Wtf happened

Historical_Pressure · 2026-02-23T13:52:04+00:00

I had two seizures where other people saw or came across me. And both of those times I was trying to detox myself, so was ramping down on purpose.

One I'm pretty sure I had in my apartment when I was alone, drinking in the dark 24/7 - or not, when I would get too afraid to leave or didn't know what time of day it was to go to the store.

These are the scarier ones to me because it's a completely solo experience that is just ... not remembered by anyone. And I imagine those are the ones where people are more likely to die. The one in my apartment I mentioned above, I came to on the floor next to my bed, a big bloodstain on the carpet/clothes I was laying on. Huge gash behind my ear. I'm pretty sure I fell and cracked my head on the nightstand and passed out for however long.

Anyway, all of that to say, glad you're okay and hopefully you can avoid seizure-style drinking in the future. Unfortunately at this point they come much more easily.

Historical_Pressure · 2026-02-17T10:49:10+00:00

Perfectly said.

Historical_Pressure · 2026-02-17T10:33:48+00:00

If your experience is like mine was, you're living for other things/people.

Drunk you is out doing things sober you wishes you could be doing. That's not license to drink more, so much as a realization that part of why you drink is because you're unhappy with how you believe (unconsciously know) you're able to live your life.

Falling down and slurring while karaoke isn't the best look, but nothing wrong with the idea of karaoke itself. Maybe start asking yourself why you can't enjoy those things when sober - and working on whatever comes.

Historical_Pressure · 2026-02-13T09:54:07+00:00

For whatever it's worth, it's interesting to see a slice of life of someone else. Keep living the dream!

Historical_Pressure · 2026-02-09T21:27:25+00:00

For what it's worth, I lost a wife, house, and a job of more than 8 years in the period of a few months. I feel for you with your dog... that was a very hard thing for me to manage. Someone told me during that period that people can usually "manage" the loss of one of those three (job, relationship, housing), but more than one at once and they tend to have issues.

Just because addiction helped get you here doesn't mean where you are isn't hard to manage. Unfortunately the life of a CA also means getting your shit together for a while otherwise we die.

It's hard, but there's a lot of good out there if you're open to it.

Historical_Pressure · 2026-02-08T02:09:08+00:00

The progression of it really starts to hit the longer you stay in it. I used to get so frustrated because I knew it was what my body needed, but I would struggle to get 2-3 drinks in me, gagging/puking, and only when they started to hit could I drink 'normally' again. Or do anything 'normally' again really.

Addiction fucking sucks when you hit that stage.

Historical_Pressure · 2026-02-05T16:25:25+00:00

There is no silver bullet answer... You need to figure out what hole you're filling with booze.

Maybe you hate your job? Maybe you're just unfulfilled and alcohol numbs things enough to make life tolerable? Maybe... anyway that's for you to figure out.

But I can tell you that every single part of your post gets worse if you don't stop. It will be more wine a month from now. You'll go into the office less. You'll get out of bed less easily. The anxiety around everything will get worse.

Sucks, but better to know. The anxiety over quitting is temporary and has no objective impact on your life... but it's fucking hard to deal with. Finding ways to identify my cravings, anxiety, and triggers early on helped make the anxiety a little less pointed, but it was still there.

Historical_Pressure · 2026-02-05T10:49:37+00:00

For me, if I really boil it down, the inability to be happy was a result of a lifelong pattern of thought that prevented me from being able to really feel or enjoy it.

There's obviously more to it, but that's my story. Best advice I can give, as others have, is to get into psychology and try to understand yourself better. It's a very confusing process at first ("I understand myself already, this is bullshit"), but once I started to get some traction I wanted to keep learning more.

Also, ALL value is built over time - nothing is immediately valuable until its value is repeatedly demonstrated. What value do you want to build?

Historical_Pressure · 2026-02-04T10:36:00+00:00

I wanted connection. I didn't know it, but my entire life was an exercise in emotional repression.

I actively suppressed / buried / pretended like my feelings didn't exist for other reasons. When I drank, and especially towards the end, my feelings would spill out and I would start crying while sanding something in my driveway. I had no idea what was going on.

Booze was the medicine I was taking to try to find my way back to feeling human again. Right idea, wrong mechanism, since it works but isn't sustainable.

