karate

I though it might be worthy of a post on underlying issues .

Lots of alocholics have depression ,anxeity ,ect .

However the alochol expands every one of these -thats some irony .

soberclover

Good point. In sobriety I am learning how to deal with issues related to my anxiety and depression. I do know, however, that now that I've been sober these issues are much much much better!

Overmarz87

Anxiety was the reason why I initially started drinking when I was 17. I'm now 25 and for once in those 8 years, I've been sober for a solid 3 weeks. But, I'm also feeling anxious which initially drove me to drink. At the same time though, drinking makes me more depressed than I am when I don't drink. So by quitting alcohol I'm trading depression for my natural state of anxiety. I'll probably have a massive coronary, but I figure that's a quicker death than cirrohsis of the liver.

Sobriety to me just seems like a series of "not so bad" trade offs.

AugustWest11

Sadly that is my biggest problem right now in being sober. 50+ days out of 29 years. My entire teen years & high school and all when you should learn to "grow up" I was wasted :-( So I am dealing w/ a lot right about now myself.

KarenSW

I thought I dank because of the depression and anxiety. Things for me got a lot better when I realized the drinking caused the depression and anxiety!

AugustWest11

I wish that was my prob. Grant you the depression was the beers; the anxiety was b/c I am a borderline agoraphobic . Which I wasn't diagnosed for 12 some odd years of getting wasted to deal.

sunrise1

It's true that alcohol does that in the long term, but I found that in the immediate time frame, alcohol freed me (very temporarily) from those things. It's hard to make that delineation between the chicken and the egg. At least in my case.