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Depression and mild anxiety AFTER quitting drinking



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Depression and mild anxiety AFTER quitting drinking

Old 05-10-2017, 11:34 PM
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Welcome thatsnotmyname

For me, by the end, any amount of alcohol affected me badly.

I reckon if you quit completely you'd see an eventual but certain change in mood.

I'm glad you've joined us

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Old 07-20-2017, 01:07 AM
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Hi I am new here as well.
I am at 61 days without a drink after years of regular daily drinking.
I now understand that i was alcohol dependent a functioning alcoholic.
I went cold turkey and had some very bad days for the first week or so.
With two months dry i have exactly the same feeling, lack of motivation, anxiety almost to the point of panic. Struggling with fatigue and depression.
I also gave up smoking 21 days ago so expect that is also a factor as i suspect it produces the same feeling.
I have been presribed Citalopram 10mg to help with the sumptoms but have only been taking for about 3 weeks.
At the moment i am not sure if they are helping but i am going to keep trying.
I dont know what to expect next but perhaps someone here will know more.
Good luck.
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Old 07-20-2017, 03:26 AM
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Welcome Stw33,

Depression and alcoholism, in early sobriety, have pretty much the same symptoms. Depression is a recognized illness, while alcoholism, if it is left untreated, often manifests in feelings of self pity and uselessness.

The medication you have taken is a treatment for depression. There is no medication that treats alcoholism. That tends to be a matter of choosing and following some kind of recovery plan, and usually involves a certain amount of work.

Alcoholics that are misdiagnosed with depression can often end up with undesirable consequences from the medications, so it pays to be absolutely honest with your doctor and understand which of the two problems you are trying to treat.
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Old 08-24-2017, 12:17 AM
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Originally Posted by Fredo1981 View Post
OMG! i don't know how i arrived here but this is exactly what i am going through,i stopped drinking on the 31st December 2014,i have been okay for the past months,feeling fresh and productive and happy,now things have changed,i am depressed,panick attacks of what if i hurt myself and cant stop,i am a sad soul now,i get so afraid of what if i go mad,what will people say,or what if i lose it at work in front of colleagues or even at the gym,i have good things going on for me,but i cant be happy,i feel like what am i living for,like "and then what". i am planning on going to see a psychiatrist.This story gives me hope,i am going to get rid of this anxiety and depression
I understand that this post is a couple of years old, but I am reading through this forum and this exactly describes what is going on in my head! I am 7 days sober now and have never ever in my life had thoughts like this and anxiety like this. I have been drinking heavily for 4-5 years now. And decided enough is enough. I cannot even remember what it feels like to be "normal"..... whatever that is. Hopefully you found peace. I am hoping for the same. This forum has really set my mind at ease tonight (a feat not easily accomplished in the past week).
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Old 08-24-2017, 01:18 AM
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Welcome Jbel1985,
This is a great place for ideas on overcoming the drink problem. There are a number of approaches but I guess the first thing is to identify exactly what the problem is.

Fear, self pity and resentment are common companions of the alcoholic who has yet to treat his problem. Anxiety, depression and anger can be disorders in their own right, with their own treatments. Though it seems they can be caused by alcoholism, they do not cause alcoholism themselves.

Treatments for anxiety and depression are less effective if mixed with alcohol, or the sufferer is drinking excessively. It seems stopping drinking is the first thing to do to get everything else sorted out. And of course be totally honest with your doctor.f you can't be honest, no one can help you.
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Old 08-24-2017, 01:56 AM
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Welcome to SR Jbel

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Old 08-24-2017, 02:16 AM
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Before you diagnose yourself..

I welcome all that's been said on what is, for me and I'm sure many others an excellent thread, really great!

Personally, keeping recovery and the delusional effects of drinking together with all that's been said thus far in the forefront of my mind.

I like to keep this from William Gibson, one of the 'noir prophet's' of 'cyberpunk' in mind,'Before you start diagnosing yourself with depression and low self esteem make sure you're not surrounded by assholes.'

As I've recently been informed that my posts on SR are pompous, I post this, like all my posts and responses to others, simply as a suggestion...
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Old 08-24-2017, 10:46 PM
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Originally Posted by Dee74 View Post
Welcome to SR Jbel

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Thank you! I had a much better day today
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Old 08-25-2017, 12:52 AM
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Originally Posted by Redmayne View Post
...'Before you start diagnosing yourself with depression and low self esteem make sure you're not surrounded by assholes.'

As I've recently been informed that my posts on SR are pompous, I post this, like all my posts and responses to others, simply as a suggestion...
You? Pompous Redmayne?? Well either they had a strange or lacking sense of humour or were just having a really bad day.

