Alcohol problems

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Ok so I know the title is quite alarming, so let me start by saying that I'm not having a typical alcohol problem, it's just that in the past month alcohol seems to affect in very different ways. I have been drinking socially/cassually since I was 13 (almost 22 now) and in those 9 years I have been drunk 4 times, my high school friends are incredibly heavy drinkers so along the years I became very tolerant to alcohol, I enjoyed the taste of beer and vodka and the effects of them as a little social steroid. During my college years my friends became impressed with my resistance to alcohol to the point that I have seen every single one of them drunk but most of them haven't seen me drunk except for a small group that witnessed how a drunk version of me warned them of the jewish elves and tried to explain them how I had vomited in a very neat way.

Problem is over the past month, my reaction to alcohol has gone crazy, first I started experimenting nasal congestion the day after I had some beers, this happened twice; second my alcohol resistance dropped faster than Enron shares, the normal me could have 15 beers and just be a little relaxed, now five seem to cause that effect; and finally, I recently got very drunk at a friends going away party, I drank very little, not even according to my standards but in general, and I vomited of course, but it was no more than 4 Cuba Libres before I went crazy and started making a fool out of myself (for the first time in my life).

I did some research, and even though alcohol allergies can develop at any age and I'm allergic to some things the symptoms don't seem to fit. At first I thought because of the beer it could be gluten problems (had wheat allergies when I was a child) but there is no gluten in a Cuba Libre. So basically I'm lost, I eat well, I'm in the best shape of my life and this didn't happen to me before, I've considered quitting on alcohol because I find vomiting to be the most unpleasant sensation in life (I get sort of depressed when I vomit) but I'm curious to what this might be.

Has anybody had similar problems?

First, be aware: those with Aspergers / Autistic tendencies are highly susceptible to alcoholism. Second, the physical reactions to alcohol as experienced by the body can vary tremendously over time and from person to person.

I am an alcoholic. I drank successfully for 25 years. I could usually "drink everyone under the table". The physical aspects came and went. I just attributed them to me "being different", since I'm different in every other concievable way. I became overly sensitive to certain substances (caffeine, NSAIDs like Ibuprophen and Naproxen) and completely immune to other substances (Benadryl, cocaine). Over time I had rashes, hives, asthma, allergies, phlegm and snot problems, muscle spasms, gagging from flavors or smells, constant itching, and a desire to stick pins into my flesh.

Alcohol worked really well for a long time. I went from awkward and anti-social to the charismatic life-of-the-party. I no longer cared that I just didn't "get" what other people were about. And as long as they were drunk too, they didn't notice my inability to comprehend them so much.

Eventually, all my free time, from after work untill bedtime, was for drinking. Alcohol helped me sleep. It turned off the constant thoughts that had been racing in my head for my whole life. I wasn't drinking because I liked being drunk. I was drinking because alcohol was medicine for my condition. I no longer had anxiety or felt depressed (as long as I was drunk). Imagine if you were born blind and alcohol gave you the ability to see. Its kind-of like that.

Anyway, after an injury at work left me at home with nothing but free time, I discovered that work was the only thing that was keeping me from drinking full time. Attempting to quit an addiction is hell for someone who already has obsessive-compulsive tendancies and lots of unsupervised, unstructured free time. I didn't want to drink, but my body would get up and walk over to the booze. I was like a car-jacked hostage. I was like a remote-controlled toy and somebody else had the remote. I locked the door, closed the curtains, and drank in the dark 24 hours a day where nobody would bother me.

I ended up at Alcoholics Anonymous. That helped me quit the alcohol. It was there that someone recommended the Autism Spectrum Quotient Test. I scored 40. At some AA meetings, at least half the people there are Aspies. The typical AA story starts out "I always felt like I didn't fit in. Like I was born on the wrong planet. I just never "got" other people..."

Know this now before you continue drinking.

No problem with alcohol is always atypical, just new to certain individuals.


... and that means your liver has suffered damage.


That is typical of some people, but certainly not all.


Some people get an uneasy, out-of-control feeling, and other get a seemingly "good" effect.


Your body was able to digest it well at that time.


Alcohol *is* a poison within our systems, and your body is no longer able to deal with that as it has in the past.


You liver can no longer protect your system as well as in the past.


With our livers acting as blood-stream filters for our entire bodies, it is now as if yours needs changed ...


Absolutely. After just a few years, I could no longer guarantee control and drink safely ...

... and then I was shocked to discover I just kept right on drinking anyway because of this:


So, I had come to a place where I could live neither with it nor without it, and there is where I could have done nothing but continue drinking until I died if someone had not noticed and pointed me toward something as a substitute for the alcohol and its ...



The physical things you are talking about have to do with now-insufficient quantities and qualities of enzymes being passed from the pancreas to the liver, and that is on top of the liver damage. Your days of enjoyable drinking are now over ... but if you are at all like me, my saying that might only cause you to become more determined than ever to prove these things untrue about yourself ... and that, my fellow, is the insanity or "chronic" part of alcoholism.

Well even though the liver damage seems like a very reasonable argument, I'm having trouble believing it, I say I drink since I was 13 but till college it was really really sporadic drinking (no more than twice a year), and even in by adding college into the equation I don't think I've had drinks more than a 100 times, and the number of times it could be considered excessive would be like 10 perhaps. Also all my tests and exams suggest I'm a pretty healthy guy but I'll check with my doctor with this.

Regarding the social steroid part, I have to say I've never really needed it, my friends would say I'm pretty much the same guy but just a little louder (I'm very loud normally) and make up even more weird things (like the jewish elves thing, or jokes on drunks like shaving their eyebrows or putting egg whites inside their pants), however it does give me a little easier feeling, it takes off a little anxiety and over-thinking in social situations, but it's not a great deal for me.

And finally, jeefbee, thank you for sharing your experience, my father may have/had a few alcohol problems, but I can say safely that I don't think I can fall down that path, I enjoy very few types of alcohol or drinks, my only drug experience is marijuana and I think it's ridiculously overrated (plus I find the consumption methods disgusting ex: smoking, snorting injecting).

Thank you, for your replies, any other info will be well received.

P.S: Ibuprophen, reminded me of a funny anecdote, my girlfriend gave me one for some for a nasty headache and I ended up in the ER with an allergic reaction that made me look like a vampire from Buffy.