Delirium Tremens

Delirium Tremens or D.T.S are caused from alcohol withdrawal. Fiver percent of people with an alcohol problem will get to the point of D.T. They cause you to hallucinate, your body temperature and blood pressure rise , you cannot sleep and you start to have seizures. If not treated medically the mortality rate is fourteen to forty percent . With treatment the mortality rate is about fiver percent. I personally have experienced delirium tremens on multiple occasions. It is hell on earth. The first time I remember going through it was when I had been drinking everyday for over a year.

I had what I thought was enough alcohol to last me till the next morning. In Ohio you cant buy 2:30am to 5:30 am Monday through Friday and it ends at 1 am on Sunday. This was Saturday night and I ran out of alcohol around 1:40 am. At this point in my life I was drinking hard liquor everyday. The alcohol I had left that night was mainly beer and had zero affect on me. By the time 5:30am came around, I was shaking, covered in sweat and started to see things that weren’t there. I saw big spiders crawling all over the wall and kept seeing people who were not there.

I took off walking to the closest gas station to get some alcohol. That walk seemed like it took hours and when I got to the gas station the attendant had to help me open the cooler and take the alcohol to the cash register for me. I was shaking so bad I couldn’t do anything. Once I got the alcohol, one of the workers actually gave me a ride back to my apartment. They had seen me coming in there everyday and I think they just felt bad for how pathetic I was. I chugged two twenty four ounce beers before I even got back to my place. It took me about six of them to stop shaking like crazy.

I kept drinking till I finally passed out. That really was the only way I could ever sleep during my long struggle . The worst time I had D.T. was in jail, TWICE. I got three OVI’S over the course of my alcoholic run. I did overall six months in jail. The first time I experienced the horror D.T. had to offer in jail, I had been drinking straight vodka daily. When I went to jail I told them this and they said they would get the proper medication for me, it would just be a day or two. By the second day I was bad. I had gone 48 hours without a drop of alcohol after drinking almost a gallon a day.

I was so sweaty and my heart was pounding out of my chest. I started hallucinating that there was people in the cell with me trying to kill me. Then I thought the control officers in the jail were trying to kill me. I was losing my mind and felt like death was approaching. The jail nurse came to my cell and after taking my blood pressure she called the ambulance. They put me on the gurney and hand cuffed me to it. I must have had a seizure on the way I just remember waking up and seeing a sheriff at the foot of my bed. He was asking me all kinds of things but I couldn’t focus.

I was hallucinating that my fiancé was dead. I never felt a feeling like I felt in that moment. I truly was convinced through the hallucinations that she was gone. I started freaking out, I remember yanking so hard on the handcuffs that I almost broke my wrist. During this time the hospital was trying to get me admitted. Once I started freaking out the put something into my IV and I was out. I woke only once in the next two days, they kept me very sedated. When I finally came to and felt somewhat normal, the nurse asked me if I would like to talk to my fiancé because she was on the phone.

I was so confused, I thought my fiancé was dead. I asked the nurse why she would ask me that when my fiancé was dead. She said ” your fiancé is not dead, you were hallucinating from the alcohol withdrawal. Your fiancé is alive and well and on the phone for you. When I heard her voice I cried. I still didn’t believe it was her . The hallucinations were so real to me. I was conscious the whole time but saw all these things so it was so hard to believe that non of it was real. My fiancé came to the hospital and they let her come see me. I bawled, I thought I had lost her forever and that I was never going to truly be able to show her how much I had loved her, because I was a drunk the whole time.

I still to this day think about how this was only one of the bouts of hell I went through and how truly scary and crazy it was and how it was just a hallucination from withdrawal from a substance that is legal and glorified through commercials and social media. It is so normal for people to drink, especially where I come from. I never heard about Delirium Tremens growing up and I had no idea that alcohol withdrawal is the worst of any drug and can actually kill you. Please learn from the hell I had to go through. Don’t think alcohol is harmless and don’t think that there is the answer for depression or anxiety in the bottom of the bottle, you will never find anything there but pain , sorrow, regret and hell on earth. Stay strong have faith and no you aren’t alone in this battle!