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Old 08-25-2017, 12:58 AM
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Originally Posted by Jbel1985 View Post
I understand that this post is a couple of years old, but I am reading through this forum and this exactly describes what is going on in my head! I am 7 days sober now and have never ever in my life had thoughts like this and anxiety like this. I have been drinking heavily for 4-5 years now. And decided enough is enough. I cannot even remember what it feels like to be "normal"..... whatever that is. Hopefully you found peace. I am hoping for the same. This forum has really set my mind at ease tonight (a feat not easily accomplished in the past week).
Welcome Jbel. Glad you found us. Please don't be scared to do an intro / hello thread of your own on the Newcomers area as well. It's a great way for others to get to know you a little.

I remember being completely shocked at the turn things took when I stopped drinking - by a month in I was a wreck - anxiety and washing-machine head mostly. Thought I was going insane. It was a relief to come here, and shortly after to AA, and find so many people who had felt the same as me. Before starting to drink. While drinking. And then without booze - it gave me a lot of hope that these people had managed to find a way to live happy and fulfilled lives free of booze.

Things will get better if you're willing to stay sober a day at a time, and work on your recovery.

I wish you all the best and look forward to more posts from you.
Take care. BB
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Old 08-29-2017, 04:52 PM
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I'm on day 26 and dealing with severe anxiety and irritability as well as a blah feeling. I have bipolar disorder so I'm very familiar with deep depression and it's not that. It's just a feeling of restlessness, lack of motivation and emotionally raw feeling. Anything can set me off or make me cry and I'm having a hard time focusing on anything not related to recovery.

I didn't do rehab or take any time off and I think it's really hard to go through this while pretending all is normal. I'm doing weekly therapy and meetings, but I wish I had the ability to focus completely on my recovery. I know many people do this without rehab but it is really hard.
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Old 08-29-2017, 05:22 PM
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leanabeana, it's going to get better. I had a lot of anxiety in early days, too. I spent all day every day on these forums many times.

It gets better. Not right away, but soon. Hang on. Even the bipolar thing *may* turn out to be completely drinking related.

Stick with us and keep reading and posting. There is an Anxiety subforum too. I really like the sticky posts at the top of the anxiety forums, especially this one:
http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...anagement.html
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Old 08-30-2017, 12:30 AM
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Originally Posted by leanabeana View Post
I'm on day 26 and dealing with severe anxiety and irritability as well as a blah feeling. I have bipolar disorder so I'm very familiar with deep depression and it's not that. It's just a feeling of restlessness, lack of motivation and emotionally raw feeling. Anything can set me off or make me cry and I'm having a hard time focusing on anything not related to recovery.

I didn't do rehab or take any time off and I think it's really hard to go through this while pretending all is normal. I'm doing weekly therapy and meetings, but I wish I had the ability to focus completely on my recovery. I know many people do this without rehab but it is really hard.
Restless, irritable and discontent. Yep. Spoken about in the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous for a very good reason.

You say you're going to meetings - do you mean AA?
If so, remember the symbol for AA has three sides. There are three legs on the stool - meetings is only one of them. I needed to use all three legs of that stool to start feeling more secure and comfortable. And my step work needs to start every morning at breakfast time with my AA prayers and contemplations / reflections whetever you prefer to call them.

It took me 6 month of severe restlessness, irritability and discontentment to understand that meetings were not cutting it alone, and that maybe I was 'alcoholic enough' haha to need the whole program of rcovery. Gradually over those 6 months my RID grew and swelled into an ocean - without knowing it I became gradually lost. Drowning in my own sea of RID, until I was functioning less well at work and home that I'd been while drinking. THEN luckily one day when 'How It Works' was read out I really Heard it. Not just the words. But the MEANING. After that meeting I got a sponsor and went home determined to starton Step 1 asap. I started getting to meetings early and staying late so I could help set up and clear up so I was doing what service I could. I listened to my sponsor and cracked on with my step work. I felt a massive amount of relief pretty much straight away once I'd got these things in place.

There are ways of immersing yourself in our recovery in our homes and day-to-day lives. Even if we DID get the chance to go to rehab, when we come out we would still need to do this. After all - recovery isn't about just stopping drinking - it's about learning to live life on life's terms. Every day. The exciting time. The challenging ones. And the plain old boring monotonous ones. And we ARE all capable of learning to doing this but the willingness needs to come first. The willingness to thoroughly follow the path. And 'thoroughly' means all the legs of the stool. Meetings. Service. And working the steps. For me it works when I work it - all of it. And when I don't work it that RID is quick to come back.

