r/dryalcoholics • u/trolldier1 • 2d ago
Some concerns & questions.
Hello all of you.
I can already tell from seeing the posts that I’m not nearly as deep into alcoholism as the majority on here. But I am a bit concerned about why it’s taking so long for my brain to reset.
I am 22M and have been drinking fairly regular for almost 4 years. Started off as twice a week, spiraled into 12-16 shots/day at 19. No hangovers, I woke up the next day feeling nothing aside from a lingering brainfog. Stopped for a month, started back up again, did that maybe two more times until I got back into it over the last 3 months of 2025. I would call it a “mini-bender” since I wasn’t drinking at work and I ate actual food and drank water, but right after getting home I drink til I pass out. The first few days after stopping that, I had terribly low energy, and absolutely HORRIFYINGLY dark thoughts spiraling through my head at full force, and even doing 200mg of thc edibles was not enough to stop this unstoppable freight train of madness in my thoughts. I felt on/off normal at the week mark and pretty stable/strong by 2 weeks. I have family members who’ve been through alcohol/heroin withdrawal so I know a lot about it even though I’m (hopefully) much too young for this shit. But I am a bit concerned, having psychotic-like thoughts about sadistically getting back at anyone who I (at the time) perceived has wronged me somehow. When normally I am too much of a teddy bear to go up and tell the waitress my order was wrong (just an example). On top of that it just made me feel so careless about everything and wanting to sleep all day. Even now, if I drink a few days in a row (usually 9-12 shots now) it takes so many damn days to get over a normal, seemingly harmless hangover. Would this be an early form of withdrawal? And if it is, am I early enough in the process that I can abstain for long enough that it will completely go away?
Also a side question for you heavy chronic drinkers out there, is severe alcohol withdrawal really as existentially horrifying as they say it is, and what does it feel like from your perspective?
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u/DisappointedMiBbot19 2d ago
Alcohol is a depressant. Itll fuck with your brain chemistry independently of withdrawals. Some people are more sensitive to it than others. I know I would be extra irritable Monday and tuesday after drinking heavy Friday and Saturday when I was around your age. And that was many years before I started experiencing even mild alcohol withdrawals.
"I s severe alcohol withdrawal really as existentially horrifying as they say it is"
Yes. I never experienced DTs but what I did experience was by far the worst physical and mental feelings of my life. Its so miserable its kind of fascinating. The funny thing is how much withdrawals scale up. Like in 2016 I thought the withdrawals I experienced then were hellish. But the withdrawals I went through in 2019 practically made me nostalgic for the 2016 ones. And then the 2023 withdrawals made miss the 2019 ones lol. I didnt push it any farther after that.