Monday, July 17

[Guest]

Okay--I feel MUCH better now!!!

Welcome Jenram and great to see you here, Kathy! And everyone else here today--a great big HEY to you!

Thanks for the advice re: feeling frozen/panicky and procrastinating....I think I get anxious and panicked BECAUSE I'm procrastinating and then I procrastinate because I feel so friggin' anxious and panicked...it's a horrible cycle.... It sounds soooo easy to overcome but it's just not...this frozen weirdness has plagued me for YEARS...it's impacted on my work/school life, my social life--everything...I know it's mental but it feels almost physical....even fairly small, simple tasks seem HUGE and overwhelming and...I...just...can't....move...
It's truly ghastly! In fact, for me, the difficulty getting STARTED doing basic stuff is sometimes very similiar to the difficulty I had STOPPING drinking...they both SEEM so simple to everyone else--but almost insurmountable to the me going through it....

Well, maybe the good news is that since I have been able to (finally) STOP drinking then I should be able (with an equal amount of effort) to START taking care of business! But all thoughts/advice--even ways to TRICK myself into getting started and overcoming the paralysis--are welcome!

Okay, computer seems to be functioning almost normally again--perhaps it IS the 100 degree weather we're having in good ole NYC! (and yes, D, it IS a cable connection--pc, tv & phone--all f**ked up!)

Baby, it's HOT outside!
:h
susan

[Guest]

Susan, you are way up there on the count now arent you? How many AF days now? GAbby

[Guest]

I just received this in my email about neurotransmitters and wanted to share in light of Susan's experience.

When Neurotransmitters Are Depleted, What Happens To Our Bodies?
Any type of Stress causes the OPIOID levels to diminish. This creates a sense of urgency in an individual. A person also becomes irritable, easily angered, easily loosing their temper.

Many people find relief from these feelings from an artificial opioid that is released by Alcohol or other drugs.

Low OPIOID levels automatically causes an increase in DOPAMINE release. This causes a feeling of alertness and anxiety. Continued Dopamine release causes emotional fatigue.

When Dopamine is released, it is exactly the same chemical response as that following a small cocaine use. (The greatest natural Dopamine release happens at the moment of sexual climax.)

Low OPIOID levels also causes the lowering of the GABA levels. When this occurs, feelings of anxiety, insecurity and unexplained panic are felt.


The most obvious feeling is deep Depression.
Low GABA levels cause an increase in NOREPINEPHERIN release . . .

This encourages quick, emotional response like anger and discourages slower, deliberate (logical) thinking.

High NOREPINEPHERIN causes ADRENALINE to be released, which cause the heart to beat both faster and harder and causes red corpuscle reserves to be placed in the blood stream.

It also causes energy sources, nutrients, and oxygen to be diverted from functional organs straight to the muscles.

Here is where High Blood Pressure, Strokes and damage to a number of pressure sensitive organs occurs. (The continued diversion of oxygen and nutrition from the functional organs causes them to become diseased.)

Low GABA levels causes a decrease in SEROTONIN levels which makes sleep difficult to impossible. This person also exhibits feelings of irritability and a lack of rational emotion.

The SEROTONIN reduction further pushes the OPIOID levels lower. Thus, the Stress Cycle repeats with continually increasing intensity.

In the stress cycle "feedback" loop, the following reactions occur, all of which are obviously useful to a person threatened by a predator or a mortal enemy. They are harmful to the modern person under long term stress as exemplified by the statements :


Stress causes the opioids (endorphin, enkephalin, etc.) levels to diminish. The lower opioids levels create a sense of urgency. This sense of urgency is usually expressed as the need to respond to certain physical demands, e.g., if one drinks a couple of quarts of iced tea at 10:00 in the evening, he or she will usually awaken in the middle of the night with a very strong sense of urgency.

As soon as the body's need has been taken care of, the sense of urgency goes away.
If the sense of urgency is initiated by continuing stress and there is no way to relieve it . . . the stress "signal" goes from the opioids to GABA to Norepinephrine to Serotonin to Opioids to, etc., and, a loop occurs.

