The Estate News & Blog

By Mitch Prager | Founder, Soberman's Estate | Sobriety Date: May 25, 1998

If you are searching for these words, you already know something is wrong. Maybe you have tried to bring this up before and it went badly. Maybe you have been rehearsing the conversation in your head for months. Maybe you are afraid that saying the wrong thing will push him further away -- or give him one more excuse to dismiss the whole thing.

Just last night, I saw a friend who I had not seen in months, and he said, “I’m starting over, today is my first day sober” - he was sweating and nervous - I immediately highly recommended and strongly suggested he go to detox. He was scared and at the same time confident he could detox on his own. I shared with him that earlier this year, a wife of a recovering alcoholic called me and before she could finish her sentence, I said, hang up on me and call 911 – she was reporting she hadn’t seen her husband in several months as he was traveling internationally for business and he’s been home 3 days and she was so proud that he wasn’t drinking and she couldn’t understand why he was having a seizure, well he had a seizure as he quit cold turkey without going to detox and he suffered a seizure and nearly died.

The short answer is yes. One hundred percent, unequivocally, yes.

During the late 1970’s I marched with NORML – that stood for the National Organization to Reform Marijuana Laws – our goal was to legalize “pot” marijuana – meaning people would be able to grow marijuana in their backyard and smoke it on private property – now forty plus years later, we did not legalize marijuana, we commercialized a new drug which is a very potent concentrated product produced from Marijuana called THC. Up until the past less than 10 years, the human body has never ingested the amount of THC a person can ingest today – it wasn’t possible to smoke enough pot in a day that would equate to a small percent of the amount of THC marijuana user ingests in a few minutes. People are showing up daily in emergency rooms across the country from ingesting too much THC and having difficulty stopping use on their own.

Alcohol withdrawal isn’t always obvious at first. It can start with something as simple as restlessness or poor sleep. Then a few hours later, things shift—shaking, sweating, a racing heart rate, or growing confusion. That kind of change is what makes withdrawal risky.

Gabapentin doesn’t have the same reputation as stronger medications, which is exactly why people don’t always question it.

I had a heart attack at 33 years old. It was caused by cocaine and alcohol. I survived it, and I kept drinking.

Mitch Prager, Founder and CEO of Soberman’s Estate shared; “Jack Daniel’s used to be my best friend but then became my worst enemy - Most people admit to addiction only when they can no longer deny the damage or negative consequences”