Severe Alcohol Withdrawal

Severe alcohol symptoms start within just a few hours after you stop drinking and withdrawal peaks in about 72-hours. It can be a living hell. The cravings are unbearable. The body and mind are so dependent on alcohol that you cease to function correctly without putting more alcohol into the system. You can experience a high fever and uncontrollable negative thoughts, but that’s not all, as it quickly becomes a very dangerous and serious health issue.

You can have hallucinations – hearing sounds that aren’t there, feeling things on your skin, and even visual apparitions. These delusions can last for weeks in extreme cases and make you feel like you are going crazy, and you are probably right. You can have full-body seizures 24-48 hours after your last alcohol intake. During this entire time, you will feel confused, have difficulty processing information, and making decisions. You will have trouble with memory recall, even remembering what you are doing presently or what you did moments ago.

Severe alcohol withdrawal can be fatal, and you may need Benzodiazepine or a similar drug to calm down your hyperactive brain, to prevent seizures, and to lower/stabilize/restore normal blood pressure. Without drastic intervention and continued binge drinking health deteriorates quickly. If you are overdrinking or binge drinking now this is where you are headed. If you can’t stop once you start you have a serious dependency problem and you need to get serious about it and get the help you need before it takes everything you have and eventually kills you (cite below).

Recently, with the CoronaVirus Crisis, those with severe alcohol addictions had hurt their internal organs so badly that their chance of death from Covid-19 raised significantly. We’ve all heard of comorbidities by now, right?

If you have a friend or loved one who has these severe symptoms, it’s imperative that you get them some help. If not, there is a very good chance that you won’t have them as friends or love ones much longer. Alcoholism is serious. Often alcoholics will not seek help on their own. Yes, a few strong-willed individuals with alcohol dependency will, unfortunately, most do not. Alcoholism ruins lives. Not only for the alcoholic but also for those of us who love them despite their dependency.

Reference:

Assessment of Alcohol Withdrawal: the revised clinical institute withdrawal assessment for alcohol scale (CIWA-Ar),” by John T. Sullivan, M.B., Ch.B, Kathy Sykora, M.Sc, Joyce Schneiderman, M.D., et. al. British Journal of Addiction (1989) 84, 1353-1357.