The result is a continued diminishing of the chemicals until the system's control of emotions is lost. The individual first becomes irritable, easily angered and finds him or herself suffering from easy loss of temper.

Many find relief in the artificial opioid released by alcohol, tetrahydroisoquinoline, and thus become alcoholics.

Others turn to opiates such as heroin, morphine, etc. Some find relief in carbohydrate bingeing.


Most, rather noisily, just ruin their careers and their marriages.

The lowering of the opioids causes an increase in dopamine levels and a decrease in GABA levels.
This produces a combination of alertness and anxiety. [The so called adrenaline rush is in large part the feeling of exhilaration caused by the dopamine release. It is exactly the same chemical response as that following a small cocaine use. (i.e. cocaine use causes dopamine to be released in larger amounts than the body requires for normal functioning such as sexual climax or appreciation of beauty.)

Continual extra dopamine release causes emotional fatigue which can become debilitating. It can also lead to anhedonia, in which case, he or she can no longer enjoy beauty, music, or even love, in the extreme case. Continuous anxiety from GABA reduction can lead to depression and feelings of inadequacy.]


The lowering of the GABA levels causes the norepinephrine levels to increase and serotonin to decrease.
The increase in norepinephrine causes adrenaline to be released and the reduction of serotonin makes sleep difficult to impossible.

[It is important to note that serotonin is a sleep enabling neurotransmitter, not a sleep inducing one. A lack of serotonin makes sleep very hard to achieve. Once the serotonin becomes available, the body demands the sleep it now badly needs. When this has been done the person feels rested and Fully refreshed. However, if the stress feedback continues, the lack of sleep can cause a great deal of damage to the body.]


The increased norepinephrine encourages a quick, emotional response (e.g. anger) and discourages slower, deliberate (logical) thinking. [The anger released by the lack of the opioids is triggered more rapidly in the presence of the norepinephrine.]

The adrenaline release causes the heart to beat both faster and harder and causes red blood cell reserves to be placed in the blood stream. It causes energy sources, nutrients, and oxygen to be diverted for use by the muscles.
This deprives functional organs such as the liver, the digestive tract, etc., from their needed resources. This results in the person being able to make an almost super human (though perhaps illogical) physical response to the threat.

[When the heart is required to beat faster and harder over long periods of time, the illness commonly known as High blood pressure usually follows. Unfortunately, this condition is usually not reversible. In the extreme case, this condition can cause strokes and damage to a number of pressure sensitive organs and passages. It can also cause damage to the heart. Further, the continual diversion of oxygen and nutrition from the essential organs causes those organs to become diseased.]


The norepinephrine increase causes the serotonin levels to decrease. This makes sleep difficult or impossible. The serotonin reduction further modulates the opioids downward. The cycle therefore repeats with continually increasing intensity.

It becomes obvious that the proper balance of Neurotransmitters to each other is as important as the neurotransmitter production. Neu-BeCalm'd? is formulated to give your body the proper nutrition to balance and produce neurotransmitters.
Decades of university research have been required to find the means by which the "cycle" is kept from repeating over and over. If this cycle were not brought under control grave illness would obviously occur as it does when we are under unrelenting stress.

As early as 1928, Dr. Hans Selye's research showed that when stress is long term in nature, the "stress management chemicals" (as he called them), which enable the body to maintain control, are depleted. Ultimately, the correction can no longer be made. Selye showed that once these chemicals are totally depleted, the subject dies!

The last 20 years of research by many notable scientists such as Dr. Gerald Kozlowski, Dr. Terry Neher, and Dr. M. L. Barbaccia found that the stored metabolites can be replaced from normal diet, but only very slowly.

They further found that the slowness was not due to a "lack of production facility" but rather a "lack of raw materials". While the quantities required vary from one individual to another, getting these additional nutrients from food is difficult.

The average person would require several pounds of exotic fish, a quart of milk, and a variety of other high cholesterol and high fat content foods daily.

