DOSE:

repeated

oral

Alcohol

(liquid)

BODY WEIGHT:

65 kg

I always thought booze was harmless, but compared to some illegal drugs I've tried, it's both more addictive and more harmful.

The day after New Years Eve I went on a 3-day bender, going out with friends to varous bars and drinking at least 20-30 standard drinks each night. I usually drink just beer but after about 15 beers I move onto vodka and bourbon.

[Erowid Note: The dose described in this report is very high, potentially beyond Erowid's 'heavy' range, and could pose serious health risks or result in unwanted, extreme effects. Sometimes extremely high doses reported are errors rather than actual doses used.]

I woke up each day after with a sledgehammer headache and the usual inability to stand without throwing up. The day after each bender I would start drinking at about 12:00am, to kill the hangover. This works like a charm but you miss the usual euphoric buzz of alcohol. Basically you feel kinda out of it but the headache and dehydration goes away. It's a cure of sorts. Not a good idea however.

At the end of the 3rd day I decided enough was enough and drank 5 beers to try to cure my hangover from the night before. This didn't really work, just making me feel the same - like I had drunk water. I realised I was going to start withdrawing from booze after basically being drunk for 3 days, thinking that it wouldn't be that bad.

About 5 hours after the last beer I started getting brain-fog. This is where I cannot focus on text at all and basically cannot read anything. I don't know where I am and my vision is blurred beyond belief. I can't do anything to cure this either, which is the worst part.

The brain-fog lead into anxiety, where I started freaking out about the fact that my blurred vision wasn't going away. This got worse over about 4 days, by which time I was too scared to go to work. The thought of it made me shake and feel like something very, very bad was going to happen to me. Imagine going for a job interview and multiplying those nerves by 100, you might get close. The anxiety got progressively worse to the point where I was scared to death just sitting on a chair in my bedroom, afraid of every inanimate object in the room.

By the 6th day after the last beer, I was in hell. I was basically a zombie who was terrified of everything and unable to do anything but try and sleep. Sleep brought only terrifying nightmares where strange entities screamed violent, strange accusations and threats at me. After the nightmares I would wake up sweating. Keep in mind that these nightmares seemed real and I was so zombified from brain fog and anxiety that I couldn't tell what reality was. My arms and legs would occasionally spasm and shake, which I think was the anxiety - but either way I knew it wasn't normal. I decided to get help and had my father drive me to the hospital emergency room.

The nurse diagnosed me as the lowest risk (she thought I just had a hangover), so I waited about 8 hours in a hospital room with acute alcohol withdrawal while people with sore stomachs went in front of me. I started hallucinating quite vividly in the waiting room, looking at magazine covers which warped into monsters designed to scare me to death. My body felt like at any point it would start convulsing uncontrollably and I started to crave alcohol. My father was constantly badgering the nurse to admit me, but she refused. I was terrified that I was going to die in that waiting room. I kept pleading with the nurse to admit me to see a doctor but she refused. This kind of limbo is best described as hell-on-earth. It's where you know bad things are happening to you but you're powerless to act.

Eventually I was admitted and saw a doctor who I can only describe as an angel. He recognized my symptoms as serious alcohol withdrawal and gave me a massive vitamin B and a 10mg valium to take while he sorted out a full-body scan to check if I had any serious problems ie Hepatitis. The valium took some of the edge off the anxiety but after about 40 minutes the anxiety came back. The doctor asked if I was OK, I said no the feelings are coming back. He gave me another valium which was heaven once it kicked in. I finally relaxed and my blurred to hell vision returned to normal. It was so smooth I realized all that I had experienced over the past days was curable! I was almost a human again.

The doctor said I was OK but was surprised that I had been binge drinking so much - he thought I was suicidal but I assured him I had just partied too hard (which ironically is true). He gave me 2 valiums (little green pills) in an envelope to take home with me and a prescription to take to a GP if I needed more valium. He warned me to only take the pills if I absolutely needed them, as I could become addicted to them. He said it was lucky I had got to him when I had. The withdrawal could lead to seizures and delirium which could be fatal. He said I might need to stay in the hospital overnight, but as I had the valium to ward off symptoms we agreed it was best if I managed myself at home.

After that I didn't need to take the valium, and the withdrawal effects slowly subsided. All up the serious symptoms lasted about 2 weeks, and at 3 weeks I was basically back to normal. Even still, for a while at work I would be serving beer and my hands would start shaking, but I could still function. It wasn't the uncontrollable anxiety that I experienced during withdrawal.

I've drunk heavily since this has happened, and on occasion minor withdrawal effects have begun the day after - some shaking, anxiety, etc. On one occasion I had to take a valium, which is basically like booze in pill form. On another occasion I had no valium and tapered booze - ie drank 3 beers, then 2, etc to stop the minor anxiety. Other than that, I've found that I just get a bad hangover if I stop drinking after a night of partying. I think the key is not drinking the day after - otherwise my body becomes dependent on the stuff.

After going on long binges I also found myself incredibly addicted to alcohol. Ie, after having a beer, all I could think about (and I obsessed over this) was having another drink. This was the only thing that mattered. This was really dangerous because after I got drunk, I kept drinking and drinking. Then when I woke up all I wanted to do was drink, etc. Luckily for me I was able to break this cycle.

Overall, I think Alcohol is basically a useless substance that is far too dangerous to mess around with. These days I might drink a few beers to get a small buzz, but I'll never go back to the long binges. Alcohol withdrawal is hell on earth, where I'm turned from a human to a terrified zombie. Don't go down that path - it's not worth it.

Respect Alcohol for the hard drug that it is.

Exp Year: 2006	ExpID: 54171
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Apr 29, 2007	Views: 35,598
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Alcohol (61) : Hangover / Days After (46), Post Trip Problems (8), Multi-Day Experience (13), Health Problems (27), Various (28)