Understanding Alcohol Withdrawal – Treatment, Causes, Timeline & Dangers

This question is surprisingly common. Many people do not realize just how strong of a hold alcohol has on them until they try and stop drinking. When you stop drinking alcohol after a long-period of misuse, it affects your body. You can have several types of withdrawal symptoms. Here are a few of the most common:

-Aches and pains
-Issues with your stomach
-Headaches or migraines
-Irritability or sudden mood changes
-Struggles with your blood pressure
-Inability to sleep soundly or fall asleep
-Feeling anxious about having another drink

In more extreme cases, you may face more significant withdrawal symptoms, such as a racing heart, trouble breathing, hallucinations, or even seizures. Ideally, you want to experience your withdrawals in the presence of people with training to keep you safe. That way, if something goes awry, you can still be safe during your detox.

Part of what defines an addiction is having withdrawals when the substance is no longer part of the routine. For an alcoholic, this means no longer consuming alcohol. Once the body detects that no alcohol is in the system, it begins to react to get you to drink more. This often happens around 6-8 hours after having the last drink in most instances. The reactions the body gives off are the symptoms associated with withdrawals. The more each person consumed, the stronger the symptoms. Not all alcoholics will have severe withdrawal symptoms, but each alcoholic will experience something when they stop drinking.

When you make the heroic decision to give up alcohol, you are likely going to face a lot of symptoms during the detox process. The one symptom we find most people nervous about is hallucinations. The truth is, hallucinations can happen during alcohol detox. The more you drank, the higher your chances of developing hallucinations become. Thankfully, by opting to go through alcohol detox under supervision, steps can be taken should any auditory, visual, or tactile hallucinations appear. Medications and other remedies can minimize the chances of having a hallucination while detoxing from alcohol.

During alcohol withdrawals, you may experience stomach upset. In some people, this does show up as nausea. In others, it can show up as diarrhea. Some people just feel sick to their stomach as their body detoxifies from alcohol. Each person’s experience will be different. Luckily, alleviating nausea is relatively easy if you start to experience it in detox.

In most instances, you will not develop a fever going through alcohol withdrawals. However, there are times where this could happen. In specific, if you develop DTs, or what we commonly call Delirium Tremens, a fever is a common side effect. This is because of how severely your body is reacting to not having alcohol in most instances. This is an important symptom to monitor. That is another reason you should not opt to go through alcohol withdrawals on your own. It is always best to have a professional monitor you through the withdrawals process. That way, you are far less likely to develop any serious side-effects along the way.

For many people, alcohol withdrawal symptoms go away after a week to two weeks. However, this is not the case for everyone. Some people, especially those who abused alcohol for a significant amount of their lives, have symptoms that last longer. While rare, some people get severe enough symptoms that they do not go away for weeks or even months. However, that is quite rare and usually only happens to those who are older and drank for the vast majority of their lives. When this is the case, it usually starts with DTs and those effects are what stick around.

This question is a little trickier to answer. For some people, alcohol withdrawals are a few days of feeling poor and life goes on. For others, they struggle far more symptoms for an extended period of time. Every journey through withdrawals to sobriety is unique. Overall, most people feel the most serious effects of alcohol withdrawals for 1-2 weeks and then they decrease until they are finally gone. There are several factors that come into play when trying to determine how serious withdrawals will be. They include:

-How much a person drank each day.
-How long the person drank in their lifetime.
-The types of alcohol the person consumed.
-How old and what gender the person was.
-The person’s weight and health issues.

The more a person drank, the longer they drank, the harder the alcohol, the older, and the heavier a person was all make withdrawals more serious. However, if the person only abused alcohol for a short time, the effects should be less.

The best way to diagnose alcohol withdrawal is by seeing a doctor. However, most alcoholics have a pretty good idea what is going on. When they stop drinking alcohol, their body revolts in a way. It is not happy because the alcohol changed how the body functioned. As the person drank, the alcohol changed the way the brain was wired. The more alcohol the person consumed, the more changes were made.