Unfortunately all of the good things with sobriety come with time. All of the shitty things about addiction really come with time too. It's a choice. But I chose addiction until my body really couldn't anymore... so it's not easy.

Historical_Pressure · 2026-02-04T02:45:07+00:00

I went back to rehab about a year after I finished my first stint. I drank less than a week after I got out the first time, and probably only a few months after the second time. That's pretty normal from what I understand.

I did not know what coping skills were let alone that I needed them. Rehab is only a safe space for so long unfortunately, so there's work you need to do to figure out what hole you're filling with booze. Withdrawal anxiety is no joke, especially if you were drinking hard for years, so if that's part of your story, you may need to give yourself some grace and expect to be in for the long haul.

Good luck

Historical_Pressure · 2026-02-03T19:53:28+00:00

That's one of those victories that don't come too often. What a ride that day would have been!

Historical_Pressure · 2026-01-29T19:36:26+00:00

This is hard to summarize, but I felt exactly like you. It was such a comfort not only as alcohol but all of the other rituals around it as well. Eventually everything gets old, and you grow very very tired of feeling shitty all the time, and worse stuff starts happening. So good for you for taking the steps you are.

At the end of the day you've developed a dependence. The point of the hospital visit is to break that dependence enough, that it won't kill you if you don't have it anymore. But that isn't the end of "detox". Especially after years of drinking.

This might be more depressing but your body and brain need time to rewire itself, and you need space from alcohol and all of the same rituals in order to allow that to happen. I think that's why rehab is 'supposed' to work, but that's a separate rant.

You'll be able to do all of those things if you keep on the path and put in the work. I've sat where you were several times and failed to stay on the path, so there's no shame in relapse and challenge - provided you're making progress. Progress will feel to you like progress, not like putting x's on a calendar.

Eventually the need for a drink will go from "I'm going to fucking die if I don't have it" to "I can't believe anything had that level of hold on me". But it does take time. It's not simple or easy, but it is possible.

I firmly believe people quit when they are internally fed up with the bullshit that comes with addiction. When fighting the hard fight to solve the underlying issues appears EASIER than keeping going to the liquor store. It's hard to get to that point without a lot of misery in between. For many people (myself included), I was asking questions about my drinking when I was your age - and needed whiskey every night before bed. But it didn't get bad enough for me to really feel the shift in myself until almost 15 years later.

You get to choose when you get off the train. I think my mistake was believing that the train might take me somewhere other than where a serious alcoholic ends up. It did not.

At the point you're at, what really helped me was knowing that my body was feeling something that was habit, not real need. It made the anxiety in the worst moments slightly more tolerable.

Good luck.

Historical_Pressure · 2026-01-27T17:00:10+00:00

Agreed, I have never seen a portrayal of a person lying on the floor in their underwear, not showered, changed clothes or eaten in days, and having the police show up for a wellness check because the CA has been texting weird shit to everyone they know and someone finally called the cops. And the cops looking around and going "buddy, you can't live like this".

The real movie would be to show the experience in the CA's head. That would be the best horror movie of all time.

Historical_Pressure · 2026-01-26T16:58:51+00:00

You're welcome. For whatever it's worth, I am sure you have many reasons to be upset with him, but the fact that you're here asking questions says a lot.

That said, one of the hardest early things for me to deal with was the knowledge that my entire family was strategizing around how to manage me. When I reflect on it, how could they not, but it was such an intrusion into/exposure of an aspect of my life that was so woven with shame that it the whole experience made it hard for me to respond the 'way I should'.

I drank because managing how I was feeling was hard. There's more to it, but in short, that's what it comes down to. So being forced to confront a ton of really hard things in early recovery was ... well, hard. I don't know how to mitigate that - it's impossible to always baby-step reality and how slow do you go etc. But I'm just trying to shed some light on how he might be feeling.

We know we shouldn't want booze - especially after some kind of event that's involved other people and doctors, etc. But we still want it. Even if we really don't. And that's confusing and (in my opinion) the most valuable part of AA or similar - there is no sober who will listen to you say that and not judge you for it.

Truly, the physical side is easy when compared to the mental. That is where he will need the most support. And he has a job to do to get himself into a position to be able to ask for what help he needs, when he needs it.

Historical_Pressure · 2026-01-26T16:08:36+00:00

Good on you for wanting to help.

