Posted by blueboy on June 18, 2008, at 13:59:25
In reply to Alcohol Withdrawal-Please Help!, posted by FrankF on June 14, 2008, at 15:49:22
Oh man. Where to begin.
I don't think any alcoholic can stay sober by "white-knuckling" it. (Well, "never say never", but why not get all the help you can?) It is a very powerful disease.
First off, you might need to consider detox. Alcohol is, believe it or not, the most dangerous drug addiction to quit. It's worse than kicking a heroin addiction, and it's the only addiction that you can conceivably die from by quitting cold turkey. In detox they monitor you and give you drugs (and in some cases, actually, a little ethyl alcohol in an IV drip) so that you don't have bad DT's or convulsions.
My advice, whether you can manage detox or not: Find an AA meeting (try to find a "closed discussion" or "open discussion" meeting, not a speaker meeting or something) and raise your hand at the beginning of the meeting to tell them you're a first timer. They won't make you say anything if you don't want to, or they will listen to you if you want to talk. Then listen to what they say. It's free and you will get the best advice from the world's top experts.
If you don't like it -- well, nobody's going to handcuff you or follow you home, LOL.Alcoholism was considered incurable until the founding of AA. It is truly a miracle.
I will keep you in my mind and hope that you can get clean. I remember how utterly painful it was to find out that I was an alcoholic. We are pulling for you.
poster:blueboy
thread:834625
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20080617/msgs/835265.html