I found that out in a very painful way. It was the worst experience of my life.
I wasn’t the worst drunk… my standard dosage was two beers in the late afternoon, followed by half a bottle of whisky. This knocked me out to start again the next day. I had tried to fight my addiction but being sober meant feelings of anxiety, dread, and that something terrible was going to happen. And I didn’t sleep. Try eight hours of lying in bed knowing that you didn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of even feeling drowsy. Eight hours of thinking, thinking, thinking… and then getting up feeling like crap. I once went three days without sleep.
I needed help, why I didn’t reach out and why alcoholics face difficulties by downing a glass of booze is touched upon here: link
My wife was scheduled to return from an extended trip where she was helping sick elderly relatives. The day before I looked in the fridge and there was one can of beer left. I had finished up the whisky the night before. I drank the beer and said that’s it, I’m quitting.
I didn’t sleep that night. No surprise. But in the morning I felt unwell which got worse throughout the day. It wasn’t a headache or nausea but a full body malaise that eventually affected my thinking and limb coordination. By the time my wife arrived in the late afternoon I was in bad shape. I asked her to help me to the bathroom where I collapsed on the floor, unable to move.
Off I go in the ambulance to Emergency. The ER doctor said what I did was very dangerous.
I spent nine days in hospital. I won’t go into the details of my recovery but after three weeks I was in surprisingly good shape and feeling good about myself. I was lucky.
This page - Link has a good description of why the alcoholic’s body can crash when they suddenly quit. It’s about three quarters of the way down in the section “What causes alcohol withdrawal?”
Talk to your family doctor if you have one, or search for alcohol detox in your city. But don’t quit cold turkey.
I experienced this when I helped a girlfriend detox. The first night she tried to go without alcohol, I had to take her to the hospital. Her heart was racing, she was uncomfortable and unable to focus on anything. She would alternately be belligerent and crying out for help, completely irrational. It was scary. She stayed there 3 days and then was able to come home. Sadly, she stayed sober just a couple of weeks before relapsing; our relationship ended soon after.
I know someone who’s husband died from this very thing. The marriage was on the rocks over his drinking, after yet another huge argument, she stormed off and he withdrew and swore to himself he’d stop. Tried to do it all alone, cold turkey. Like you, he didn’t feel he was ‘the worst drunk’, so…I don’t know what he was thinking!
He died a horrible death and it gutted his wife to lose him like that.
Glad you’re okay!
No, didn’t get that. However I had developed a mild tremor in my hands and face when sober. This was one of the reasons I drank… after a couple of beers it went away. Conversely, this was one of the reasons I wanted to quit - I didn’t want to go out in public with shaking hands and twitching face.
In Canada a “bottle” is 750 ml - about 25.4 oz. It was called a “26” before metric conversion here. I was drinking about ten 1.5 oz shots a day.
One of the problems I’ve noticed with alcoholics is a tendency to compare themselves - i.e. “I’m not the worst drunk.” And that can create all sorts of havoc because it really doesn’t matter if someone else drinks more than you - it matters how your body is handling it. My sister used the “I’m not as bad as everyone else” to justify drinking herself to liver damage.
But its one of the many examples of addicts brains not really working.
The withdrawal symptoms K364 described were pretty much exactly what I was experiencing when I made the idiotic move of trying to quit cold turkey instead of going to medical detox; and the further “remedy” I tried of having a beer in the middle of the day cost me my job. Under medical supervision, with proper nutrition, vitamin supplements, and something a bit like Ativan, my symptoms began abating about the end of the second day.
It can be… but there are some remarkably cheap sources of alcohol out there.
Back when I worked at a clinic specializing in people with addictions we had a guy whose alcohol of choice was isopropyl. Yep, he drank rubbing alcohol. VERY cheap. Also very not recommended.
But any alcoholic capable of holding down a job at some level (like Cuckoorex until he was caught drinking on the job) will have enough money to buy something cheap in the methanol category. If you aren’t choosy you can get remarkably drunk on a very small amount of money. Even with “sin taxes” in my area there are varieties of vodka that cost less than soda, as an example. Personally, I think they’re barely fit as lighter fluid, but then I’m not an alcoholic and care more about the taste than getting drunk on the rare occasions I drink. I’m no authority on wine, but I’m guessing there are some cheap offerings in that category as well, not to mention the cheapest mass-production beers out there.
Once helped clean out the home of someone who fell down a flight of stairs and died of a head injury. We filled up the back of my pickup truck from bed to the level of the cab roof three times hauling just the beer cans off to the recycling center. But he didn’t have a drinking problem, oh no… (yeah, maybe it was a garbage-removal problem. Uh-huh.) All cheap, mass-produced beer types. It was about quantity, not quality.
I’m sure there are exceptions, but while an alcoholic might appreciate the top shelf quality stuff, when it gets to the point they’re warding off the shakes they’ll happily drink the bottom shelf, too. And, by the way, if you’re ever in a place that sells alcoholic beverages you’ll find there’s a reason for those terms - the expensive, fancy stuff really is higher up in the display and the gallon jugs of wine and vodka literally are on the bottom shelves.
Expensive, yes, especially if you were like me, spending at least $8 a day on beer, just drinking at home, usually much more if I went out to be “social”. I estimated, having looked at just a month’s consumption, that I drank the equivalent of a car payment every month.
There are definitely “levels” of how far gone an alcoholic can be. My brother and I are both ex-drunks.
I held down a job, only drank at night (getting wasted, of course). I never drank at work, or drove drunk, or got into any legal trouble. I wasn’t the worst drunk.
My brother would drink anytime, anywhere. He got into all sorts of trouble - several DUIs and other arrests. Sometimes he would go for long periods of waking up, reaching for a bottle, and drinking until he passed out again, rinsing and repeating. He was the worst drunk.
Actually, methadone and other opioid withdrawal is rarely fatal. Feels like hell, may make one suicidal, but the withdrawal itself is NOT deadly unless other comorbidities exist.