Photo by Casey
“Stop drinking now or you won’t be there to see your son or daughters first day of school.”
Hard words to hear from an emotionless doctor sitting in a wanky chair looking at you like you’re the piece of gum he picked off his shoe this morning. But you know he’s right. If you’re downing excessive amounts of alcohol six days a week with your liver on the frontline, there’s got to be some shrapnel damage. And surely enough, there was. Even after just two years of heavy drinking, my liver function test (LFT) showed irreparable damage to an organ I couldn’t afford to live without.
I didn’t want to be the one who had a doctor solemnly telling me death was imminent. I didn’t want to be the kid who died far too young of an illness only he created. I certainly didn’t want to miss out on raising children, or falling in love, or growing old with the person I wanted to grow old with. So, I quit, one year ago today, and here’s what it felt like.
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The Shakes
I remember three days after I quit, I was trying to make a soup because my body was still unable to process anything solid. Wading through a sea of confusion over the simplest of tasks, I eventually got to the testing phase. My hands were shaking so furiously I couldn’t get the spoon to my mouth. Three failed attempts later and I sourced a straw to try it. I made this work, though I promptly burnt (quite severely) the entire inside of my mouth. I was unable to eat the soup after doing so.
The Angry Lymph Nodes
The lymph nodes store a lot of the toxins from alcohol, and most of the time when you quit, they’ll have a real battle getting those toxins out. All of my lymph nodes were remarkably swollen and painful to touch. If you’re aware, there’s about 100 lymph nodes in the body, so that’s a whole lot of tiny little balls of pain to deal with when you’re already in the fetal position crying in the shower.
The Sleeping Patterns
You don’t sleep. Not for the first week or two, anyway. Sometimes you zone out, but you certainly don’t get any reasonable level of slumber. This of course makes irritability a real problem and also contributes significantly to the shakes.
The Nightmares
When you finally do get to sleep, you have the most vivid and horrible of nightmates. I had one which involved my heart bursting like a water balloon in my chest, and while that should of killed me, I was forced to lay on the ground unable to move while I dealt with the worst pain of my life. I woke up to legitimate pains in my chest, lying in a puddle of sweat so significant I thought I’d pissed the bed.
The Ectopic Beats
Every eight beats or so, my heart would stop beating for a second or two. They call this holiday heart, but in recovering alcoholics, it’s no holiday. It’s one of the most uncomfortable and recognisable symptoms of alcohol withdrawal and a really scary one too. No one likes to feel like their hearts giving way. One night my heart dropped all the way down to about 50 beats per minute, and was skipping one every eight or so. This meant I couldn’t really stand up or do anything without feeling like I was high on painkillers riding a rollercoaster.
The Hallucinations
These are symptoms of delirium tremens, which is part of acute alcohol withdrawal and is the leading cause of death in people quitting alcohol. My hallucinations weren’t as bad as I thought they would be, but the constant suspicion of seeing someone in the corner of my eye really started to get to me. At one point, I was positive a branch was detaching itself from a nearby tree. That was enough to freak me out and lock me in my room for the remainder of the day.
The Swelling
My stomach swelled up to twice its normal size. I’m under the impression this was a combination of my inability to shit and the fact my lymph nodes were going absolutely crazy. I felt pregnant, but instead of a baby, my stomach was home to a big ball of pain. This was one of the worst symptoms and resulted in me gaining about 2.5kg, despite hardly eating.
The Vomiting
You will vomit and vomit and vomit and vomit. Try eating anything other than completely neutral mush and it will spray itself all over your porcelain in no time. The food soon turns to blood after you tear up your esophagus. That’s not pretty at all, I’ll tell you now.
The Sweat
Your body tries to excrete all the toxins by forcing you to sweat profusely. You can sit in 18-degree air-conditioning and still be sweating like it’s a scorching summers day. It’s not normal sweat either. It’s like goo. It’s fucked up, and makes attending any social situations during the withdrawal stage near impossible.
The Urine
The other place your body gets rid of the toxins is through your urine. It smelt like I was pissing acid and it looked like yellow Powerade. This didn’t change for about two weeks and it was so bad at one stage that I was using air freshener even when I pissed.
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It’s important to remember that despite the fact it’s socially acceptable and legal, alcohol is one of the few drugs that is likely to kill you during withdrawal. Seizures are just the tip of the iceberg. Alcoholic hallucinosis is known to cause psychotic breaks in previously healthy people, which can lead to suicide and permanent mental health issues. There’s also alcoholic cardiomyopathy, where the heart essentially shuts down due to alcohol abuse.
If you or someone you know is struggling with alcoholism, you can find help here.
Written by Adam Vassalo.
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