving in will.
Be active here, reach out here before you ever reach for a drink.
Welcome. It’s going to be a journey and we are all here cheering you on. I have a seizure (delirium tremen) in front of my son. I’m a single parent and he was 2 at the time. He told me what happened, well acted it out, as I remember feeling spacey at 5pm and then next thing I know I’m in the car driving to mums and it’s 9pm a few days later I noticed severe bruising on my lower back (I was washing up and fell and got stuck on a metal drawer under the bench according to my son) it was a real wake up call, and I’ll admit I’m not perfect as I have drunk since then… this was nearly 2 years ago… but I’m counting more sober days than drinking days
I’m so proud of you for reaching 3 weeks and it’s going to be such an eye opener of a journey and you’ll learn so much about yourself.
Have a great day!
Being aware of what happens when you are withdrawing off alcohol is both scary yet incredibly important as shown by your story. Alcohol is obviously a depressant so as you’re drinking your brain is going crazy producing the serotonin it feels necessary to function. When you quit a habitual drinking habit without tapering or using benzozs your body will continue to produce the serotonin it had become accustomed to having to produce while the depressive nature of alcohol was affecting the neurons firing in your brain. Taking benzozs while withdrawing or tapering properly are both effective because they work in a depressive state suppressing serotonin…Psych drugs work in the opposite fashion normally however. Many psych drugs have SSRI’s which activate the same set of neurons that are already over stimulated the first few days you quit drinking. This is why other drug use can have effects on the severity and frequency of alcohol withdraw as other drugs also effect the way your brain functions… I am so happy to hear that you pulled through. I have dealt with hallucinations brought on by withdraws multiple times. I can only imagine what you went through… Also remember that you are only 3 weeks clean so you are still adjusting. Where you are now is not going to be your “new normal”. Your brain will take time regulating the way it functions again without altering substances. You hear of the “pink cloud” referring to the state of euphoria people may feel after the initial withdraw but lasting maybe two weeks before you begin feeling fatigued and often depressed. Your body during this time is still producing high levels of serotonin and dopamine that it has been used to producing. When your body begins adjusting and producing at a natural level you are going feel like a mess emotionally. Stick with it. Three weeks is great and enough to get over any physical withdraws but your brain needs more time to return to normal.
thank you for all of that information. super helpful!
Congratulations on 3 weeks, that is awesome.
Also, thank you for sharing your story. I recently started an SSRI and I had no clue or had ever heard of that. In fact, my doctor is well aware of my binge drinking. I’m kinda upset he didn’t mention something.
I am so glad you have found this group. Read and post. This group has helped me a lot.