Originally Posted by Lithium12

Hi,

I've been drinking heavily for about six years. This was normally every day over that time - drinking about two bottles of wine or equivalent in beer/cider. This year I successfully took 40 days off drinking and then returned to limit myself to two drinking days per week. This worked well for two months, and then after a holiday I slipped back into daily drinking.

The main thing I struggle with when not drinking is dealing with my general anxiety. My base level of anxiety is high. I feel this physically in my chest and pressure around my face/head. It's sometimes actually painful, other times just very unpleasant or uncomfortable. Getting through those 40 days without alcohol I noticed that my anxiety did not seem to diminish. My cravings for the taste of alcohol did diminish, but my anxiety didn't. When I was controlling my drinking, the breaks off alcohol of three or two days were like something I have to grunt my way through - like the non-drinking days I was "putting up" with things until I could finally actually relax on a drinking day.

I have tried a lot of things such as meditation, reading, breathing, yoga, exercise etc. Exercise does help when it's intense, but getting the motivation to do sufficiently intense exercise is difficult. Breathing helps when anxiety is REALLY bad and it helps to just pass 30 seconds or a minute and whatever wave passes - but it's not much use beyond that. Booze, on the other hand, is amazing for it. A few sips into a drink and my anxiety is washed away with a river...

I'd like to know if anyone can relate to this and has advice?

I have been on the anti-anxiety medication Zoloft for almost three years. It does seem to help quite well for preventing depression, but it hasn't don't a great deal for my anxiety.