Question:
I just came in for a quick question since I am too ashamed to call
anyone I met in the program since I relapsed several months ago. When I
first started the program I had only been drinking 12 - 15 drinks a week,
and I'd read that if a woman drinks more than 14 drinks a week she is an
alcoholic, and since alcoholism runs in the family I got scared and tried to
quit. Each time I relapse, I end up drinking more and more. I am also
mentally ill (not from alcoholism - I was sick ten years before I ever took
a drink) and about six weeks ago Istopped taking my psychiatric meds and my
drinking doubled. I am now drinking 8 - 10 drinks a day, and I have never
tried quitting from drinking so much. So my question is, will I have
withdrawals from the alcohol if I quit cold turkey? I am to go home for a
week and no one in my family drinks so I can't drink while I am there. I
had meant to start cutting down these past couple weeks, but I haven't been
able too. Now I'm going to have to quit cold turkey and without psych meds!
Does anyone know what will happen to me? My family doesn't know I've been
drinking, will they be able to tell?
Answer:
You can probably get some good advice in this website, but can you talk to
the doctor who prescribed the psychiatric meds? He or she is probably better
equiped than anyone else to tell you how to get back on the right track,
especially if you level with he or she about the alcohol.
In the broadest sense of the word, you probably will suffer "withdrawal"
when you quit drinking cold turkey. Withdrawal can range from feelings of
lonliness, discomfort, insomnia and anxiety up to life-threatening symtoms
like the delerium tremens. I have my hunch as to where along that spectrum
you might be, but the fact is you need the support of someone with medical
experience or at least the ability to get you to medical care if it is
needed.
It sounds like you don't feel you can be honest with your family and tell
them you have a drinking problem. If that is not the case, you might
consider opening up to them and asking for their help. If you can't do
that, can you find someone who can help you come up with a strategy for the
week, a minister, a therapist, some old friend you don't seem much but whom
you happen to know has been sober for 20 years?
You have two problems with the alcohol; first, you need to quit to save your
health and, second, you need to come up with a way to spend time with your
family constructively. What I did when I was in that situation was to
maintain as best I could during the day and evening, and when everyone when
to bed I'd get the bottle out of my suitcase and get blasted. In retrospect,
I would have been much better off if I'd ask for help with my drinking
problem and if I'd been honest about it to those who would be supportive
about quitting.
