• @Lifecoach5000@lemmy.worldEnglish
    47•5 months ago

    Man growing up and being able to google stuff must be wild. I’m from the days when you would call a dedicated phone number just to get the time and temperature.

  • volvoxvsmarla
    42•5 months ago

    I had an alcohol problem and once went to work somewhere between hungover, still drunk, and trying to sober up, being close to delirium. Anxiety through the roof. I kept googling things like “can you die from alcohol withdrawal” “how does dying from alcohol withdrawal feel” “symptoms of severe alcohol withdrawal” “how likely is it to die from alcohol withdrawal and delirium” - something along those lines. So, so often, with breaks in between trying to work, but I must have googled something like “dying” + “alcohol” like 60-100 times at least within a couple of hours. At some point my computer/browser asked if I was alright because my behaviour was suspicious. Needless to say this shot my anxiety up even more and I panicked so hard because I didn’t know whether this was somehow reported to the university whose internet and laptop I was using or whether this was just google.

    This was in 2019 and I still get anxiety attacks thinking about this message popping up

    • AwkwardLookMonkeyPuppetEnglish
      35•5 months ago

      To answer your questions for anyone reading this who is struggling

      • Yes you can die from alcohol withdrawal
      • Dying from alcohol withdrawal feels like impending doom, racing heart, extreme anxiety, heavy sweating, muscle tremors, sometimes hallucination, and eventually a heart attack or stroke
      • You are very likely to die from alcohol withdrawal if you’re a serious alcoholic who suddenly stops drinking for somewhere between 1 and 7 days
      • Symptoms of alcohol withdrawal are listed in the second bullet

      To safely quit drinking, a heavy alcoholic must slowly taper down, or seek medical detox. Hopefully you’re doing better now.

      • volvoxvsmarla
        11•5 months ago

        The funny thing is, I knew all that. And I kept getting the same results from my excessive google searches. So why did I keep googling? I still wonder what the point was. But probably there just wasn’t a point. I had all the symptoms and I knew that and I still wanted to keep my show up, which, insanely, worked. I did go on medical leave at some point but everyone thinks it was because of burnout and depression. Even the doctors. They saw my blood work and still somehow attributed insane ferritin levels to a flu I claimed I had. No need to say that keeping my appearance could have cost me my life and I absolutely do not recommend detoxing on your own.

        And it did get better, thanks. Took a while and some fallbacks (this was probably the worst and most excessive and destructive binge since pre 2016). Haven’t had a drink in over 3 years and at that point it was already just a glass of wine due to holidays.

        • AwkwardLookMonkeyPuppetEnglish
          3•5 months ago

          Congratulations! I’ve been there too. I checked into detox 6 years ago, and have been sober ever since.

          • volvoxvsmarla
            2•5 months ago

            Thank you and congratulations to you too! Six years is a long time.

            This thread really took a turn

          • volvoxvsmarla
            4•5 months ago

            Oh God I don’t remember. The thing is that I didn’t have “The Drink”. I drank basically everything (I know most people say that they drank mostly wine or mostly whiskey etc). And I didn’t really keep count. I’d say on average days I had a beer or two before going to work, one at lunch, about 100 ml of hard liquor during the day and one or two beers before going home. At home I’d just keep drinking, wine and whiskey and beer and champagne and vodka and gin… Average bad days I’d guess about a liter of hard booze within 1.5 days and accompanied by one or two bottles of wine and a some 2-3 liters of beer.

            For reference, I am a woman weighing about 50 kg. Most of the time I was extraordinarily high functioning. Like, best grade in an elite university in an exam despite being blasted.

    • @FrostyCaveman@lemm.ee
      12•5 months ago

      Damn, that’s dark, hope you’re doing better these days. I’ve been in a very similar place myself.

      To anyone that’s reading this: it might feel impossible to break the cycle, but it’s not. If you make enough decisions that are better than the ones you made previously, no matter how small, they WILL aggregate.

      • volvoxvsmarla
        3•5 months ago

        Thank you, I am very happily sober. It was actually never my plan, I always wanted to achieve controlled drinking. I wanted to be that parent who can have a glass of wine on a date night. But I would be scared shitless that it would go out of control so I don’t feel like touching alcohol at all. And truth be told, I am too exhausted to deal with hangovers or that constant tiredness of being drunk right now.

        Simply put, I am happy. I think I was drinking because the things I wanted out of life were so freaking far away. Now I got them all and there is no need to sabotage myself. Another part is that I was really excelling at a life that I hated, the Plan B life. And it was boring me to death, so I played it on difficult mode. Will they catch me? How far can I go? Like a stupid teenager.

        What helped me, besides having something to work for, was that I didn’t want to become sober forever. I know this should be the goal but as a 20 something who really liked the taste this was a scary thought. I kept thinking of reduction and even now, being fully aware that I most likely won’t ever drink again, I set myself a goal to not drink until my kid is 12. That’s an easier goal to have ahead of me than never again. For anyone out there struggling with the classic approaches, maybe that’s something.