Thus, condensed supplementation is required to allow replacement of the necessary metabolites during modern times of continuing stress. This can be done by taking each of the individual supplements individually or by taking a single capsule containing all of them. The supplements must contain: d/l-phenylalanine and l-glutamine in combination with Vitamin B6, Calcium, Magnesium, and Folic Acid in proper proportions. This formulation of amino acids, vitamins, and minerals, has been shown to enhance the opioids, GABA, dopamine, norepinepherine, and serotonin availability.

[Guest]

99 AF days tomorrow!!! YEEESSS!!! (Thanks, Gabby!)
:happy
susan

[Guest]

Congrats on 99 days Susan - Way to go.

Gabby Congrats on 41 you are doing great!

Welcome Kathy, I think you will enjoy being part of this group. Although I'm not here as much as I used to be I still try to check in every few days.

Welcome back Jen, of course you are welcome to join.

Lori, Matt, Deidre, Nancy, vickie, and anyone I may have missed. Keep up the great work, every day we are getting stronger.

So far so good for me on the tx front. Today I was a bit sick, so I left work early and came home and slept all afternoon. I remember not too long ago, I would leave work early and drink all afternoon. Not as much fun sleeping, but I'm determined to kill this damn virus and make myself healthy which does not include alcohol, at least at this point in my life.


Marcie

[Guest]

Mondy, July 17

Hello to all Abvillians,
Love all your posts. Did one but it disappeared into the ether. Kathy, welcome and I am so happy you are joining us. I am imagining that we are all holding hands and marching down the main street in absville. We are holding on to you tightly Kathy. If you trip, we will not let you fall. I only found you all 16 days ago and I was so impressed that I started Abs the next day. I got the book and read it. Have as yet had little time to do the CDs. Since I could not afford the supplements right now I just slugged along without them. I do want to know what Topamax feels like, but really don't want to get my Med involved.
This is for cv. I find that all your research is so invaluable to all of us. So I decided today to open a new file on my computer called cv. I copy and paste your research articles into it. Then I don't have to rifle through all the posts to get your info.

I am looking out my office window. It is 10:00 pm and still a stifling 30 degrees celsius. There is lightning on the horizon and hopefully we will get a storm to clear away this horrible heat wave. This is just too much of a good thing - I suspect that my grandfather was a polar bear. I like a moderate 70 deg. F. if I had a choice.

Going to bed clutching my perrier bottle - good night all.
Lori

[Guest]

Good for you Marcie! So glad to see you headed into health. I think it must be something like day 11...12...? So congratulations!

Cynthia, you know I do believe I'm beginning to retain some of the knowledge you've so generously shared with us. I find myself using words like "neurotransmitter" in a sentence now. Which is great b/c it means I'm understanding some of the science, but it also means my memory is improving. So now we have yet another side effect of abstinence - getting smarter! Just when you thought it couldn't get any better... :lol I'm eating healthy and I'm taking all the supps that I think can help me restore the balance in my brain and body after slamming them for the last 20 years, and I just keep adding & tweaking with each new piece of info I get from you. So, thanks again for your contributions!

Susan, congrats on 99 days! Better than 99 bottles of beer, eh? I just hope the temperature doesn't keep rising with the AF days! Phew...

Deirdre

[Guest]

Hi All,
Just checking in and hanging by my fingernails:c but still here
Talk to you all tomorrow
Shas

[Guest]

frozen sujul

Thank you, thank you, thank you for sharing! I've been reading you all, all day, in my own total funk. I honest and truly was berating my self for my paralysis a.k.a.
" frozen weird state. " I'm doing okay at moderating. But, I did an abstinece month for a business trip that I got to tag along with my husband . There alot entertaining insued and alcohol flowed freely $-wise and quantity. I had that wonderful feeling of freedom and control...didn't miss the alcohol....kind of enjoyed watching how other people imbibe....loved the healthy mornings. I totally enjoyed the women I was with. Came back to reality and the odd group that are "friends" They're catty and bitchy (or am I just too sensitive ;* ) sent me into a total depression. I want to be back in the mountains. So one snippy comment did this to me! It made me cry to read someone else wondering why her brain reacted that it does.

[Guest]

Welcome D3

Hey there,
Hope you'll tag along with us. Glad you joined us, how bout getting registered so we can REALLY talk.

Lor