Post Alcohol Fatigue

If you quit drinking on New Year's Day, then HUGE CONGRATULATIONS on making it through your first Friday night and into Day 6. You are awesome!

Have you had much in the way of withdrawal symptoms?

Despite the fact that I was drinking around ten bottles of wine a week, when I finally quit my issues were mainly psychological rather than physical.

My readers and fellow bloggers often report headaches, mild 'flu like symptoms and difficulty getting to sleep, but the one physical symptom that seems to unite us all and I bet you're grappling with too is...

EXHAUSTION.

Not just feeling a little bit weary, must put my feet up tiredness, but a bone deep sluggishness, a feeling that every cell in your body has switched to 'go slow'.

It's a weariness that mere sleep can't solve, and it's accompanied by an all encompassing feeling of ennui, of what's it all about anyway?

The only time I had felt anything approaching this was in the early stages of pregnancy, when getting through the day is like wading through pea soup.

So, if that's how you're feeling then DON'T PANIC! It's entirely normal and it will shift.

People often talk about 'the threes' when it comes to addiction and breaking habits.

It takes around three days for all the alcohol to leave your body, then three weeks for the worst of the physical effects to pass, and three months (we tend to talk about 100 days) before the worst of the psychological effects start to recede.

By day 21, or thereabouts, you should be feeling a great deal perkier.

In the meantime, indulge yourself. Think about it like a bout of 'flu. Go to bed early. If you can, have an afternoon nap. Drink hot chocolate, wear cashmere socks, have lots of hot baths with bubbles.

Exercise helps, especially in the fresh air, as does taking a vitamin B complex supplement (alcohol strips us of B vitamins which causes fatigue) and a magnesium supplement before bedtime if you're having problems sleeping.

Eat as well as you can and drink fresh juices and smoothies to replace all the nutrients that alcohol has leeched out of your cells.

If the constant tiredness is getting you down, then remember it's your body healing. If you ever have wobbles about why you're doing this, then the way you're feeling now is evidence you're doing the right thing.

You feel like you've been run over by a bus because you've been filling your body with toxins for years and it's going to take it a while to recover.

Before long you'll be sleeping like a baby and be bouncing out of bed in the mornings like the Duracell Bunny, ready to take on the day.

(See my post from Day 24: Sleep, Glorious Sleep)

Just one word of warning though: as your body recalibrates and your dopamine levels adjust to life without booze, these periods of exhaustion do recur from time to time. It's called Post Acute Withdrawal Syndrome, and you can read more about it here.

Keep on at it - you're doing an amazing thing, and let us know how you are in the comments below.

Love to you all,

SM x

Post Acute Withdrawal and Vitamin B

Day 121.

Isn't that a great number? Like a swan swimming down a stream.

I digress. I'm having another attack of the PAWS. Luckily, I have this blog, and a handy post entitled Post Acute Withdrawal Syndrome.

I re-read it. PAWS is often viewed as cyclical - occurring approximately monthly. And, spookily, my last 'episode' ended almost exactly a month ago.

I did beat myself up a bit about becoming obsessed - believing that everything had to be about alcohol. After all, everyone has ups and downs and attacks of the 'blues', not just recovering alkies.

But what makes PAWS different, at least in my experience, is that the general ennui is accompanied by extraordinary tiredness and a bizarre brain fug.

Despite sleeping a solid 7 hours, I wake up really tired and 'heavy' and desperate for another sleep by mid afternoon. And I constantly do things like walk into a room and forget why I'm there.

I completely forgot that #2 had a dress up day at school a couple of days ago. There are mothers at the school who run companies turning over gazillions of pounds, yet their sons turned up in homemade Viking invaders kits. I don't even have a proper job.

This isn't like me at all. Even in my days as a high-functioning-alcoholic I managed to keep all the balls in the air by way of endless lists and sticky notes all over the front door.

Here's some of the PAWS symptoms listed in my previous post: tiredness, low enthusiasm, irritability, memory lapses, anxiety and variable concentration. Tick, tick, tick to all of them.

Then I remembered fabulous Anne (ainsobriety) commenting on my last PAWS post that Vitamin B can help, and I found this article on livestrong.com.

Apparently, alcohol dependence is a major cause of B vitamin deficiency, as your liver burns through these vitamins when it metabolises alcohol. B vitamins include folic acid, riboflavin and niacin.

Eating more foods rich in these vitamins plus taking a B complex vitamin supplement can hugely aid detox and recovery, in several ways. Here's what they say:

Niacin (vitamin B-3) can make withdrawal easier, while thiamine (vitamin B-1) is used to decrease fatigue and to increase effective brain functioning and memory. Pantothenic acid (vitamin B-5) helps rid your body of alcohol and supports adrenal function....

..... B vitamins help alleviate the intensity of PAWS. For example, vitamin B-6 (pyridoxine) aids in the production of melatonin and serotonin, chemicals that help in improving sleep and decreasing anxiety....

.....Due to a B-vitamin deficiency caused by alcohol dependence, your body may begin recovery with some deficits, including an inadequate iron level and neurological difficulties such as poor memory, depression and confusion. The vitamins B-6, B-1 and folic acid (vitamin B-9) are vital in your body's ability to create and maintain adequate iron levels and in avoiding neurological problems.

Funnily enough I've been craving foods recently that are rich in these B-vitamins - smoked mackerel, salmon, pistachio nuts, avocados, endamame - all foods that I used to eat only occasionally, but are now firm staples of my diet. It's amazing how - once we're sober - our bodies can tell us what they need.

I've been through this before. I know it'll only be a few days before I hit another 'up cycle'.

In the meantime, like that swan in 121, I'll keep madly paddling below the surface while seemingly gliding along it.

So start supplementing your vitamin B levels, and have a great day!

SM x