No David, you shouln’t use irony until you know how to use it.
Step one: Think about what has been said the best you can and then offer your considered rebuttals.
Step two: Realize that you are young and haven’t spent decades thinking about the subject.
Step three: Dump your rebuttal.
Are you calling David Simmons a youngster? How old are you?
And do you have a cite for your remarkable assertion about “the chemical nature of the brain” requiring a balance between pleasure and displeasure?
Hey, don’t pick of Milum, he’s doing the best that he can with the tools available.
That is just not accurate. Alcohol withdrawal is frequently treated with barbituates and the Alcoholic experiences little actual displeasure. Then the individual is gradually weaned off of the barbituates.
Interestingly, alcohol and barbituates are the two drugs whose effects from sudden & untreated withdrawal include death. (And of course the occasional grand mal siezure)
Qag, I think you wuz whooshed 
County: That is just not accurate.
** Here’s the process, County, demonstrate the error first, then declare that which is inaccurate.
County**: Alcohol withdrawal is frequently treated with barbituates and the Alcoholic experiences little actual displeasure. Then the individual is gradually weaned off of the barbituates.
** Why the barbituates? Why “weaned”? The Alcoholic or dope head only spreads his sense of displeasure through time. So what?
Country**: Interestingly, alcohol and barbituates are the two drugs whose effects from sudden & untreated withdrawal include death. (And of course the occasional grand mal siezure)
** Interestingly, County? Evidently, County, my point.**
Ok, so you say:
“Continued drug-induced sensations that are perceived by the experiencing organism as pleasure-piled-upon-pleasure without respite , must, by virtue of the chemical nature of the brain, be counteracted by an equal amount of displeasure in order to bring about a necessary return to the mind’s normal set point.”
And I say: you are making things up. You cannot back that statement up with a shred of proof, at least not in the context of alcohol (Or drug) withdrawal. And, what is “pleasure?” because with Alcoholic’s the drinking is frequently not even for pleasure. It is simply done to stave off the withdrawal.
And, what is the definition of “the mind’s normal set point?”
(This would be an entirely different post if we were in the pit)
To my dear county:
I feel you pain.
Ah, spring…the flowers are in bloom, love is in the air, a puzzled professional asks for a cite from Milum to back up an outrageous assertion concerning said professional’s area of study…
This is not something anyone wants to witness. My sister-in-law had them. When she first went to the hospital, the doctor told her to keep drinking until they could get her registered and settled. When she went off the booze, it took about two days for the gutteral screaming to start. She was in a coma for weeks, her skin was breaking down, most of her hair fell out, her blood pressure dropped to almost nothing, and then one day just woke up.
Unfortunately, she started drinking again and died about a year ago.
:eek: Wow! Yeah, that’s not something I’d want to see a loved one going through for sure. My condolences, I hope you are all recovering from such a draining emotional ordeal.
Thanks for your kind thoughts. It was horrible, especially since she was only 42 when she died. But she just couldn’t quit.
Geez, just how long ago WAS this? Good God, no hospital that wants to avoid a potential lawsuit by surviving family members would permit a chronic alcoholic to go through possibly life-threatening withdrawals. Detox can be achieved relatively painlessly (but not necessarily without discomfort) using Librium or Valium (which are anxiolytics, county, not barbiturates; barbiturates might be used if the person has a history of seizure disorder). The majority of hospitals also have finally realized that detox is NOT the completion of treatment for the alcoholic, but just the beginning, and they will push hard for outpatient treatment afterward. My condolences to you and your family concerning your sister’s death. It’s a truly hideous disease.
I have worked as a chemical dependency therapist for almost 20 years and, like DoctorJ, I have heard of and seen only a relatively few cases of delirium tremens. Some of that is due to the fact that only a certain portion of chronic alcoholics experience them, and partially to the fact that detox meds are used to keep the DTs (and possible death) at bay most of the time. And I’m really not sure why the DTs are characterized by small, fast-moving, creepy-crawly things. Some have visual hallucinations, some have tactile hallucinations, some have both. My husband’s grandmother saw snakes when she was withdrawing. I had a client who saw purple snakes coming out of the wall sockets in his hospital room. And another one saw cockroaches and scorpions marching up his bed to attack him when he tried to get himself off the booze without medical help. Scary stuff, for damn sure.
This is scary stuff. A doctor once told me that heroin withdrawl will not kill you but that DT’s can.
