I never had the itches, but my stomach was royally fucked up from not drinking. I didn’t discuss it with a doctor or anything, I kind of figured it out on my own. The conclusion I came to was that consistent drinking had caused the organisms in my gut (the gut microbes/flora) to be a certain way or at a certain proportion. I got some probiotics and within a day that shit started fixing itself. In two days all was normal. This was after a week or two of fuckery in my gut after stopping cold turkey. The other thing I noticed was that random pains throughout my body went away. Before I stopped drinking, I thought the pains were just me getting old. Nope. It was the drinking. I stopped completely for probably nine months. Now I drink a little every now and then, but nothing like I used to. I don’t have any of the same problems I used to have when I was drinking 6+ beers almost every day. I don’t know what to tell you as it pertains to staying on the wagon. You have to want to do it. In my case, my life had fallen apart and I blamed at least an amount of it on alcohol. So I had my reasons for stopping. It wasn’t like I had to really try and fight some urge to drink. I literally didn’t want to at all. I’m glad because had I kept drinking, I would have probably just increased my intake and made my life that much worse. I really don’t believe I would have lived through it all if I had tried to keep drinking during that time. I barely lived through it as it was. Using alcohol to cope would have just made it worse. The downside is that it took a lot of bad shit happening for me to take that attitude. But that’s what it takes for some people I guess.