And I slept from about 3am till 8pm, that's about 17 hours. I was tired. All that cleaning has exhausted me. And that was natural sleep without pills or potions other than the prescribed methadone (back to the full dose, half-dosing made me sick about a day or a day-and-a-half later). I don't obsessively check times and doses with methadone. For someone who's been labelled neurotic more than once I'm remarkably unneurotic when it comes to detoxification. I have in the past cut myself down very steeply from methadone (and felt dreadful) and heroin (and felt fine). Not that methadone is FAR WORSE and a TOTALLY INAPPROPRIATE TREATMENT FOR HEROIN ADDICTION but there you go!I cut my drinking by about two thirds yesterday down to 2.75 cans, each can holds 500mls so I had somewhere around 100mls alcohol, 10 units. My maths fails me. Today I've had 2.25 cans, which would be around 80mls alcohol, 8 units.
I could swap over to benzodiazepines (e.g. Valium) and taper down on pills. Clinics do this (they don't give drink!) and lots of people do it informally. Or I could cut down by just drinking less. I don't know. A Smirnoff cloudy lemonade 700ml bottle is 4% ABV, only 28mls/2.8 units for £3 and that's really nice. Unfortunately in the past I tended to knock it down very quickly in compensation. I'm already drinking my drink mixed with fruit juice. This makes it less dehydrating but has the disadvantage of being a bit too tasty. Nicer than any premixed drink sold in the shops and I've tried a few.So I'm not sure what to do, whether to cut down on drink or to switch to pills. The advantage of the pills is you lose the buzz of alcohol and once you cut down tiny you cannot feel anything at all. So it's actually cleaner. Alcohol is just too nice. Akh I don't know what to do.
The other thing is, clinics usually use Valium or more frequently Librium or Ativan (lorazepam). I don't trust the supply of Valium because a lot is if not fake then unreliable. The temazepam I got was OK. Normally if I got something like that I'd go for Valium, but I got temazepam on instinct because it's not internationally as well known and I've never heard of it being faked. (Bootleg meds are made in far-away countries; the manufacturers tend to go for the best-known and hence internationally most saleable product.) The main difference between the two is that Valium is a better muscle relaxant, temazepam is more sedating. (Temazepam is traded as Restoril in the USA.) Being as I'm not in it for either effect I suppose I have my answer. If I want a benzo, any one will do.
I still don't know what road to take. I'm very tempted to ring Mr Temazepam and make the switchover. I'm only posting this so you can follow my reasoning. Would I be doing something wrong to essentially replicate what hospitals and clinics do?My fear is of simply derailing one habit into another. Alcohol is more dangerous than benzos. Both are addictive. Akh. I don't know.
Welcome to 2011 everyone :-)
It's 2am. BBC News Channel has started already on BBC1. Sometimes it comes on early. Whenever it does come on, I feel like I should sleep...
*Vityaz-1 Deep in the Mariana Trench is said to contain the deepest water on the face of the earth
Wikipedia: Alcohol Withdrawal
Wikipedia: Alcohol Detoxification
In this new year, may you, my dear friend find that there always be work for your hands to do.
ReplyDeleteMay your purse always hold a coin or two.
May the sun always shine upon your window pane.
May a rainbow be certain to follow each rain.
May the hand of a friend always be near to you and
May God fill your heart with gladness to cheer you.
Do you really want to swap one habit for another? I would have thought cutting down on your alcohol consumption gradually would be better. Good luck with it Gleds and I wish you a Very Happy New Year. x
ReplyDeleteNick: thank you.
ReplyDeleteAkelamalu: Not really but...
I went visiting today. I heard her voice through the intercom but I thought that was broken so when he came out I said "how come she was talking through the intercom?" and he said what are you on? And I said "nothing I'm just not drinking, it must be the DTs and hh took a look at me and said I'll give ya a couple of Librium and he gave me 9 saying take 3 every 4 hours then you'll be OK till tomorrow and I did. Felt barely anything off them. So they're better than drink as I can't feel them. I'd rather have a pill habit than a drink habit in the short term. Easier to come off and I just don't like pills as much so they're like methadone to heroin (but work better than methadone does in cpmparison) so I don't mind.
Then someone asked me if I was on lithium. Thanks a lot!!
Gledwood,
ReplyDeleteIt's good to hear that you got some good sleep.
You were awake a lot for quite a while, right?
That sleep must feel so refreshing for you, finally after a long time without sleep.
j.
Sleeping is good for me. I rarely get as much as I need.
ReplyDeleteTaffeta: my sleep pattern goes all over the place. From zero hours (very bad) to one hour (appalling) to 4 hours (my general bare minimum) to 14-16 hours (my general maximum, unless I've lost sleep for days, in which case I can do 18 or more).... none of which is good. I really NEED my sleep, I'm sure sleep deprvation does no good at all..!
ReplyDeleteSyd: me neither. I really wish I could. And drs bullshit you with "your body makes sure you get what you need" well no, if you're totally out of your nut you don't. And I am referring to when I went crazy some weeks back I went 60 hours, 2 and a half days with ZERO sleep. Then I got 5 hours, stayed up about 23 hours, slept ONE hour and for the rest of the week slept about four or five hours a night though I desperately needed more. This went on for 10 days then I crashed and my mood plummetted. Lovely business!