Brain damage

Hello everyone,

I am 23 and between 19 and 22, I have abuse a lots of prescription drug mainly ritalin (about 20*40 mg pill) and a lot of alcohol (4 liter of beer), i went to rehab but treatment was worse (40 mg of valium and 800 of serequel).
Now I stop, but i fill different, i feel mad do somebody know if at that age you can have brain damage and if so are they permanent ? I can't focus more than 10 min; i am laughing without any reason ...

Thanks

@radjan great advice above,i think what you are feeling as far as focus for only 10 min is definitely a mental adjustment that will take time as you will never have the kind of focus sober that you got use to on Ritalin considering it's basically the same as meth,the laughing for no reason probably has something to do with the detox of seroquel.Seroquel is mostly used for bi-polar disorder and in my experience is sometimes prescribed from a mis diagnosis,obviously a person abusing Ritalin will appear bi-polar just from the highs and lows but that doesn't mean they are bi-polar it means their addicts.Seroquel is a very strong mood alternation medication and i have seen people coming off of it that literally would stand in one spot and shake their head back and forth for day's on end,so definitely this pill does some crazy thing's to a person.As far as permanent brain damage i can't be sure I'm not a Dr but i would think it has more to do with your body cleansing itself from the many different substance's you were taking.Stay Strong and God Bless Take Care

Hi it is exactly as was just mentioned above. When I was twenty years old I did alot of things that I am not proud of and landed myself six months in jail.
When I went to jail I was abusing anything I could get my hands on, mostly though it was beer and Xanax. With either cocaine and or adderall in the morning before work just to kill the hangover so I could do it all over again.
Fast forward to jail. I went crazy and was transferred to psychiatric unit. It was there that I was started on 500mg seroquil and 20mg diazepam, along with 350mg( overdose levels ) of trazadone to help me sleep. Sleeping was more of just like laying in a half coma and waking up with full blown panic attacks than anything else.
After I was released I was then cold turkey off of those meds. And yes do I tell you!!! I WAS CRAZY!!! My cousin finally found me walking down the highway one day and picked me up. However I argued that we had to take my bicycle with us, the one I was riding on-there was no bicycle.
My point is that no matter what types of psychiatric medication you are on it is going to rewire your brain and without the proper taper scary and even dangerous things can happen.
My advice to you is to get to a doctor as soon as possible. I don't know where you live but in huge cities like Atlanta where I live there are plenty of places to go that do not even require insurance. Or some that are government funded and completely free!
Your brain can heal and you can be healthy again, your young and fortunately saw the downside of this way of life earlier than most,myself included, and I am not a doctor but I know that I felt similar symptoms and that was ten years ago. As long as I do right I don't feel crazy and have been told by a neurologist that my brain is fine. I hope that helps, just seek professional help and live drug free.

Could be that you need to see a doctor. But what you describe also sounds like someone who is in early recovery. You are now feeling your emotions instead of dampening them. You are actually dealing with life. This is normal, and you won't feel angry forever. But you should get some support, as in go to meetings, find a therapist, talk to a doctor who understands addiction.

Thank to all for your advice, I hope that is just temporary and not permanent...

It is temporary.It literally takes about 6 month's to clear the fog and honestly the emotional impact varies but usually takes longer than that,every day is different and some are harder than other's however with each day you gain momentum and if you keep pushing forward life will improve

If i ask in a diferrent way. Obviously I lost a few neurons cause by alcohol, do you know if that kind of cells are able to regenerate.

I believe the answer is YES.The cell's you have killed are gone,however new one's will form

What a good question. I posed the exact question to my psychiatrist in rehab when I was no longer able to form sentences. I went in for abuse of xanax and suboxone. I had auditory hallucinations as well as many other symptoms of withdrawal. To answer the question about brain damage, it will feel that way early in recovery. The very hard part about recovery and feeling good again is it takes patience. The only thing that is almost 100% true about drug addicts is we have no patience. It takes a Herculean effort just to get to the next minute when you are sick. As stupid as our sickness is we will take a handful of pills ( substitute here) shrug our shoulders as that warm apathy spreads over us. Fast forward to treatment, AA, at home detox, whatever and we freak out that we have done brain damage to ourselves. Really???? Yes! But time heals. You will not be rendered a idiot. Keep plugging along the best you can. Go to a doctor, psychiatrist, get a neuro psych test or just take a deep breath.

