Icehouse, did you forget to check in? (5/2)


Day 8745531 here. Thudnesday I think. Time is a blur.



But in all seriousness, 2884 days. Had a bad few months, with lots of pain, but now that I finally got off my chair and am doing garden work again, the pain has subsided. It's a pattern really: after a few days of hard work my feet get less sensitive. No idea how it works, but glad it does!


Hope you are all doing OK.

Holy crap! I did

3200 days sober today

30 days from close on my new house with a mountain view. Still working at the office and the COVID has barely touched my little town. I miss eating out at restaurants!

I am building a small gym at the house so I can keep the leg strengthening up and maybe, just maybe, I will get back to that "running" thing I have been blabbing about for years...snort.

Ice out!

My Introduction.

Day 97 (in the Sobriety House. Whenever I think of days passed, I can only think of the UK edition of Big Brother and that Geordie* Accent.)

I am 56 and have drunk heavily all my adult life, but only at weekends having at least 3-4 sometimes 5 days per week with no alcohol. I ate a low carb diet and and look in good shape for my age, if you ignore the red nose. I basically practised the Tim Ferris 4 Hour Body Diet, with minimal high intensity home gym, but instead of a cheat day I had a cheat weekend. I thought those sober days would save me, if I didn't think too long.

I got into a destructive relationship with a beautiful woman, that I knew was wrong and our drinking got worse and worse, but only privately in the comfort of our own homes. It was our secret. I led a double life.

When you are mid 50s and have a nose that is a danger to low flying aircraft, and you are having fun, you tell yourself this is your last chance to live a little, this will be your last beautiful girlfriend. So you ignore the hangovers and the need to drink pints of water ( with decaff green tea!) all week just to function. You ignore the health consequences because they only affect other people. You put off the future, for now.

Anyway, we broke up in December, cancelled our long holiday in January, and how did I cope? I pretty much got hammered every day for a month, like some tragic hero Krusty the Clown.

In late December, early January I started noticing numb toes. Then suddenly, mid January after a long walk the previous day, something happened to my right leg, I couldn't walk properly, my right ankle could not support itself. I needed an ankle support. I put this down to an old running injury. Then my hands began to tingle, and arms and legs all pretty rapidly.

I began to research my symptoms online, I had never heard of alcoholic PN, but that was the most likely explanation. Or kidney disease or worse.

I had blood tests with the GP in February, by this time I was loaded with all the supplements Mrs D had suggested and had stopped drinking. The blood tests showed normal liver and kidney function and good vitamin levels, slightly raised cholesterol. He referred me to a Neurologist. And because of Lockdown I still await my appointment.

Since then my symptoms have deteriorated and I get painful shooting pains in my arms and legs and groin. There maybe an Auto Immune element as I have history of mild CFS and mild Colitis.

Giving up alcohol was surprisingly easy, I missed it at first. The first Friday nights and Saturdays were the hardest, especially at birthday parties etc. Now I see alcohol as a poison and I don't actually want to drink.











*North East England/Newcastle area

Although I'm not a doc, it does sound very much like it's PN. The odd thing is that binge drinking is actually harder on the body than chronic drinking (I forgot why).


Congrats on staying away from the booze. It may not immediately help with your symptoms - there is some healing, but it takes time - but at least it won't make it much worse. Plus your liver bounced back almost immediately which is a very good thing. They are tough buggers until they aren't anymore.



Cholesterol is not that important when it comes to PN, but avoiding sugar (both processed & natural) may help ease the pain. And with a decent diet it will come down anyway (I have 1/3rd of the LDL levels I had when I was still drinking, my GP was quite amazed)


Stay the course, and try not to stress too much about it. Stress will definitely make things much worse. You took a great first step, now you can work your way back to being functional - with some bad days in between. Patience is a good friend too.


To give you an idea, in my case, it took me a year of sobriety before my symptoms eased up on me.


Good luck, keep doing what you are doing, and keep checking in. It helps being accountable to a bunch of strangers who went through the same thing.

I echo this statement. It took about the same (maybe a little longer) for my symptoms to subside to "normal".

It's amazing (and shocking too) how much damage the alcohol does to the body and how much it can tolerate.

Thanks for the support and advice guys. A year gives me a clear target to aim for. In keeping with the thread, I'll report back my progress from time to time.

A

2900 days. In 22 days it will be 8 years.



I was not doing well these last 3 months. I tumbled into a depression around February. Not entirely sure why, it's the first time in my life, but it was overwhelming, scary, and nasty. Waking up with deep dark thoughts, no longer eating, lost about 12kg, no energy to do anything at all. Still tried to force myself to be productive, but that only made things worse. Nothing mattered anymore, and I felt like my life was over. Useless. Failed.



Time to call for help.



I was lucky to get the right med first time around. Although there were serious side effects, I bounced back pretty quickly, and I'm currently feeling fine. (despite all the doom & gloom in the world). Found my energy and bounce again, and most importantly, my sense of humor and self-worth.


Surprisingly - or not? - I did not long for a drink during those darkest hours. I actually didn't even think about it, it was more in hindsight that I noticed "hey, somehow that self-destructive behaviour did not come up as an option in my brain." Needless to say I was/am very pleased with that.


At first, I did not want to share this, as it feels very personal; but then I gathered it might potentially help someone else. So yeah, it is possible to get sober in such a way that even during a depression you no longer see alcohol as a viable option. As a "way out". More than that, I didn't even think about it. There are two cupboards full of booze in our house, and I never even looked at them.


Some day science will be able to explain how it works. How you can turn off that switch. I wished I could tell you how I did it, but I don't know. I only know it's possible - and many others have found that switch too. So, if you ever wonder "can I really get rid of my urge to drink", the answer is: yup.