Posted by Adam Donahue on November 10, 2003, at 18:22:38
For the past year and a half or so, I've been engaged in a dangerous cycle of binge drinking/abstinence from alcohol. Within the past month, I've been binge drinking twice, passed out twice (both times with .25 BAL), and been admitted to the hospital. I've probably blacked out two or three dozen times in all. Until the most recent time, the pattern has been such: feel great, feel reeeallly great, go drink to excess, black out and/or pass out, enter depression for one or more weeks, freak out that I will always be depressed, feel intellectually and cognitively numbed, worry that I have brain damage -- start to feel better, stop worrying, ... feel intellectually alert and sharp again .... feel great, feel reeeaallly great ... (I'm sure many of you know this cycle.)
I'm currently on 40 mg Celexa, for three years (which has worked wonders), and have recently been diagnosed with bipolar, which may be contributing to my 'need' to go drink, even though when it happens I inevitably drink to excess.
Aside from the obvious alcohol problem -- which I'm just now realizing is a problem and trying to get under control -- I am worried about having permanently damaged my brain from these binge drinking episodes. Is there any literature on whether this type of behavior causes long-lasting, permanent damage. I mean, Friday I felt great -- drank too much, and now I'm paranoid again. Is is possible to go from one extreme to another over one bout of binge drinking, or is this numbness simply the depression again? If I were never to drink again (a tough but necessary goal), will I be a become a vegetable from any damage already done? Can you tell I'm freaking out from this!?
... curious about the long-term effects of what I might have done, and if any of it is reversible.
Adam
poster:Adam Donahue
thread:278333
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20031105/msgs/278333.html