As I’ve made clear before, completely kicking alcohol and staying off it for decades is absolutely the hardest thing I’ve ever done.
I’ve never been more proud of anything. Discover why in that excellent book.
As you begin kicking the alcohol habit, be guaranteed a difficult path. It’s a long, long road, and it will be hard. That’s partly because there are just so many facets to the process—trying to adjust to all of them is just not easy. The length also becomes an endurance test. Yeah, it becomes second nature after a while, but staying sober is a lifelong venture. Staying sober for a while isn’t beneficial. Since it’s something you have to maintain for so long, the process runs through so many life changes that it’s very hard to keep afloat.
And the very beginning is no picnic either. There is no easy way to stop drinking, contrarily to what’s controversially exposed here! You may go through withdrawals, and generally, it’s tough. But the suffering and discomfort is really a growing pain during the transition to a new you. In this piece, we will describe a timeline laying out what a person can expect to face in the days, weeks, months and years after they kick this ugly habit.
Standard disclaimer: actual mileage may vary.
Day One.
In one interesting way, this will feel much like any other day if you suffer from alcohol dependency- you’ll likely be suffering from a hangover; headaches, nausea, exhaustion, dehydration, anxiousness, and a complete lack of enthusiasm for even the simplest of tasks. The one major difference here is that as a recovering alcoholic, you no longer have the ‘hair of the dog’ to rely on. Check if that would work for you.
Yet, you’ll be full of purpose, too. You’ll be excited. What I would recommend is that you have on tap for this day something special and really invigorating, like a mountain bike ride, renting a raucous comedy, some big fun with the girlfriend. Maybe just make a homemade pizza absolutely piled with the best toppings.
The First Three Days: A Detailed Look.
5 to 10 Hours In:
You very well may experience high anxiety during this time, and you may stop feeling so well. But if you find yourself getting the shakes within just a few hours without drinking, you are likely a high-risk case who should consult a doctor or detox center.
12 to 24 Hours In:
You may experience symptoms such as vomiting and nausea, and in some cases, even hallucinations. While these are unusual, that doesn’t mean they should cause you undo worry. Frightening, yes. But hallucinations shouldn’t last long, if they do you might get a deeper insight reading these surprising recommendations..
6 to 48 Hours In:
At this point, fits and seizures are a threat, and there’s a very real risk of mortality due to such seizures.
2 to 3 Days In:
During this time, you may find anxiety decreasing. You’ll start to be more aware of you’re your body is doing. You’ll have an awareness and will start to feel comfortable with what you’re feeling. You may find that some of the worst symptoms outline above are receding.
You’re not completely out of the window for Delirium Tremens. So you’ll have to be poised to seek attention right away if symptoms occur.
Week One.
This first week can vary depending on the severity of your disease. No pussy-footing around here, if you have a nasty dependency, this week will be brutal. Here’s something else about which I won’t pussy-foot: this is the time when a lot of people go back to drink. The good news here is that if you can get past this week, things get a lot better, as evidenced here.
While some people can cruise through the week on the strength of their enthusiasm (and perhaps the thrill of taking up mountain biking and getting that endorphin high), for most, this week is awful. Fatigue, nausea, and possibly sweating and that whole routine are common. Now, if you hit extreme symptoms such as fever, visual and audio hallucinations and tremors, you’re in danger of yourself suffering from these more severe symptoms then you may be at risk of Delirium Tremens (DTs).
If you enter this territory, you’ll be seeking medical help, and this will help steer the course of the next few days.
Month One.
Remember, the week is the big hurdle. A week in, you should be starting to feel that you can do this. You’ll feel like Hey, I’m doing this! You’ll be used to it, and it will start to feel like you. You’ll start to feel some nice immediate benefits like a clear head and increased energy. You’ll kind of feel like a health nut, and your self-esteem will skyrocket.
Now, you’re in the temptation zone here. Just as not drinking starts to feel familiar, you’ll get the opposing problem of the longing. This post isn’t all about how to deal with temptation—that’s addressed elsewhere. But it’s what you need at this point.
Once you get into the month, you’ll be getting more confident by the day. You’ll start to understand what it is to be able to dismiss temptations. More on positively and promptly terminating temptations here. It’s like being a runner two or three miles into a marathon—some of the good chemicals have kicked in and you’re feeling momentum pushing you through.
Halfway through the month, you’ll be noticing some very welcome positive changes. Without the dehydrating effects of booze, you’ll find better hydrated skin. Dandruff, eczema and acne will be on their way out.
Your sleep will improve now that you’re not drinking—the brain waves will be a lot more even and will provide you with the kind of sleep that will allow you to feel rested.
Your digestion will improve drastically. Your stomach will feel clean and light and you’ll know that your digestive processes are happening well.
It’s not too soon for liver to be showing improvement. It’s not being driven like a slave anymore. With no alcohol toxins to toil with, it focuses on tasks like strengthening your immune system and helping you heal from cuts and scrapes and bruises more quickly.
So, one thing that will be going on at this stage is reckoning with your new lifestyle, which won’t just be a week-old novelty. You’ll be out on the town less, maybe alone more, maybe hanging out with drinkers and having to deal with that. Discover here how to boost your willpower.
Six Months and Onwards
This is where things get good. You make some really big transitions after six months. One of the big deals is that you can call yourself a recovering alcoholic. You can look in the mirror and smile and say, “hey, six months,” or eight or nine. You will look back at the drinking you and he’ll seem foreign.
You’ll remember some of your bad behaviors. You’ll meet a particular commitment and realize in the past you would’ve screwed it up. You’ll hear the shadow of your own self saying some harsh thing or throwing a tantrum and you’ll realize you don’t do that anymore.
The adjustments you’ve made concerning dealing with friends and figuring out how to live a social life as a recovered alcoholic are falling into place.
However, during the post-six months era, you still have the basic work of exercising will power, finding things to take your mind off of drink. In fact, you sort of have that six years after quitting.
But one of the things that happens during this time can be dealing with the aftermath. In my case, I relocated. I needed a clean slate. I maintained relationships with a lot of friends from Albuquerque where I’d been—through e-mail, at a safe distance. It wasn’t so much that I was blaming the people around me and that I had to flee them. On the contrary, it was sad that I had to leave certain things behind. However, I did need to get into a new place where things were new.
But one of the things I did was to smooth some things over, even with the people I left behind. I had to resolve issues with an ex-girlfriend and all sorts of friends and relations. It wasn’t always a matter of apologizing for a particular thing but just giving them the details about why I did certain things the way I did back when I was drinking, and assuring them it was over. Check here why you should never apologize.
In your case, you very well may not move to a new city, and may keep right on with your friends and family. That will be tricky, and you may find that certain wounds haven’t healed for them. You’ll feel like they’re holding grudges for something the old you did, and this is all something to negotiate. One of the things you’ll have to keep in mind will be that to them, your transformation has been fast—some of them won’t intimately know that you’ve been struggling so valiantly. What’s huge to you is no big deal to them, and they won’t be convinced you’re a new you until you can keep it up for maybe two years or so.
The posts on this blog break down so many of these ideas into their individual parts. That’s where they get their due justice. Here, it’s about trying to give an overview. I can just say that for me it’s been a worthwhile journey, even if it’s seemed almost impossible at times.
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