The physical part has a published shape. The NHS says withdrawal symptoms ["begin within 6 to 12 hours of your last drink, and usually last from 3 to 7 days"](https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/alcohol-misuse/treatment/). Call 999 for hallucinations, severe tremors, seizures or fits. Everything else on this page is about telling normal discomfort apart from the two categories that need someone medical.
Before day one: the part that is not optional
If you drink most days and heavily, this week is not something to attempt alone. The UK clinical guidelines tell clinicians to ["advise them that stopping suddenly or substantially reducing their alcohol use too quickly can lead to severe complications and can even be fatal"](https://www.gov.uk/guidance/clinical-guidelines-for-alcohol-treatment/8-harm-reduction).
The rough sorting, which [how to stop drinking](/guides/alcohol/how-to-stop-drinking) sets out in full: around 15 to 30 units a day usually points to a community medically assisted withdrawal with a prescriber involved, and above that, or any history of withdrawal seizures or delirium tremens, points to specialist inpatient care. Neither of those is a home project, and both of them are free.
Book the GP appointment first, then read the rest of this.
The three categories
Everything you feel this week belongs in one of these. Learn the boundaries now, while you are calm, because the middle of the second night is a bad time to be working it out.
**Expected.** Poor sleep, sweating, irritability, headaches, feeling shaky or on edge, low mood, a stomach that is not interested in food, strong cravings, and a general sense that your skin does not fit. Uncomfortable, unpleasant, and not a sign that anything is going wrong.
**Ring a GP or your alcohol service.** Symptoms that are getting worse instead of easing after two or three days, vomiting that stops you keeping fluids down, a heart rate that stays fast at rest, confusion about what day it is, or a mood that has dropped into thoughts of harming yourself. Also anything at all if you are pregnant, or you have liver disease, or you have withdrawn badly before.
**Call 999 now.** ["Severe symptoms of alcohol withdrawal, including: hallucinations, severe tremors, seizures or fits"](https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/alcohol-advice/alcohol-support/). Do not wait to see whether it settles, and do not have a drink to steady it and then go to bed.
Day by day, roughly
Nobody's week matches a chart exactly. This is the shape most people describe.
**The first 6 to 12 hours.** This is when the NHS says symptoms begin. Restlessness, sweating, a light tremor in the hands, the feeling of having drunk too much coffee. Some people feel almost nothing at this stage, which is not a guarantee about the next two days.
**Day one to day three.** The physical peak. Sleep is bad or absent. Sweating at night is common enough that people replace the sheets. Appetite goes. Irritability is often the symptom other people in the house notice first. This is the window in which the serious complications appear if they are going to, which is why it is the window you want a prescriber's number to hand for.
**Day three to day seven.** The physical side tails off, which is where the NHS's "usually last from 3 to 7 days" lands. What often gets worse in the same stretch is mood and sleep. People expect to feel triumphant on day five and instead feel flat, tired and strangely bereaved, then conclude the whole thing is not working.
**Day seven onwards.** Sleep begins to come back for most people, though not to normal immediately, and evenings stay the hard part long after the body has settled. That is a habit problem rather than a withdrawal one, and it is why [a plan for a single evening](/guides/alcohol/getting-through-tonight-without-a-drink) is worth more this fortnight than a plan for a year.
Sleep, which nobody warns you about
Alcohol is a sedative, so people expect that removing it will mean lying awake, and then are unprepared for how thoroughly it does that.
What tends to happen is broken nights, very vivid dreams, and waking at four with everything switched on. It is one of the most common reasons people give for going back in week one, because a fortnight of four hours a night makes everything else harder.
Practical, unglamorous things that help: a fixed wake time regardless of how the night went, no caffeine after midday, going to bed earlier even expecting to lie awake, and not lying in bed for an hour trying. Get up, do something dull in dim light, go back.
If sleep has not begun to improve at all after a fortnight, that is worth a GP conversation rather than an endurance test.
