Severe alcohol symptoms begin a few hours after stopping 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 they stop working properly without putting more alcohol into the system. You may experience a high fever and uncontrollable negative thoughts, but that’s not all, as it quickly becomes a very dangerous and serious health problem.
You can have hallucinations: hearing sounds that are not there, feeling things on your skin, and even visual appearances. These delusions can last for weeks in extreme cases and make you feel like you’re going crazy, and you’re probably right. You may have full-body seizures 24 to 48 hours after your last drink of alcohol. During all this time, you will feel confused, will have difficulty processing information and making decisions. You will have trouble with memory recall, including remembering what you are doing now or what you did a few moments ago.
Severe alcohol withdrawal can be fatal, and you may need a benzodiazepine or similar medication to calm your overactive brain, prevent seizures, and lower/stabilize/restore normal blood pressure. Without drastic intervention and continual binge drinking, health rapidly deteriorates. If you’re binge drinking or binge drinking now, this is where you’re headed. If you can’t stop once it starts, you have a serious dependency problem and you need to take it seriously and get the help you need before it takes everything you have and ultimately kills you (quote below).
Recently, with the coronavirus crisis, people with severe alcohol addictions had hurt their internal organs so much that their probability of death from Covid-19 increased significantly. We’ve all heard of comorbidities, right?
If you have a friend or loved one who has these severe symptoms, it is imperative that you get them help. If not, there’s a good chance you won’t have them as friends or loved ones for much longer. Alcoholism is serious. Alcoholics will often not seek help on their own. Yes, some strong-willed people with alcohol dependence, 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:
Alcohol Withdrawal Assessment: The Clinical Institute Withdrawal Assessment for Alcohol Scale-Revised (CIWA-Ar)”, by John T. Sullivan, MB, Ch.B, Kathy Sykora, M.Sc, Joyce Schneiderman, MD , et al British Journal of Addiction (1989) 84, 1353-1357.