Now, as the person chooses to stop drinking (or may simply not have any more alcohol to drink), the body shows signs of a struggle. When this struggle becomes noticed, it confirms alcohol withdrawals. The alcoholic is not going to feel good, will often feel quite agitated, and will focus on getting another drink. These symptoms point to alcohol withdrawals. This should lead the alcoholic to an alcohol detox facility. That way, they can be monitored to leave alcohol behind in a safe environment.

The best approach to treating alcohol withdrawal symptoms is to do it with help. Alcohol is not one of those drugs you want to just stop cold turkey over the weekend, figuring to go back to work on Monday. It is one that you should do while supervised, ideally by someone with at least basic medical training. Alcohol detox facilities exist to help guide people through alcohol withdrawal symptoms. Most recovering alcoholics learn to manage their symptoms day by day at first. They struggle to ask for help or feel like there are no options for relief. By going to a detox center, there are options to get many of the symptoms to subside. They may be relaxation, massage, medication, or even just talking with someone to manage the emotions attached.

Alcohol is not a drug you simply withdraw from unless you barely drank in the first place. However, if you rarely drink, then you may not be reading an FAQ page like this one. Alcohol becomes a substance your body relies on the more you use or abuse it. It changes how you breathe, how your heart beats, and how you think. The wiring from your brain to the rest of your body is never exactly the same after abusing alcohol for any period of time. When you want to give up alcohol, you need to do it the right way. This means either seeing your primary care physician, or coming to a detox facility like ours. We can then help manage your symptoms and help you through the transition from drinker to sober.

This question is more common than you may think. Many alcoholics believe their symptoms are only in their head. “It’s just alcohol, it can’t do that much” is what many people think. The truth is, when you feel alcohol withdrawal symptoms, it is totally real. The pain you may experience, the stomach upset, or your inability to sleep is all real. That is the alcohol showing you how much control it had over you by making your body crave another drink. By having a rehab counselor there when these withdrawals hit, you can make it through them. When it gets rough, take everything moment by moment, then minute by minute. Before you know it, you will be up to hours, then days, then weeks. You can do this, and it all starts by knowing you can have help with everything you are thinking and feeling right now.

Aches and pains are the most common physical symptom of alcohol withdrawal. Your body will often hurt like when you get a bad case of the flu. Every part of your body will ache and moving is no fun. You may have headaches that range from mild to debilitating. Some people notice that they sweat a lot when going through alcohol withdrawals. In more extreme cases, some people have seizures or severe fevers as a result of their withdrawals. In the rarest of cases, alcohol withdrawals can even cause heart or breathing trouble, coma, or death. That is why having someone to monitor you through your withdrawals is so vital.

The extent of what you could go through during alcohol withdrawals depends on many different factors. However, the body goes through a similar process. As it is trying to rid the body of any remnants of alcohol, your body is going to hurt. You may feel like you are simply achy all over. Your mind is going to try and rewire itself to full-functionality without alcohol. This often leaves people struggling with headaches.

The desire for more alcohol can leave people facing anxiety or confusion. Your kidneys and liver are going to continue working through whatever alcohol is left in your system. Plus, they are going to attempt to flush anything toxic left behind from the alcohol out, too. Your body is going to start trying to heal itself quickly after your last drink, so do what you can to drink water, eat right, and rest so it can do its job.

For most people, they notice the earliest alcohol withdrawal symptoms within 5 or 8 hours of their last drink. Some notice it sooner and some don’t notice symptoms for the first 12-24 hours. Each person’s experience will be unique.

For most, by the end of 5-7 days, they will have only minor alcohol withdrawal symptoms if any at all. Some will still have a few lingering effects into a second week. However, nearly all people notice that their symptoms have all but disappeared by the end of week two.

Anyone that has been drinking heavily for an extended period of time can face alcohol withdrawal. It doesn’t take being an alcoholic to get these symptoms. However, if you are an alcoholic, then you are more likely to get them. The longer your alcoholism has gone on will be part of what dictates the length and severity of your withdrawal symptoms.