@Me at bluff,Hi! You are the first person I've ever heard of that had auditory hallucinations from Xanax and Suboxone detox except for me!!
Nine years ago when I was first detoxing from anything it was horrible as I had never heard of withdrawal symptoms when I went into the inpatient rehabilitation program that my insurance at the time covered. And it was horrible as I didn't know what I was in for, and this place did NOT TAPER! The only drugs I was using were xanies and subs.
The second day is when it started and by the third day I was in hell. I was told by the staff that my complaints were so unusual that I was having problems from something other than the withdrawals and to get checked out by a neurologist when I got out.
What I experienced was auditory hallucinations so vivid that I truly believe that something was wrong with my sight because I heard people talking to me,and I was talking back to them. Also by day four I developed motor control problems with my whole body,like when I tried to eat I was spitting out food when I wanted to swallow. Finally this,the major problem that I have never seen in anyone else or felt from any other withdrawals, extremely strong smells like burning rubber, or fresh peaches. Then sensation in my skin like an itchy spot or ice on a spot. What's weird though is I was feeling, smelling and forget to mention tasting these AT THE SAME TIME! Like I would be watching tv and suddenly I taste a banana and bread at the same time. Did you get these feelings?

Yes, this last detox was probably by far the worse. I had been on xanax and restoril (another benzo) for about 13 years but was taking them as prescribed. My problem was opiates. Went to the same rehab three times in row and they kept me on both benzos while detoxing me off of Fentanyl with oxy. WHY I WENT BACK THREE TIMES IN A ROW!But this last time I reached out for help I went for the benzos and Suboxone and I went to a different place. By this time I was abusing Suboxone, xanax and restoril and had to be rolled in in a wheelchair. I can walk just fine. I was very sick. When I became lucid it was crazy!!!! I didn't know the date, where I was and couldn't walk or talk. That was me lucid. Thank god I went to a facility that could deal with me. It was a defining moment in my life.
So, I feel for your struggle. Mine was excruciating for a long time. I hope you can hang in there with this battle. It will take all you got and there will be days where you think your head just might pop off. But it won't. I have some how bumble fucked my way through 13 months of sobriety and that is a miracle. Please reach out to anyone you can relate to. If you feel comforted by AA or NA, fine. Do that. If you are spiritual go to church. If you have one friend that is in recovery talk to them. I am not a believer in dictating how someone stays sober. Just stay sober. Your life depends on it!

Thanks for the fast reply, I was thinking about checking my phone in the morning and was just about to power down.
Anyway thanks for the encouragement and support. Just for an update-maybe I should have been more clear-that was my first round through inpatient detox and was almost a decade ago.
Now I am starting NA and a slow detox using the ashton method. I have bi weekly appointments with an addiction specialist. I am now off Xanax completely but am highly dependent and mentally addicted to valium35mgs to just function 90mg if I was to get high, so tolerance is scary big. And 4mg Subutex that is just barely enough,but hey I was on32+ a day sometimes IVing the Subutex as it can be injected because no naloxone in it. I am blessed to be alive today. I am sure that the emotional impact of this slow detox won't even compare to the cold turkey withdrawals from Xanax but I have some really major concern about coming back to a life w/o any chemicals. I have been through the worst and survived...via life support, so I know this should be easy compared to past experiences. And to @radjan my brain has been checked and I am fine, so here is something that I hope encourages you to not worry as you can return to normal.

You both got this.I'm here if you need anything for whatever i can offer,i have some experience with addiction myself also very lucky to be alive.Stay Strong and God Bless

It is amazing to me that treatment facilities are just baffled by withdrawal symptoms from benzos. Every person is so different. I can still smell a bottle of red wine,opened in another room. And yes with smell distortion. Also light still bothers me. I will walk around my house in total darkness and not turn a light on. I'm like a vampire that gets hit by sunlight.
I hope your taper goes well. It is hard any road you travel trying to "be normal". It is a strange dynamic that as we use we struggle to be sober.
By the way, just so I can get this off my chest and MAYBE sleep, my boyfriend of three years who is a recovering alcoholic and I thought had a period of sobriety just relapsed. It rocked my world. He is my knight in shining armor. So he is in treatment right now and I'm reaching out. Thanks for your responses it helps. Let's cross our fingers I will stop typing and lay down and sleep.

Thank you Dominica! Catching him drinking was like a crack in my universe. We were getting ready to get married and I thought I made out of this last brush with death unscathed. Not to be. I found out and off to treatment he went. We will see how we come out of it. The most damaging part was finding out he was drinking while I did this last stint in rehab. As you have read it was life changing. It is not that he relapsed. We are addicts, it's gonna happen. We just do not lie to each other. He has relapsed before and there was nothing we did not deal with calmly. Those last two sentences are important. 1/ Apparently we do lie. 2/ He has had no consequences. I am swimming around in the deceit of FOUR relapses he has had since my time in treatment. My job has me working some weekends away from home. Every time I am away he drinks. This is not a healthy picture. All I can do is see how hard he embraces treatment. I mean we can throw around abandonment issues, co dependence, incredibly low self esteem........etc. No emoji for shrugging.
This was incredibly helpful to find this thread. Thanks