marc119911 Posted December 5, 2019 Share Posted December 5, 2019 Good evening people, I am a recovering alcoholic who was three years sober, but relapsed severely three months ago for two weeks, and had to pay £3500 to enter a private detox clinic. Now I am two months sober and my GP has prescribed 50mg Sertraline to "help" with depression. After reading posts from this site, plus much research on Youtube, I am now too terrified to take it. I took it for 5 days and now I have stopped - with no side effects apart from fish eye vision for one morning which passed by midday. My own thoughts are that if I am depressed then it is no wonder at the moment after drinking a bottle of vodka a day, in blackout drinking, as alcohol is a depressant. I am a regular member of AA and I know that I will get back to normal in time. Time is the biggest healer in all addictions, plus withdrawal. Apparently, in studies done in America, there are two types of alcoholic - Class A, and Class B. Class A are people who drink but alcoholism doesn't hit them until later on in life (this is me). Class B are people who have a genetic "allergy" to alcohol and alcoholism hits them early and young. Apparently, the results of the study showed that Class A alcoholics benefit from anti depressants, whereas Class B alcoholics are more likely to relapse if they take them. I now don't trust any GP or psychiatrist - and I really believe that none of them know the reality of what these drugs actually do. We all seem to be an experiment - and when you come to withdrawal from them, no one wants to know. Anyway, I have decided not to take them, and to battle things along in my own way with the help of AA. Have I made the right decision? Link to comment
Moderator brassmonkey Posted December 5, 2019 Moderator Share Posted December 5, 2019 Hi Marc--welcome to the group, I'm glad you found us but sorry that you needed to look for us. I'm sorry to read about your relapse after being clean and sober for several years, but it sounds like you're back on track. Just letting the relapse sort itself will take some time and I think that this is tied in with the recent depression, but it will clear up given time. It's a good idea to avoid the Sertraline. All it will do is get in the way and could cause a lot more trouble after you've taken it for a month or so. Having taken it for five days it is possible that you will get some start up and WD symptoms from it. Listen to your body for a while to see how you are reacting, there can be some delayed symptoms crop up. For right now if you would add a signature block with your drug history it would be helpful. Also posting a daily record of any symptoms would be a good idea too. Brassmonkey 20 years on Paxil starting at 20mg and working up to 40mg. Sept 2011 started 10% every 6 weeks taper (2.5% every week for 4 weeks then hold for 2 additional weeks), currently at 7.9mg. Oct 2011 CTed 15oz vodka a night, to only drinking 2 beers most nights, totally sober Feb 2013. Since I wrote this I have continued to decrease my dose by 10% every 6 weeks (2.5% every week for 4 weeks and then hold for an additional 2 weeks). I added in an extra 6 week hold when I hit 10mg to let things settle out even more. When I hit 3mgpw it became hard to split the drop into 4 parts so I switched to dropping 1mgpw (pill weight) every week for 3 weeks and then holding for another 3 weeks. The 3 + 3 schedule turned out to be too harsh so I cut back to dropping 1mgpw every 4 weeks which is working better. Final Dose 0.016mg. Current dose 0.000mg 04-15-2017 "It's also important not to become angry, no matter how difficult life is, because you can loose all hope if you can't laugh at yourself and at life in general." Stephen Hawking Link to comment
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