Dan1888

Do you drink to overcome your anxiety?

or

Does alcohol cause you to have anxiety?


Can you ever really overcome your problem until you know what is really causing you to drink and how do you find out?

MIRecovery

When I stopped drinking an amazing amount of mental and physical problems vanished

LeeD82

I periodically have anxiety and elements of depressive illness, and both are made considerably worse by alcohol.

Ditto paranoia

resolute50

Alcohol always caused me to have anxiety the next day.

zjw

it relieved what i did not realize was just mild anxiety in the begining that could have been managed in much healthier ways. Then it ended up just causing much more severe anxiety and panic as it wore off.

Looking4Help123

I could not fix my anxiety while I was drinking - the drinking magnified it tenfold. So no matter which is first, chicken or egg, I needed to fix the drinking first.

Needinghelp82

I've suffered from mental health problems (anxiety related) for many years before drinking. It heightens it by far though.

Dee74

Both. I tried to self medicate for my anxiety and eventually became an alcoholic.
By the end alcohol was actually exacerbating my anxiety.

D

EndGameNYC

Put down the thing that's killing you first.

sugarbear1

Alcohol was but a symptom of me and my problem(s)......Yes, it did cause a great deal of anxiety!

Mrsbee

Agree. It's definitely a chicken and egg debate. Regardless of what came first, putting down the drink will only help in the long run.

ScottFromWI

Both for me too. What finally worked for me was to stop worrying about why or how I became an alcoholic and simply accepting that I AM an alcoholic. Then I was able to move forward with getting better.

grubby

I'm pretty sure most of us drank to calm our minds or to feel better, i started during a pretty low point in my life.

Im guessing that the people who drink just for fun or just for the hell of it are in the minority......

Alcohol makes you artificially "happy" for a few hours, so from that we can deduce that most of the people who picked up the bottle did so to numb themselves to reality

......... at least that was my experience, my life sucked at the time, so? i started drinking

dSober

I gotta go along with both too. It's a vicious downward spiral that can only be stopped and reversed by stopping the drinking. I found that was causing it in me was a lack of real belief, faith if you will, that it could be stopped and reversed. Since I found that, it's become much easier.

Gottalife

Alcoholism was the cause of my problems and the solution (at least for a while at the same time.

The real root cause was selfishness and self centredness. Anxiety came from the fears that my base instincts for security, sex, prestige, would not be statisfied, and that I would not get my own way, that things would not turn out how I wanted, people would not behave how I wanted.

Anxiety and depression are documented symptoms of alcohol withdrawal, and are part and parcel of untreated alcoholism. They are brought on by alcoholism, but cannot cause alcoholism.

Admiral

For a long time I thought that I knew the reason I drank, but I think I was just repeating what other people said. Since I've started self inquiry, I've had to let those beliefs fall away and accept that I really don't know why I drank or used.

On the surface it was because I loved the feeling, beyond that I really don't know. The only truth I know of in regards to my drinking and drugging is that I can never take another drink or another puff of the pipe, if I do, then the madness will start all over again.

deeker

I was waiting for that answer. The Spiritual Malady as laid out in The Big Book.
yep

Eddiebuckle

I didn't think I had any anxiety issues until I quit drinking. By some weird coincidence, I no longer have issues with flying or heights, and I no longer fly off the handle at minor things not going according to plan. Alcohol had an enormous impact on my thinking, personality, and outlook. I had no clue and would have sworn on a stack of Bibles it wasn't true... I simply didn't know that I didn't know.

Dan1888

I think this is very common for so many people, myself included.

doggonecarl

I agree with Admiral. I wanted to know why I drank, but it was like an itch I couldn't scratch. In the end, the "why" had nothing to do with the solution.