Let me tell you about the first week when I went cold turkey…
I don’t know about everyone else who has gone through alcohol withdrawals but this is my recollection of it.
When I say the first week was the worst week I mean that! It was like I was being tormented by my own body which I had no escape!
The first week was hell
When I say it was hell, I mean that it was my own hell. It was something I had never experienced in my life to that extent of pain.
Now, I’ve never broken a bone in my body in all my life so I have no experience with that but…
Have you ever been so sick that even the mere thought of eating or even drinking water made you shiver? Well, I did. It was like someone was slowly stabbing me in the stomach with the hottest poker you could imagine!
It’s hard to put into words really, to be honest.
I have never witnessed anyone else go through withdrawals that I can remember other than seeing maybe a few quit smoking.
Now, it maybe a bit different for everyone. I have heard of people quit drinking before without any signs of withdrawals shakes, not eating or what-not. But that was rare.
For me, it was a hell on earth.
You see, before I quit, I was not consuming my favorite alcoholic beverage which was Icehouse Beer. No, I went to something that was my go to alcohol other than beer… White Zinfandel wine.
I was drinking so much of that stuff that after the first bottle it tasted like cool-aid. And, it went down just as easy.
I tell people, from what I remember, I was drinking almost 4 gallons of this stuff a day! That not only is CrAzY but also insane. Yeah, no lie y’all, I had witnesses.
Other than that… getting back to the first week of getting sober.
The first week was the worst week
Now, I have had some bad weeks but none that could compare to this. It was a hell on earth!
The first day and for the rest of the next few weeks I stayed at my mother’s house while going through my detox.
She helped me, but to be quite honest, there is no help for that type of hell. Yeah, you could go to the hospital to dry out and from what the people at the detox center told me, I should have.
On a side note: I did have to wait for a bed at a local detox center and got in after over a week of detoxing all by myself. they told me I could have died! I sure am glad I did not. I only spent 2 days there but, that is for another story.
I wish I could put it into words like I said above, how exactly it felt to be laying there on the bed, not able to move a muscle because EVERYTHING hurt in my body! I tried my darnedest to sip a little water or nibble on some crackers but that did not help and felt like anything I put in my stomach was going to come right back up.
Bottom line is, the only thing my body was craving was more alcohol.
Let me tell you about the shakes… Those are in itself one of the most difficult things to get over and past for the first 30+ days. I could not hold a glass up to my mouth with two hands if I tried. I shook so bad that I would spill the drink all over my chin, face, or whatever.
I dry heaved more times during that week than I did while drinking all those years. I spent many hours either hovering over or on the toilet till I thought nothing else could leave my body! It hurt like hell to pee as well.
I felt like anything I did get down in my stomach burned like acid and left with the same burn. It was a hell.
Sleeping??? For that first week, I did not think that sleeping was something I even wanted to attempt. When I did, I had the most awful dreams of my life! When I woke up, it was like waking up out of coma (I never been in a coma but I can imagine it probably felt the same way). When I woke up, everything was peaceful but after a minute or two the pain would return and I felt extremely disorientated.
The end of the first week
By the time I got to seven days sober, things were still not the greatest but at least I could function a tad bit more and I actually could start eating again. Not like tons of food and any kind of beverage but it was better than those first few days.
This is about the time I had started attending AA and was getting ready to go into the detox facility as well. I had a little better handle on things yet, I still had the shakes so bad. I felt like I was going to dry heave and so forth but it was an improvement to what I felt like a few days before hand.
This was also about the time I had made a promise to myself (because, you REALLY need to do this), promise to yourself that you never want to feel that way ever again. You never want to endanger yourself that way again. You never want to put any of your family and loved ones through that again!
This is when you start to realize that what you went through is, the first week was the worst week. But it does not get easier because this as I believe could also be the time you might slip back into your old ways.
You still have that super craving for alcohol!
To be quite honest… that feeling was with me for first 12 months!
I just had to dig down, deep inside my soul and ask myself…Was going back to it worth it? Obviously after 3 years of sobriety, it was not!!
Just to let everyone know who reads this… Yeah, I still can’t stand to be around people who are drinking. Yes, it hinders me having as many friends as I used to and keeps me from activities that I once thought were fun while I was drinking.
I still go by the coolers at the store, glance over at the alcohol and think to myself… Let someone else go through that hell, I’m never going back, come hell or high water!
You can stay sober but I’ll tell you what…It is much more difficult staying that way than it is to give in from what I’ve been told. It takes a power much more powerful than yourself and whether you find that power within or from somewhere else, stick with it! Trust me, you’ll love it!
Thanks for reading and remember: One day at a time!
