I was debating about whether or not to really talk about this; but, it's worth it. Just so y'all know, this isn't going to be easy reading.
I'm not going to say that you shouldn't enjoy a glass or three of champagne tonight, so long as you're not driving; but, I've been through Hell with alcohol and I think it's worth letting people know what I went through lest they experience what I did this year.
If you're a casual drinker, that's fine. If you're getting to the point where I was, which literally meant that I could drink an entire litre of hard liquor and still hop on one foot, touch my nose, and recite the alphabet backward, it's time to stop.
Here's where the hard part starts.
Eventually, when you're a heavy drinker, you start going through withdraw about eight hours after your last drink. Namely, if you have a good night's sleep, you're already going through withdrawal.
When you wake up, you're covered in sweat even though you feel like you're freezing. You feel fatigued and weak; so much so that it'll take you about forty minutes to muster the strength to go to the bathroom. You want to go back to sleep; but, that's not gonna happen. Really, you're going to be awake for the next three or four days. There's nothing you can do about it. If you're lucky enough to live with somebody, you might be able to muster the strength to text that person and ask him or her to bring you some water and a barf bucket.
After a few hours, you feel a bit stronger. The trade-off is that you start feeling pain in your stomach. It's manageable at the moment. You think that you can just rest a bit and it'll pass. It won't.
Eventually you know that you have to throw up. You'll barely make it to the bathroom before you get rid of everything that you had in your stomach.
You'll think that you're gonna start to feel better. You're just getting started.
At this point you'll be shaking so much that a glass of water is pointless because it will all end up on the floor. You can only use bottles.
After a few hours, the real hell starts. Your stomach starts to feel like somebody is grabbing your liver and twisting it like a wet sponge, only, it doesn't stop. You're lucky if you can go five minutes without throwing up again.
If you're smart, you take whatever energy you can and take a few pillows and a blanket into the bathroom. Realistically, you're gonna be there for the next couple of days unless you go to the hospital, as you should.
The best that you can hope for is about forty minutes without vomiting, lying on the bathroom floor, your stomach still in agonizing pain. They say that you're supposed to teaspoon water when you're vomiting. With alcohol withdrawal, you're gonna vomit whether or not you have anything to vomit. You'll just drink water to reduce the agony slightly.
About two days in, you're going to be dehydrated and exhausted enough that you're nearly if not completely delirious. You'll hear voices that aren't there with amazing clarity. You'll see shapes moving around you that aren't really moving.
At best, you spend four days in a hospital having needles poked into you. At worst, you decide to stay home and detox without help. Even the decision to go to the hospital is hard because you're so weak that you barely have the strength to put your pants on.
So, yeah, take it from me; alcohol addiction is no joke. If you think that you might be going down that road, I hope you kick the habit earlier than I did.