What you might be given
If a prescriber is involved, the standard route is not mysterious. ["Benzodiazepine reducing regimens are the standard pharmacological treatment to manage withdrawal from alcohol"](https://www.gov.uk/guidance/clinical-guidelines-for-alcohol-treatment/10-pharmacological-interventions), stepped down over days. The same guidance says everyone undergoing assisted withdrawal should be given thiamine, which guards against a serious vitamin B1 deficiency.
Then there is medication for staying stopped, which is a separate conversation and one worth starting in week one rather than month three. Acamprosate and naltrexone are named as ["first-line options"](https://www.gov.uk/guidance/clinical-guidelines-for-alcohol-treatment/10-pharmacological-interventions) for relapse prevention after withdrawal. You are allowed to ask about them yourself.
If this is not your first attempt
Clinicians who work in this area observe that repeated withdrawals tend to get harder rather than easier, and one clinical review notes that repeated episodes of alcohol withdrawal lower the seizure threshold ([StatPearls](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK441882/)). That is a review rather than an NHS statement, and it is not a reason to keep drinking. It is a reason to have a prescriber involved this time if you have withdrawn badly before, and to say the words "I've been through withdrawal before" when you make the call.
The week is not only the body
Two things blindside people, and both are ordinary.
The first is boredom, which arrives around day four and is much heavier than it sounds. Evenings that used to have a shape now have four empty hours in them. Fill them in advance and specifically, rather than leaving them open and hoping.
The second is that the feelings the drinking was flattening come back on schedule. Grief, anger about something from five years ago, anxiety at three in the afternoon for no reason. That is not the withdrawal, and it is not a sign you were better off drinking. It is what was underneath. Tell someone it is happening.
We Are With You offers ["free and confidential support to adults and young people facing challenges with drugs, alcohol and mental health"](https://www.wearewithyou.org.uk/help-and-advice/) across England and Scotland, with a webchat. Drinkline is 0300 123 1110, weekdays 9am to 8pm and weekends 11am to 4pm. Samaritans is 116 123, any hour.
If you drink during the week
Stop where you are rather than finishing what is open, and get medical advice before you try again from a standing start if you were drinking heavily. Going back to a full daily amount and then stopping abruptly a second time is the situation the safety warnings at the top of this page are about. [You drank, what now](/guides/alcohol/you-drank-what-now) has the rest.
Common questions
**How long do alcohol withdrawal symptoms last?** The NHS says they begin within 6 to 12 hours of your last drink and usually last from 3 to 7 days. Sleep and mood commonly take longer than the physical symptoms, and evenings stay difficult for weeks after the body has settled.
**Is it normal to feel worse on day four than day one?** It is common. The physical symptoms often ease at the same time that mood and boredom get heavier, so people expect to be improving and instead feel flat. That pattern is not a sign the attempt is failing.
**When should I go to hospital for alcohol withdrawal?** Call 999 for hallucinations, severe tremors, seizures or fits. Ring a GP or your alcohol service if symptoms are getting worse rather than better after two or three days, if you cannot keep fluids down, or if you become confused.
**Will my sleep ever go back to normal?** Most people find it starts to improve during the second week and keeps improving after that, though not on a straight line. If there is no improvement at all after a fortnight, raise it with a GP rather than waiting it out.
**Can I do this without telling anyone?** You can, and it is much harder. At minimum, one person should know which week you are in, so that if things go wrong at two in the morning somebody knows why.
Sources
- [NHS, Alcohol misuse treatment](https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/alcohol-misuse/treatment/), for withdrawal beginning within 6 to 12 hours and usually lasting 3 to 7 days, and the danger of stopping suddenly when dependent.
- [NHS, Alcohol support](https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/alcohol-advice/alcohol-support/), for the symptoms that mean calling 999 and the Drinkline hours.
- [GOV.UK, UK clinical guidelines for alcohol treatment, pharmacological interventions](https://www.gov.uk/guidance/clinical-guidelines-for-alcohol-treatment/10-pharmacological-interventions), for benzodiazepine reducing regimens, thiamine, and first-line relapse prevention medication.
- [StatPearls, alcohol withdrawal](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK441882/), a clinical review, for repeated withdrawal episodes lowering the seizure threshold.
