Originally Posted by
kicknNscreamin 
I don't know if this should go here, but it's bugging me.
Since I made the decision to never drink, I've noticed some things. Like, I'm eating more and exercising less. I'm picking at my eczema. I'm not showering every day. What the heck? I make a decision to better my life by not drinking and everything else falls apart? When I was drinking, I did not pick at my eczema, I showered and shaved every day. I took better care of myself as a drunk. What is happening?
You have been ingesting high-proof depressants for a long time, and probably caused quite a wreck of things as a result. Your body is rebounding from all of the wear-and-tear, and you now have "nothing to do" to fill all of your time, all the while being able to clearly see the results of your addiction. In short, you are depressed, which is quite common, since addiction directly causes depression.
If you weren't depressed as a result of your addiction, though, I would think that you had a few screws loose. In Rational Recovery, this is called the addicto-depressive condition, and you should go back and read about it in "RR: The New Cure," specifically on pages 100, 186, 280, 286, and especially 325.
You may want to seriously consider regular exercise as a way to not only alleviate it, but also as a way to replace your old habit. Standard psychiatric protocol usually requires 90 days of abstinence before a definitive diagnosis of depression separate from withdrawal can be made, so if it continues beyond that, I would certainly recommend consulting with a PDOC, although you can certainly do so before then.
Many shrinks have a nasty habit of referring everyone to recovery groups, often with a meeting list in hand, however, so if you consult with one, and they do this, be sure to tell them that you have chosen AVRT as your method of maintaining abstinence. In fact, I would recommend taking a copy of the "Rational Recovery: The New Cure for Substance Addiction" book with you to show them if this happens.