I apologize is if it appears that I am hijacking the thread but how does one get to the point of experiencing DT’s without first dying from alcohol poisoning? Does it take days, months or years of alcohol abuse and sudden withdrawl to get DT’s? Where does one leave off and the other begin? Is it correct to assume that the frat party gone awry might kill someone from alcohol poisoning due to their lack of tolerance but that a true alcoholic has to work at it to get the the point of experiencing the DT’s?
Barbiturates? No, benzodiazepines.
The second time I got sober - after what was essentially a three-year-long bender - I needed large amounts of clonazepam (Klonopin/Rivotril) to keep the shaking and anxiety to a minimum. And that minimum was still very noticeable and uncomfortable. I was a mess for about two months; I don’t want to even think of what would have happened had I not been prescribed anything.
Alcohol withdrawal is hellish. It really is.
Alcohol, like a lot of drugs, is something that you can build up tolerance to. It’s not uncommon to see people in the ER in the 350-400 range (with 80 being “too drunk to drive” in most states) who don’t even look like they’ve been drinking. I, a casual drinker, would probably be nearly passed out at that level, while a neophyte would probably be well into alcohol poisoning.
The first group, the people we euphemistically call “professionals”, are the ones who get DTs and the serious withdrawal syndromes; they not only have alcohol levels that high, but they’ve usually sustained them in that range for a LONG time. Such people don’t even have to go down to nothing to withdraw; someone who has maintained a 400 for weeks or months can have withdrawal symptoms if they get down to 300 or 200.
And yes, alcohol withdrawal (as well as benzodiazepine (valium, etc.) and barbiturate withdrawal) are life-threatening, while heroin withdrawal and (such as it is) cocaine withdrawal are not.
True. While heroin withdrawal can be intensely uncomfortable and painful, it is not fatal. Alcohol withdrawal, and withdrawal from some other drugs such as benzodiazepines, however, can prove fatal.
Alcohol poisoning occurs when one ingests a large amount of (usually) high-proof alcohol in a short amount of time. In doing so, the individual consumes a possibly fatal amount of alcohol before the body can react and display the typical life-saving responses (such as passing out to prevent a fatal dose). When people drink more slowly, the alcohol affects the brain from the higher intellectual areas down. The neo-cortex (new brain) is affected first, altering inhibitions, reasoning, motor skills, etc. The middle brain (emotional brain) is affected next, creating the belligerance, sadness, violence, etc. that we often see when someone is drunk. If the person has ingested enough alcohol, it can effect the brain stem that controls vegetative functions, such as consciousness, breathing, heartbeat, swallowing, vomiting, etc. This is when the person usually passes out. This can be a good thing, in that it may prevent the drunk person from consuming that last drink or two that may prove fatal at that point.
Things progress much more rapidly when the person is “chugging” high-proof liquor. By the time the body begins to respond to the large amount of alcohol in the system, the person has consumed an amount that can, and often does, result in death. Sometimes death occurs when the person passes out and aspirates vomitus (inhales their own puke). But it can occur when the alcohol shuts down the primitive brain and the person goes into respiratory or cardiac arrest. The human body can metabolize alcohol at a rate of only about 1/2 oz. alcohol per hour. Nothing can speed up this process, no matter what you have heard. An amount that produces a blood alcohol level of 0.35-0.40 or higher can potentially be fatal, especially to the non-alcoholic partier. Seasoned alcoholics, on the other hand, build up tolerance over time so their systems can take more alcohol without the overt physical effects of the novice. Some detox units have reported BAC levels of .60 and higher in hard-core alcoholics.
An alcoholic can have a tolerance to a higher alcohol level and still appear relatively normal. My father was an alcoholic and often the only sign that he had been drinking at all was that his nose was red. He was a mean person whether he had been drinking or not, and we never saw him stereotypically “drunk” until resulting liver damage caused him to lose his tolerance. That was when he started passing out, walking into walls, slurring when he talked and falling down. He was about 2 years away from his death from cirrhosis by that time. Most alcoholics develops tolerance slowly over months, then years, of drinking, and many be maintenance drinkers (keeping a steady level in their systems throughout the day), binge drinkers (clean most of the day, week or month, then drinking extreme amounts), “drink-to-unwind” drinkers, “drink-to-sleep” drinkers, etc. There is no one pattern that defines an alcoholic; the probems and consequences that result from the drinking and how the person responds to these defines the alcoholic.
Sorry I rambled here, but I’m pretty passionate about people having some decent informaion about alcoholism. There is a lot of myth, conjecture and misinformation floating around “out there.” Thanks for letting me have my 5 minutes, gang.