Have cut way back on alcohol consumption but looking for advice

I quit cold about 4 months ago I was drinking 1.5 liters of wine a day. I saw the doctor and he helped me with a med for 4 days. I had a couple of slips at the 3 month mark but...now the last 3 days I have found my self drinking again.

To answer your question I suggest you see a doctor and go from there.

Best of luck to you.

Keep strong we can beat this

I am picking up on the interesting contrast you are making between the psychological symptoms (the craving) and the physical sign (the sickness, nausea, etc..) of the day after.

If you had the time to read others, you have probably noticed that every person addicted to alcohol all experienced the cravings in an identical way. What ever their social background or social history, this urge to have alcohol will be the same for everybody. We all know that in fact we do not want to drink but we feel so bad and obsessed that we cannot stop ourselves.

The cravings is our brains not working properly. This dysfunction is the same for everybody addicted to alcohol : brains scanns shows how alcholic brains (neurons) fire up violently when the person is in front of a glass of alcohol compared to a non addicted person which shows "normal" reaction.

Today doctors can make a diagnosis of alcohol addiction just by looking at the brains scan (it is expensive so they don't  :-)).

So the answer to your question is : as long as you have these cravings you are extremely physicaly dependent to alcohol.  The day after symptoms are irrelevant, they are a consequence of your body not succeeding of getting rid of ethanol quickly enough (vodka is much stronger than wine).

The next question is : can these cravings be help by cognitive therapy?  Yes, but for only about 5 to 10% of people.

I thought that the cravings were a matter of "will power" until I realised that much stronger peoples than I were unable to fight it.  They would show extraordinary courage and resolution for others and for themselves, but when the cravings were there, they would have that drink. 

That was depressing : what were my chances?  And here my self esteem going down the drains together with my liver......:-)

To cut a long and painful story short : I went on medication for over a year (baclofen).  After 1 month the cravings stopped completly:

If I had a though of having a drink, I would easily decide not to and, once the decision made, the thought would vanished and not come back, instead of keeping bumping in my head every 30 seconds and driving me mad.

In fact alcohol does not interest me very much anymore -except Meursault-.

So I think that, as long as you have cravings, you are addicted.  And, except if you are a very bad person, there is no reason to suffer if you can help it.

Good luck

PS baclofen is available in the UK but not yet widely prescribed as the clinical trials demonstrating its effect anti-craving (BACLAD, BACLOVILLE and ALPADIR)  are very recents (April 2015) and, for the 2 last ones, not published yet.  This should be done by the end of the year.  Namalfene is available but the clinicial trial shows a much smaller anti-craving effect compared to baclofen.

Oh and I forgot : these compounds are non addictive : so you do not need to increase the dosage; when you reach your cravings blocking level (average 180 mg) this is it.

Your choice.