I quit drinking a week ago. I had been drinking 28 beers a day for half a year. I was constantly agitated and often vomiting during the time of day when I wasn't drinking. Due to the state of my health and the exasperation of my wife I decided to get sober.

I was knowledgeable as to what I might expect while quitting drinking. Nonetheless I was stubborn and chose to go it alone without any medical assistance. My first day sober I was very shaky and got no sleep that night, but other than that it wasn't too bad.

The second day I was slightly less shaky, which I thought was an improvement. That night, however, I got almost no sleep and hallucinated all night long. It was like a slideshow of evil images of dead bodies and people attacking and killing other people and animals. Lots of blood. It wasn't pleasant, but I managed to deal with it. I also had some muscle spasms and twitches.

Day three was by far the worst. After a very small bit of sleep I woke up in the morning and things seemed to be relatively okay. As I got out of bed, not thinking of anything in particular, I happened to look at a mirror in my bedroom, and along with seeing my reflection, I also saw the reflection of three other people in my room behind me. Two were staring at the wall looking at things that were hanging on it and touching them, while another person was crouched down and staring right at me. I screamed and couldn't believe that something out of a horror movie was actually happening to me in my own bedroom. I looked all over my room for signs of others present but could not detect them. I looked at the mirror again and they were still there. I was convinced that they were evil spirits. I kept looking at the mirror at all different angles trying to discern what was going on but I could not figure it out. Later I realized that this was just another horrible hallucination. On top of that I was experiencing auditory hallucinations with voices in my head telling me that I would be dead by the end of the day. Scared beyond belief I went downstairs trying to escape this. I kept hearing noises that sounded like people opening my dresser drawers and walking around upstairs.

That night my wife came home and went upstairs to take a shower. I heard another voice telling me the time was soon coming and then I thought I heard my wife shout out. I quickly grabbed a large kitchen knife and ran upstairs and yelled to my wife asking if she was okay. She said she was, and didn't know why I would think she was in danger. Still, I ran through then entire house with my knife opening every bedroom and closet door looking for anyone who was lurking and ready to harm me. My paranoia was off the charts and I wasn't thinking clearly at all. I was out of my mind. My wife pleaded with me to hand her the knife so I wouldn't hurt myself or her. I finally acquiesced. We eventually went to bed but I just kept staring at the mirror. There were no other people in the mirror at this time, but I couldn't take my eyes off of it because I feared my inevitable attackers would somehow come into the bedroom through it. My wife chose to cover it with a towel so I wouldn't stare at it all night. I tried to go to sleep, but even worse hallucinations occurred throughout the night. Instead of seeming like a slideshow, these were not full, live-action hallucinations that were evil and entranced and haunted me. I couldn't understand what was happening. I continually got up throughout the night and made my rounds of the entire house ensuring there were no evil beings that had invaded with the intent to harm or kill me. Also, all night I had constant spasms in all of my muscles and I was occasionally convulsing. I was sure I was about to have a seizure and die.

In the morning when I woke I saw two other people in my bed and they were both my wife. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. I knew this just couldn't be, so to assuage my fears I decided I would feel both of them to determine which one wasn't really there. To my dismay, both of them felt completely solid and real. I thought I was going crazy. I went downstairs and just tried to calm down. Later, my mind started calming down and sanity began to return. I spoke to my wife, who is in a medical profession, and she understood the phenomenon. She did not doubt me for a minute, totally believing that I had seen all of the things I claimed to have seen, but it became clear that they were hallucinations that my mind had conjured. It was probably the scariest time of my life.

For the next two days she would not let me drive because of my impaired mental state. Eventually I got back to normal and am now fine. What I learned from this is that I should not have been so stubborn and should have gone to a hospital as symptoms began to appear. I implore anyone else who happens to be experiencing the beginning of these symptoms to seek medical treatment. Medical attention can help lessen the symptoms to make them more tolerable, and also can closely monitor you to ensure you do not have a deadly seizure. Death rates for hospitalized patients are very small, while death rates for people like me who do it on there own are quite large, up to 35% mortality rate according to some journals.

I would be interested in anyone else who has experienced DTs and what symptoms or types of hallucinations you may have experienced. I think I have a good chance of sobriety now because there is no way I ever want to go through this experience again.

If you happened to read all this then thank you, and good luck to you on your journey to sobriety.