When the shaking gets uncontrollable, sleep won't come, heart is pounding and won't slow down, DT's set in - it's time to get a drink in you to calm it enough to get to a facility that can handle a medical detox so that you don't die from the withdrawal.

Over time, someone who drinks consistently and regularly develops a tolerance for the alcohol and it takes more and more of it to get the same effect. The reason for this is that your brain has started creating and releasing a chemical to overcome the depressant (alcohol) that you have introduced to your body. It's the brain's way of dealing with this threat.

When you suddenly quit drinking, the brain doesn't suddenly slow down the production of these chemicals. It took time for it to ramp up production to combat the alcohol and it takes time for it to slow the production of these chemicals down.

In the meantime, while these chemicals are released from your brain into your body to fight the alcohol that isn't there anymore, the body reacts to those chemicals with fidgeting, restlessness, unease, rapid pulse, fast breathing, etc. (These are just the mild symptoms.)

Taking a drink will ease the symptoms for a brief while when the alcohol is in your system. So, if you're trying to quit cold turkey (or quit Wild Turkey, as it were), if there is an inkling of a thought that you're about to suffer DTs, then it's a good idea to get a drink in yourself to calm it down and make the call for help.

I was fortunate to not have to go that far when I finally laid the bottle down, but I was less than a hair's breadth from being there.

Over the long term, for the rest of your life your brain will remember alcohol and what it needs to do to combat it. Even one drink can trigger the brain into opening up its chemical plant into overdrive again. And that's why alcoholics can't have just that one drink again. It's not about a lack of control. It's about turning on the chemical plant in your brain again which will out you right back where you started in a hurry.

Sorry for the large tome here, but the physical addiction to alcohol needs to be something everyone is aware of. I'm not trying to preach to anyone that you shouldn't drink, or that if you drink you're going to hell. It's just something you should know about in order to keep a wary eye out for it.