for home-detoxers: How to Taper off Alcohol

[gymdude]

for home-detoxers: How to Taper off Alcohol

I recently successfully tapered and wanted to share. First, if you can, get detox at a hospital. The reason I did not is that I just did a hospital detox a month before and relapsed and couldn't see going back again so soon. I kept a bag packed for the hospital in case it got bad. It didn't get quite that bad, but came close a couple of times.

I had been drinking steadily for 2 weeks, all hours. What I did was start with a beer every 2 hours around the clock. This entailed either hiding the beers at work (!) or taking a quick break from work and running to the nearby bar. The two hours would fly by and I had some shakes and sweats. It was worse early on but tolerable. A few times I doubted it could work and it was scary. After a couple of days and less symptoms between beers I went to a beer every 3 hours. I still had some shakes so I knew I needed to continue. After about 3 days of this, I didn't need any alcohol anymore. I feel like a fog is lifted and I never want to go through that again.

[Candlelight]

for home-detoxers: How to Taper off Alcohol

I really, really need to quit. I drink about a bottle to a bottle and a half of wine a day. I am a professional woman trapped in a dreadful marriage and a highly stressful job. Over the past three years I have turned to AL, first as a habit and then as an addiction. What happens if you quit cold turkey? Are the WD symptoms terrible? I am scared. I only drink wine, not the hard stuff.

[Turnagain]

for home-detoxers: How to Taper off Alcohol

Hi Candlelight...

It takes a lot of courage to reach out for help. That's a huge step toward shaking this addiction from your life once and for all. Give yourself some well-deserved credit for recognizing the addiction and your determination to do something about it. You can make this next DAY ONE your FINAL Day One with an unwavering commitment to yourself to keep the toxin, alcohol, out of your body.

No doubt, there are a lot of variables in the withdrawal process. If possible, you could seek the help of a trusted doctor to oversee a medical detox. Of course, not everyone has access to medical help because of financial or professional restraints. There is a lot of information online about withdrawal. Some good. Some not.

For what it is worth, I can share my experience. I was worried, too, about detoxing, but ended up doing it on my own. No one around me really knew just how much I was knocking back since I was a creative closet drinker. At least when my kids didn't throw out my stash! My tolerance was very high by the time I finally quit. I could power through a 12 pack of strong micro brew beer and still have to crack open the wine to try to find the buzz. I was drinking those large amounts everyday, binge style, one drink right after the other. I drank at this pace for several years. Prior to that, I was a weekend binge drunk drinker dating back to when I was a teen. My drinking history spanned nearly four decades.

I spent the first 3 to 4 days feeling like I had the flu. I was shaky, chilled, fatigued, foggy and achy and generally felt yucky and very blah. By the 5th or 6th day, I started feeling okay and just kept getting better. My depression lifted, my anxiety went poof and I began loving myself and life again. The science behind this is reassuring. Our bodies spend some rough days in the initial detox phase but every system is healing. It's a process. And there is a lot you can do to help expedite healing.

Eat whole, healthy foods. Be sure to fuel yourself, even if you don't feel like it. Try to avoid anything processed. And definitely avoid sugar. Alcohol is basically the jet-fuel of all sugars so it's understandable why people crave sweets once they stop drinking booze. Try eating something naturally sweet like a crisp apple or my favorite - a bowl of frozen organic blueberries mixed in with a big dollop of plain greek yogurt. Better than ice cream and so much better for you.

Hydrate, hydrate, hydrate. Good old water is your friend. Adding some fresh lemon is a great bonus that will also help your liver clean up the mess that alcohol makes in that filtering system.

Supplement. You may want to consider adding back the vitamins and minerals that alcohol robbed you of systematically. There is a huge amount of info out on the net about supplements for recovering from addiction. There are even supplements to help with the inevitable cravings that will come up. The amino acid L-Glutamine is great for that.

A few other tips to help you in healing...