The other RID triggers are those common old HALT ones. Like most folk, I find I need to take good care that these don't sneak in. Even now, almost 3.5 years sober. They may not mean that I'm going to take a drink, and one of them alone isnt tooooooo bad, but if 2 or more of them come into play, OHHH BOY - it really does let that RID back in and affects the quality of my sobriety very negatively.

Anyway. Hope you're not feeling so bad right now.

Take care. I wish you all the best for your sobriety and your recovery.
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Old 08-30-2017, 04:20 AM
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Good points BB. I was listening to a speaker the other day talking about using the three legacies to figure out why someone relapses.

Like you said there are three sides to the triangle.

Unity which is the fellowship
Recovery which is the steps
Service which is about contributing, carrying the message, giving back.

Someone who can tick all three sides will not relapse. In my experience, most relapsers can tick unity, and that's about it. Just staying dry by feeding off the fellowship. That gets a bit tedious after a while, and it leads to unmet expectations. And of course if we haven't ticked the recovery side, these turn into festering resentments, RID as you called it. It is a downhill slide from there. I have seen it many times.
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Old 08-30-2017, 11:04 AM
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Thanks all. I've been going to a combination of AA, LifeRing and Refuge Recovery. I like them all in different ways, but I do still have issues with the 12 steps. Mainly the defects of character and powerlessness stuff. Like I mentioned in another thread, I don't like being told I'm defective and my emotions or thoughts are wrong. I'll keep going and try to be open minded, but I have some fundamental differences with the philosophy.
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Old 08-30-2017, 07:10 PM
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I remember looking at the steps on the wall in my first few meetings, and there were some up there I thought I would never do. So I started with step one, and kept an open mind about the rest. As time went on I would feel the need to take the next step, usually when I saw that there was a good reason for it. The reasons were not apparent to me at the start.

The program is not really about telling you where you are going wrong. In fact it doesnt tell you anything, not even to stop drinking. It says we assume the reader wants to stop. The reader may ask "what do I have to do" and our response is to tell you what we have done, and why.

So I would take a look at a step, listen and read up on why, what was happening to them, how they were thinkinge etc, compare what was being said with my own experience, and from there decide whether or not to proceed.

Step two is quite useful. It is the point at which we would choose our recovery method. AA is the only spiritual one, and in step two we express a willingness to believe that the same power that helped them possibly could help us.
If we are unwilling to believe that possibilty, then we might well select some other method which we believe will enable us to recover.
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Old 09-03-2017, 02:39 PM
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Hi, I've been absent for awhile...just realized I first joined in 2011...most of my drinking has been only one or two a day but everyday and sometimes more....recently had up to 2 months of abstinence and then use, abstinence. Tried the odd drink and it does lead to a slippery slope. Off the booze....and I mean had only one 8 oz of alcohol but then next day abdominal pain/vomitting x 2 days....so now abstinent 3 days. Yes, feeling no motivation/energy/depressed mood. So googled depression/abstinent after drinking and here I am again. These posts have really helped. I continue to eat a plant based diet, feel sugar cravings, and do meditate. I have added fasting which helps. Have played tennis as well. Thank you all for being here.
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Old 09-03-2017, 04:23 PM
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Welcome back heidiho

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Old 02-23-2018, 02:28 PM
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this thread helps me a LOT

Originally Posted by FightingIrish View Post
I realize I didn't really answer your question. Yes, I was anxious and depressed after quitting drinking. Alcohol is a depressant. Withdrawal from alcohol is a sudden change in equilibrium for your brain. The nerves, which are used to over-compensating for repeated exposure to a depressant, become over-excited/excitable when suddenly without alcohol. And if alcohol was the solution to boredom, then suddenly not having it is likely to be disconcerting. We become unaccustomed to constructively using our time when our default has been alcohol.

My depression disappeared about a year or so after abstaining completely. But I was a very heavy, everyday drinker toward the end.

M

I am 65 and have been a heavy evening drinker since I was 15. ( 2 bottles wine per night)Tommorrow marks 6 weeks since I quit. I am going OK, maybe because I have maintained a lot of regular exercise along the way - dont really know.....but this confusion/boredom/hopelessness/tiredness thing has hit me strongly. GREAT To find out that this is " normal" and that I need to be patient. Thanks for being here folks...this means a lot and is seriously helpful right now
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Old 02-27-2018, 02:54 PM
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Alcohol is a depressant so we have to live with the effects of consuming it and coming off it. Depression is a very common symptom among alcoholics both new and long term sometimes. I know i still go through depressions and often start working some more steps if i feel that will be useful. Being sure to do it gently and not force the process. Easy does it.
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