Originally Posted by
madgirl 
The thing I experience is - many nights as I am trying to fall asleep, my brain serves up painful or scary moments from my life over and over, like a skipping record. Sometimes these moments are drinking horrors, but sometimes they had nothing to do with my behavior - for instance, once I saw a loose dog tear out into the street and get suddenly hit by a car. Terrible moment and obviously impactful - but why does my brain insist on reliving these kinds of moments?
Yes, this is anxiety and it's very painful. I have those kinds of thoughts when I am trying to go to sleep, and sometimes when I'm doing something wonderful, those negative thoughts pop in. Try to remember, they are just thoughts. They are not you and they don't control you. You can feel them and let them go.
This is an article posted long ago by Morning Glory and it's helped me enormously. It's a bit long, but very worth the read because you will learn that you can stop those thoughts before they take hold of you emotionally:
http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...anagement.html