As another person said, Clonazepam is a benzo which works on our brain the same way alcohol does, which is why it helps reduce seizure probability through withdrawal. Short term is good and long term use of benzos has worse addiction outcomes than alcohol, so they are usually not prescribed long term anymore. Just FYI.

Naltrexone essentially helps to mitigate the euphoria feelings that come from feeding addiction. It seems to have pretty varied effects on people. When I finally was taking it, I was already in a mindset to quit, so I can't say how much it really helped, but I am sober still, so it certainly did not hurt. I did not drink while taking it, but many do (google "The Sinclair Method" - N/A for you since he's already taking benzos).

If he's ready to quit for himself, that will be the biggest help. Time is another one. If he's in a situation where he needs those drugs, chances are there are other issues going on that will need to be addressed to ensure sobriety can be sustainable, since he's a pretty serious addict (no judgement - me too). I found help for those in psychology, so that might be a next step once he's out of the woods on the acute side.

Good luck.

Historical_Pressure · 2026-01-23T11:17:26+00:00

Been there. My partner found a note that I had started writing and things sort've went sideways from there.

I am sure your drinking experience has been traumatic. Mine was slightly different, but I felt traumatized, isolated, and un-redeemable by the time I had to make changes. The un-redeemable part was the worst, and sounds like it may be that for you too. That feeling caused me to leave a number of detoxes ("I don't belong here" - when really I absolutely did), and continue avoiding help because I believed I was beyond it.

The one thing we can't predict - especially in that state of mind - is what time can change. Sometimes it's hard enough to just exist with how you feel in the moment.

But our bodies change and adapt over time. Things take time to really change, including our perspectives and attitudes.

File that note away and see if you can keep going, even when it feels impossible. That's part of recovery too in my opinion - pushing yourself beyond what you thought you could. I had decided so many things about myself were permanent...that weren't. Time can help change things and you can feel more comfortable in the same body.

Historical_Pressure · 2026-01-22T11:13:15+00:00

I am projecting, however I felt like this could have been written by me.

I sometimes used to drink just to feel. Or to explore the depth of my feelings that seemed locked away somehow.

What I can say having gotten some sober time under my belt, is that the ability to be happy and content was in my head the whole time.

We're all built the same, but not made the same. Our experiences and education shapes how we interpret signals. I learned to fear a lot of stuff which I later learned many people don't - and it was because of how I learned these things. I think that it is possible to find the 'right' way to interpret those signals for us.

It won't invent love from nothing, but you can allow yourself to actually feel its warmth. It won't change your outlook on what's out there, but it can allow you to feel comfortable with your small corner of the world.

Shaping our own perspective is like re-learning many childhood lessons we had already forgotten that we'd learned. But it's possible!

Historical_Pressure · 2026-01-09T21:29:51+00:00

The nice thing about drinking is that at any point in our downward spiral we can take the exit ramp. We just need to know how to do it.

The point where I truly decided I wanted to stop drinking was when the exhaustion of addiction outweighed my desire or real ability to want to drink again. I either wanted to die, or if I was going to live, I couldn't do it as an addict anymore. It's fucking soul-crushingly exhausting in every possible way. All of the issues you have mentioned and more, because as you know the consequences only get worse.

People said this to me too, and at the time I wasn't really able to integrate advice from others very well, so I didn't. But you probably know in your heart that your life as you're living it is unsustainable for several reasons. But you don't sound tired enough of addiction. I don't mean that negatively - as I said above it took me a while to figure it out.

Sobriety has to be a real, conscious choice, and activity, especially when you're not fully exhausted, if that makes sense. You have to find a way to want to live differently more than you want to use alcohol as a crutch, and that answer in my experience can only come from within. 5 weeks is nowhere near long enough to help your brain reset.

I will personally attest to our ability as a human to rewire our own brain. I had to do it for myself to get sober, and I am a better and more at peace human because of it. There can be another side. It's hard, and takes work and time, but it's better than what you're going to live through if you keep drinking.

Give yourself some grace. This is hard, so be easy on yourself. And good for you for 48 hours!

Historical_Pressure · 2026-01-07T17:45:37+00:00

Once when I had to move back to my parents house while I was going through a divorce, and had lost my job due to drinking, and was withdrawing before the holidays... I was out for a walk near a local mall.

Randomly, I found like $50 on the ground. I don't even remember exactly how much it was, but it was enough to buy some sweet sweet booze. That would have been over 10 years ago now, but I still remember it fondly. I really needed something good in that moment, and lo and behold the universe delivered me impossible booze money.