*Reward yourself - early and often - for getting and keeping alcohol out of your system. Maybe use the money you saved in the first week from not drinking to buy something nice for yourself or someone you care about? Have some fun with this indulgence. I bought myself a few big dinnerplate dahlias. A real treat for me!

*Exercise. The more vigorous - the better. It will benefit your healing in a number of ways - especially because you have a stressful job and relationship.

Meditate. OM>OM>OM It has been a huge help in my healing. Research shows that learning how to quiet and control our rapid-fire thought process promotes the growth of gray matter in our pre-frontal cortex. There are a lot of free resources out there. I am fond of the podcasts from Meditation Oasis. It's not too new agey, but not too sterile either.

Practice Gratitude. It's right up there with meditation in terms of putting the right data in the brain. As the computer geeks say...Garbage In, Garbage Out. Well...when you put gratitude in your brain, gratitude comes out. Going through my ever-growing gratitude list sure gives me a HUGE hit of happiness every morning before I get out of bed and every night before I nod off.

Last but not least....Get Support. There is plenty here. Jump in and join this generous healing community. The Newbies Nest is a well-traveled part of this website where you will find a lot of wisdom and companionship from folks in all stages of healing from addiction.

Candlelight...you will never regret leaving the small, dark, dead pit of addiction. The view from the top is joyful, hopeful and limitless. You reached out....keep climbing. We'll be here to help you.

[StuckinLA]

for home-detoxers: How to Taper off Alcohol

Candlelight;1658022 wrote: I really, really need to quit. I drink about a bottle to a bottle and a half of wine a day. I am a professional woman trapped in a dreadful marriage and a highly stressful job. Over the past three years I have turned to AL, first as a habit and then as an addiction. What happens if you quit cold turkey? Are the WD symptoms terrible? I am scared. I only drink wine, not the hard stuff.

Everybody (and every body) is different. But a bottle to a bottle and a half a day you shouldn't be in physical danger during withdrawal. I'm not a doctor, standard disclaimer. You'll probably have some night sweats and trouble sleeping, maybe a little shaking and/or anxiety, maybe a little racing heartbeat.

Alcohol withdrawal *is* dangerous - but they don't even hospitalize you for detox anymore unless 1) you're going into a rehab program or 2) you have a history of withdrawal seizures.

Do you have a shrink or regular doc? Try going in and complaining of anxiety and panic attacks, or say you have a trip coming up and you're afraid of flying, whatever. Get a script for xanax, ativan, or diazepam (valium). It won't take much to get you through the first few days of withdrawal and the lingering anxious feeling that comes and goes - just do not take every day for more than a week. These are habit forming and a real bitch to get off of. At least that's one route.

[chipsmum]

for home-detoxers: How to Taper off Alcohol

Help with tapering

I hope this thread is still active as I good really do with some advice. I am on Day 5 of tapering off and have gone from 24 units to 16 units over that time but am still experiencing really bad sweats and shakes especially during the night. The first two days I kept some of my daily ration to get me through the night but since I stopped that, I haven't slept for the last two nights. I don't think I can go any slower or I will end up back at square one. On a plus side, I did manage to eat a little bit yesterday and have stopped vomiting (yuck).
I was hoping to get down to 12 units today but not sure if I should try to space them out better during the day so I have a couple for through the night ? I had really hoped to have got through this in less than a week as I have promised to be somewhere tomorrow where drinking is not going to be an option.
It is 08.30 in the morning here and I have been going to the store every day at 11.00 to buy my ration which I start by noon.
I feel pretty pathetic for not making a better go of this. Is there anything else I can take to try to speed the tapering plan along without making sweats/shakes and panic worse ?
Thanks

[Pie]

for home-detoxers: How to Taper off Alcohol

Hi chipsmum,

Are you able to get a doctor involved to support you through detox?

Pie

[Ps501]

for home-detoxers: How to Taper off Alcohol

Hey chipsmum,

For me, and I'm tapering again... Doh. For the first 3-4 days insomnia, bad sweats, no appetite, racing heart. My personal metric is if your going to heavy aws, (like hearing voices seeing things) you are tapering too fast. Drink.

