This is Annie Grace and you're listening to this naked mind podcast where without judgment,

pain or rules, we explore the role of alcohol in our lives and culture.

Hi, this is Annie Grace with this naked mind and I am answering readers questions and today I have a question from Laurie.

Laurie says, Hi, Annie, I have a question. My brother is an addiction therapist and brought up something I never heard of.

Pause, post-acute withdrawal syndrome.

What I've read states that it can go on for up to two years. What do you know about this and is it true for everyone?

This is a great question, Laurie. So pause, there's two stages of alcohol withdrawal and one is the acute stage.

And so this is when you're actually physically detoxing. So this is when alcohol is leaving your system and you feel the associated kind of lows about that.

And this can happen for like a week, 10 days where you're actually detoxing from alcohol and the effects of alcohol, so any counter chemicals that your body has produced.

And then after that there's the second stage, which is this post-acute withdrawal syndrome.

And during this stage you're not going to have as many physical symptoms, but you can have a lot of emotional and psychological symptoms.

And this you should know, it's not a like, it's not a medical diagnosis.

So it isn't something that's actually in the DSM, but it is something that a lot of people report.

And I think one of the beauties of the method that I've outlined and the methodology in this take at mind is that it addresses the psychological aspects of alcohol addiction almost before you stop drinking.

So a lot of times what will happen is somebody will stop drinking and they will have not had let go of the drug.

So they still believe that they need alcohol to relax, to have a good time, to de-stress, to do all of these sorts of things.

And so they have stopped drinking, but their mind is still very addicted.

Emotionally they're still very addicted. Psychologically there's a huge dependence.

And so what happens with post-acute withdrawal symptom is when something happens in your life, something stressful, I'm sorry the sun is quite intense right now.

But when something stressful happens in your life, you can feel like just desperate for a drink and feel cravings, feel irritability, feel anxiety.

Some of the symptoms of this, what people report are depression is a big one.

Psychological dysfunction, not being able to relate to other people, feeling of guilt, being very pessimistic, being very down on yourself, craving, having a lack of energy, a lack of initiative, having memory issues, emotionally being overreactive, having sleep.

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