[leedscrg]

My 28 year old son has suffered from anxiety and depression since he was a teenager which causes severe insomnia. Over the past 3 years he has been sporadically abusing small amounts of alcohol before bed as well as taking a strong antihistamine alongside it. He will do this for weeks on end until the concoction no longer seems to work. In his anger and disappointment that he is about to enter another period of insomnia he abuses extreme amounts of alcohol in some kind of fit of despair. He can drink upto two large bottles of gin as well as large bottles of vodka and wine so that he lies in bed and passes in and out of sleep which he does for upto 3 days, day and night. He is so drunk he falls asleep and when he wakes up he does the same again until someone physically takes the alcohol away. After it has been taken he goes through withdrawal where he shakes and screams for hours on end and his stomach is agonisingly painful. We are currently going through withdrawal with him now and once he recovers he will promise and apologise as he always does. We just know that this will happen again if we don’t understand it better and get some good help. He is otherwise very sensible. Has lots of friends and a good job but we fear he will lose it all if we don’t seek some kind of help for him and I don’t know if he could be classed as alcoholic as he doesn’t abuse alcohol in the day to day, when he sleeps well he doesn’t drink for months on end

[Author]

Posts