Alcohol, is it the most dangerous drug on the planet?

Demons - Real or Hallucination

Some peope, when going through alcohol withdrawal, see things. These are usually called hallucinations, or sometimes DTs. Some, as the old jokes say, see pink elephants; others see bugs crawling on their skin, yet others believe that bad people are trying to get them and become paranoid. I had conversations with dead people, and I saw, heard, felt, touched and smelt demons.

Hallucinations during alcohol withdrawal typically begin within ten to seventy two hours after the last drink. Physical symptoms of withdrawal at first include nausea, headaches, insomnia, uncontrollable shaking or tremors, and increased heart rate, that in and of itself can scare the living shit out of you. Later the symptoms can become more dangerous and can include seizures, hallucinations and delirium. For these reasons alcohol withdrawal should always, and I mean always, be medically supervised.

The conversations with dead people I could live with, they were all old friends of mine and were not in the least bit threatening, although they were very real to me at the time. They would generally just be sitting across the room from me, chatting away, and I would be chatting back, passing the time as if they were still alive.

The demons, on the other hand, were a whole different ball game. As far as I was concerned at the time, they were completely real. They would usually come in the night when I was, so it seemed, awoken by a noise, or a smell, or just a general sense that something was not right, and there they would be, small, monkey sized creatures with horrific gargoyle like features, dripping saliva and oozing malevolence from every pore, crawling up my body.

These demons were, unquestionably, the most terrifying thing that ever happened to me, before or since. To this day I can’t be sure in my own mind that I was dreaming or even asleep when they came. I do know that I could feel them, smell them and hear them laughing at me as them slowly crawled up my body towards my head. I could feel their fetid breath on my face as they came closer and closer. I know also that they made me scream like a girl, but nobody came to my aid.

The question remains, to me at least, were they real, or did my mind make them up? It is easier for me to believe that they were hallucinations; it makes my life easier to get on with. But, if you’ve read my web site, you will know I have a faith and a belief in God and a power much greater than myself. Part of that belief includes a belief in the existence of the devil. And consequently I believe that demons do exist. In what form I do not pretend to know, whether they are within us, as part of our psyche, or exist as separate entities in a different dimension. Who can know these things? Some religious groups, including parts of Christianity do believe that drugs and alcohol can so damage the mind, or the soul, if you will, that we can inadvertently open doors that exist between one dimension and another and let things pass through that no human is supposed ever to experience.

Was this what happened to me? I don’t know, and I think I’d rather not know, but the uncertainty will always be there. The only thing I know for certain is that I never want to go through anything like that ever again, another good reason for me to stay clean and sober.