4:44 pm
Well, let me tell you.
When it’s 4 pm and you just got out of the shower, that’s what it’s like. Or, writing is such a Herculean task that you’re afraid you might have permanently damaged your brain. Which thought makes you take a deep breath in order to calm your nerves — you are definitely still drunk and wondering if your body will do its thing and actually get you sober this time. You are not out of panic-attack zone yet, so eating makes you feel like you might slip into one, and walking on the street feels so surreal that it takes most of your focus not to totally crumble into one right there, in traffic.
Your hands are shaking and sweating as you try your best to write something for that deadline you missed, and your panic rises again when you realize that you really can’t find the words. That’s what it’s like.
You try to drink caffeine, but that only makes it worse. And, it’s a beautiful, once-in-a-lifetime day outside and you totally missed it. Again.
You’re sad, depressed, and glum. You have no idea why, but the thought of dying keeps coming into your mind and you gulp down the panic that rises again, sharply, like a swift vacuum being applied to your intestines. You’re still drunk, still dizzy, and it’s 4:40 pm now. You wonder if you’ll ever, EVER get sober and if not, what then? You wonder if you’ll ever be able to find the words, if your brain is, actually, permanently fucked and this time, THIS time, you’ve really done yourself in.
That’s what it’s like.
(As a note to self, this post, the next time I try to drink “normally.” It’s over; it has to be. I don’t think I can handle this hangover, let alone another one. EVER again.)
Drunky Drunk Girl 
i agree. it’s over. you can make this the very last time you ever feel like this. you can enjoy every last second of this (not!) and then set it free. you might be tempted to think it’s ‘not that bad’ but it really really is… it sounds horrific …
It is that bad! I really was wondering if I broke my brain. I think I’m extra-raw/have ZERO tolerance for pain at the moment, from giving up drinking and having to y’know, confront my life, and my ways, without fleeing from it/them like I have been doing past few years. I think the reason I blogged about it in so much detail is to be able to come back here and be like, Oh, NO NO NO, not doing that again. And, to let people/readers (all 35 of them!) remember along with me, so that it might help one or two NOT turn to the bottle to “see” if they somehow magically recovered the ability to have fun and go to sleep after a nice drinky drink.
I have been reading through all of your posts in the last few days. This one right here and the one you posted before this …Falling off the Wagon…so you don’t have to are really helpful in reminding me how much hangovers suck and why NOT drinking is so much better. I don’t get horrible hangovers very often but when I do I HATE them. Nothing is worse than a beautiful day outside and you have missed it AGAIN!
YES! Glad to have helped you remember. The other day, *I* went back to re-read that post–and others, and they made me quite sad to realize what a bad state of mind I was in–in order to remember how horrible hangovers are (I had been thinking that “just one” glass of red wouldn’t hurt, would it?)! They are so bad now, so frightfully bad. I don’t know why, maybe the fact that my liver just doesn’t work as well, or my brain has been taxed too often, or my body just responds to it more sensitively, like it’s the poison that it is.
And, truthfully, when I read that, the experience becomes so evergreen. I can really remember it, and it makes me not want even one glass, to avoid the likely tumbling into three, four, five glasses…and the hangover the next day. HATE, not hate. So, thanks for commenting…
I get the absolute worst hangovers. It’s a curse but also a blessing because it’s one of the reasons/motivations to stay sober. I can barely make it through the day (or two) of a hangover. The headache, nausea, so tired but can’t sleep. Ugh just thinking about it makes my brain hurt
Yes, my hangovers were horrendous and almost mentally unbearable. That is pretty much the thing that kept me sober–I just could not have another hangover…