Pretty sure I've experienced micro seizures (clonic tonic) in the past.

Many people have reported tapering extended the symptom time frame, and I would not disagree. Alcohol detox sucks.

Establish a timeline of when you drink and how much and MEASURE it. Then each day decrease by one unit. If you get bad shakes etc maintain for a day.

The thing most people don't think about is alcohol is a drug, and the brain get very used to it. With any mentally addictive substance and medical protocol would be to taper off. Before benzos people,used alcohol to stop drinking alcohol.

Could you die if you go to fast... Yes. Can you do it. Yes

[nezzaboy92]

for home-detoxers: How to Taper off Alcohol

Sorry if this is bringing back an old thread or whatever but I found it a while ago on Google and it's really helped me get myself together (almost)

Basically I've got myself down to 4.2 units over the course of about a week, and was wondering how safe it would be just to stop now, or whether to keep it running for a while, just from people's experiences.

Thanks for the help you've all given me, even if it was unknowingly!

[Grabit]

for home-detoxers: How to Taper off Alcohol

nezzaboy92, I'm new here myself, and the threads have been very helpful to me. I don't think anyone can quantify the right answer for you if you're tapering on your own. Only you and your body, heart and mind know, taking into account what you've been drinking and for how long. In general though, whatever plan you have should be somewhat flexible, kind of like managing a baseball game. It depends on the score and the inning. If you haven't checked out the HAMS website, it has very useful info, but I think their tapering schedule may be too rigid and ambitious for many. Either way, I'm trying the tapering approach myself, and all I can do is see how it goes for me. I know that I personally will need more time with tapering, and maybe professional help if it isn't working for me. Either way, best of luck to you, and it appears that there are lots of folks here to help who have probably had more challenges than you and I combined.

[betterdays]

for home-detoxers: How to Taper off Alcohol

Hi everyone ! I'm posting after a whole year, had to search for this thread. I found an article on alcohol and malnutrition and thought I'd share it. It says that alcohol depletes nutrients from the body, and it will be helpful if we start taking supplements before we start our taper. Here's the article -

http://www.doctoryourself.com/alcohol_protocol.html

When I was tapering, I remember I used to take a multivitamin tablet along with long walks. The article above says it helps with the cravings as well.

[Eternal]

Hi everyone! I am desperate for help. I am a 56-year-old woman who has been a social drinker for years -- 2 or 3 glasses of wine a week, if that, and it was never a problem. Over the last six months, though, it's become much worse. I have been drinking a bottle a day (except for a day or tow of abstinence here and there) due to a lot of stress at home, deaths in the family, etc. I really want to stop but am afraid of bad withdrawal symptoms. Should I go cold turkey or taper gradually? Also, my husband does not know about this and is unlikely to be helpful, so I have to do it alone. Thanks for any advice and help!

[Golden Eagle]

Wow, is anyone still around in this thread or can we keep it going? This is woody13 from a couple of years ago as I could no longer login. Of course a lot has changed for me since then and I am glad I found this forum again as tonight I already have my plan and am going to attempt another taper.

It should not be that bad from a physical health standpoint, it is just the mental part that can be really tricky I remember. I believe I have only been 3 out of 6 on successful self taper attempts, and the fails are all from the same reason. It is when you hit that point on the second day when you know your daily limit is running out and you forget the alcohol is for medicine purposes only....... ouch, makes you want to slip in an extra drink or two with your beer!

I am as stubborn as though come though, so if I have done it in the past anyone can. If anyone is still around I will probably post the results. and give some details how it is going. I have been on 12 to 16 standard drinks a day for a while and my goal today is go directly to 8 with some slow sipping. I did just start but it is already an hour later than I normally do and feel quite confident. Additionally, I have been loading up on vitamins and hydrating as much as possible the last week or two, with some minor exercise thrown in.

We shall see!