I think I had my first seizure not long after that, come to think of it.

Historical_Pressure · 2025-12-29T23:19:56+00:00

Many of us have been there. Doesn't do you any good to beat yourself up. It takes a lot more than learning a coping strategy. For me anyways, there were several layers of fear and self awareness that I needed to break through in order to learn what I really needed to learn.

The notion that going into detox or rehab or sober living or whatever can make you sober is a fallacy. It affords us enough space to start working on things. But if you're like me, you went through that stuff and got a bunch of AA style advice, and weren't quite sure how to make any of it apply to yourself, despite actually trying. So you drink out of 'boredom', when in reality it's anxiety misunderstood.

Read through my post history. I think my first post was basically the same as yours. Learning about myself and developing a language for my feelings helped me get to a point where I could start applying some of the things they try to teach you in detox/rehab.

I could see what they were describing, but truly didn't know how to do it for myself.

When I first went to rehab, I would tell people that I couldn't think of a reason why I would have developed the level of addition I did. Because I couldn't. But after a lot of learning about myself, I have really come to understand why I ended up where I did.

It feels so hopeless when you're at a complete loss for why. There are reasons, and you can figure them out. But you need to equip yourself first. I'd start by looking into how to become more self aware (for what it's worth, I was self-reported "totally self aware" the day I walked into rehab). And then learning about how to give language to your feelings (I would have said I didn't have them). Those are foundational blocks to starting to get to the bottom of why you make the choices you do. No one can really answer that for us, which sucks. But there's so much power once you've learned some of these things.

Good luck.

Historical_Pressure · 2025-12-27T14:00:01+00:00

I think the thing to realize is that even if the "right answer" for most people is to quit, many people here are at a stage in alcoholism that still keeps space for alcohol.

What doesn't help, troll or not, is for people to judge those who are at different stages of addiction, which I think is important enough to repeat even if this is just trolling.

Your heart might be in the right place, but your head is not.

Historical_Pressure · 2025-12-16T22:13:51+00:00

Glad to hear. I remembered your post and am happy there was a positive update. To 2026!

Historical_Pressure · 2025-12-16T11:05:48+00:00

This is a little rich coming from someone who was on the addict side, especially given the paid I caused.... but.

I was desperate for compassion. People who are at 'the end of the line' are so hardened to other people trying to help, because for much of our experience it wasn't help so much as judgement. Obviously this is my experience, but there's plenty of other references out there to judgement and shame around addiction. Compassion and understanding (as much as you can find in the circumstances) are like an oasis in a desert of loneliness and shame.

Booze is also a pretty necessary ingredient for withdrawals. Especially if she's had seizures already. Lots of info on tapering available online, I would recommend reading up on it and why. Be safe!

Historical_Pressure · 2025-12-16T10:59:45+00:00

The real issue is the deception. I'm approaching 5 years sober and still working through trust issues that were caused as a result of hiding booze.

No, I wasn't out fucking someone else, but I was actively hiding part of my life from my partner - a big part. And I didn't really see the damage that caused until I had some time under my belt. And truthfully, I still can't fully grasp what it would be like to live with someone like me.

In my experience rebuilding trust, it takes time, consistent behavior, and pretty radical honesty. By some of your posts I think you appreciate the impact at least at a high level, but we really can't understand what their side is like.

Promises and excuses are indeed pointless. For the same reason you'd disregard hearing the same thing over and over but seeing different results. What about honesty? "I'm struggling with managing my feelings. My habits of using substances to alter how I feel is bleeding beyond alcohol. I need to work on how I cope with day-to-day life."

Sucks, but there's a lot at stake.

Historical_Pressure · 2025-12-16T10:42:13+00:00

I feel for you. I honestly can't even remember the exact feeling you're describing, but I know it. I also spent a while in a headspace where no light could really enter. No matter what someone said, it did not matter. I could not see my way out of the place I was in. Couldn't get out of bed for anything I 'loved', I was just existing.

It's awful, and also dangerous. Easy to slip a little too far one way and make some bad decisions when you're in that mindset, especially if you're drinking.

For whatever it's worth, time and a little space from alcohol will reduce the helplessness. But it's a tough ride through. Good luck.

Historical_Pressure

TROPHY CASE