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How do you cope with being sober when you drank to bury mental health issues?



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How do you cope with being sober when you drank to bury mental health issues?

Old 04-02-2012, 04:08 PM
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How do you cope with being sober when you drank to bury mental health issues?

For many of us, drinking was an unhealthy response to an issue with our lives. For me it's social anxiety and depression.

For those of you who have had successful recoveries but had started drinking to cover up a mental health issue, I'd like to know what you did to combat the return of these issues.

With the beginning of my recovery, I am concerned about my anxiety and depression issues being back front and center in my life - even though alcohol definitely made them worse... I am worried that if I don't find a good way to address them, that I will relapse into a drinking habit even deeper than I have had before because I feel that I failed again, and am now unable succeed. Does this make sense?

Thanks,

[Edit the title to make it more clear]
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Old 04-02-2012, 04:14 PM
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Therapy, Medication & working the 12 steps. Nuff said.
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Old 04-02-2012, 04:24 PM
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Well I suppose, You can't really address those issues while drinking anyway, so quitting drink is the first step.
As Josh says. Anything else could be added if needed.
Best to you on your journey.
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Old 04-02-2012, 04:28 PM
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Anti-depressants for me, it made stopping drinking easier because it treated the central problem.
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Old 04-02-2012, 04:28 PM
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Hi maples, welcome to sr! In my case, I didn't realize that I was self medicating for anxiety and depression. I hoped that sobriety would clear these issues. It didn't.

At 6 months sober I went to my doctor and she prescribed medication. I am 13 months sober yesterday. I work on my recovery every day with sr, exercise, and my self care plan.

These last 7 months have been the happy overall time in my whole life. I didn't know I could be mostly happy most of the days, most days.

Wishing you well on your journey and again, welcome!
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Old 04-02-2012, 04:53 PM
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I'm only a month sober maples but this is something which concerns me too. I wouldn't say I used drinking as a way to 'cover up' mental health issues but it was a temporary avoidance strategy which ended up making all of those anxiety and depression problems worse.

I started drinking heavily as a replacement for self harming and I was a bit scared to live without these 'coping strategies'. But I work on this every day with very simple things to try and avoid negative thinking (mindfulness, CBT). I won't take medication because I'm too scared about how I'll react to it given my problems with alcohol (the same reason I've never done any recreational drugs either) so I'm hoping that therapy, meditation and exercise is going to be my saviour. I have to say though that I'm so much better already for not drinking for a short time. I think drinking became the bigger problem in the end and now I can concentrate on my other problems in a sane and rational way rather than trying to drink myself to death.

Best of luck to you on your journey
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Old 04-02-2012, 05:20 PM
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I spent a few years in counseling with an excellent therapist, learning techniques to deal with my anxiety. I also take an SSRI. This worked beautifully for me, but it's critical to check out your own situation with appropriate licensed clinicians.
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Old 04-02-2012, 05:25 PM
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I started with working the 12 steps. If anything returns, there's always therapy and medication, but my anxiety and depression has disappeared. I'm a two weeks shy of 11 months of sobriety.
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Old 04-02-2012, 05:29 PM
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Originally Posted by Maples View Post
I am worried that if I don't find a good way to address them, that I will relapse into a drinking habit even deeper
Well Maples, it's just my personal experience but my "issues" were dealt with in Alcoholics Anonymous and the 12 Steps.
Did you ever read AA's "How It Works" ??

All the best.
Bob R



Alcoholics Anonymous - How it works


RARELY HAVE we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path. Those who do not recover are people who cannot or will not completely give themselves to this simple program, usually men and women who are constitutionally incapable of being honest with themselves. There are such unfortunates. They are not at fault; they seem to have been born that way. They are naturally incapable of grasping and developing a manner of living which demands rigorous honesty. Their chances are less than average. There are those, too, who suffer from grave emotional and mental disorders, but many of them do recover if they have the capacity to be honest.

Our stories disclose in a general way what we used to be like, what happened, and what we are like now. If you have decided that you want what we have and are willing to go to any length to get it - then you are ready to take certain steps.

At some of these we balked. We thought that we could find an easier, softer way. But we could not. With all earnestness at our command, we beg of you to be fearless and thorough from the very start. Some of us have tried to hold on to our old ideas and the result was nil until we let go absolutely.

Remember that we deal with alcohol - cunning, baffling, powerful! Without help it is too much for us. But there is One who has all power - that One is God. May you find him now.

Half measures availed us nothing. We stood at the turning point. We asked His protection and care with complete abandon.

Here are the steps we took, which are suggested as a program of recovery:

1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol - that our lives had become unmanageable.

2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.

4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.

6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.

7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.

8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.

9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.

10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.

11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.

12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

Many of us exclaimed, "What an order! I can't go through with it." Do not be discouraged. No one among us has been able to maintain anything like perfect adherence to these principles. We are not saints. The point is, that we were willing to grow along spiritual lines. The principles we have set down are guides to progress. We claim spiritual progress rather than spiritual perfection.

Our description of the alcoholic, the chapter to the agnostic, and our personal adventures before and after make clear three pertinent ideas:

(a) That we were alcoholic and could not manage our own lives.

(b) That probably no human power could have relieved our alcoholism.

(c) That God could and would if He were sought.
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Old 04-02-2012, 05:32 PM
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I'm not an AAer but I worked through step 4 & realized I had way more problems than I realized. It helped me pinpoint the areas I needed to work on.
My depression & anxiety are pretty much gone after 11 weeks sober.
Still working on my problems but it feels great to tackle things head on, instead of hiding in a bottle. There is no peace in avoidance.
I say the serenity prayer alot too. Best wishes.
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Old 04-02-2012, 06:27 PM
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I see a Medical Doctor and it turns out I did have an illness. But the Doctor would not even diagnose me until I had over 30 days sober.
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Old 04-02-2012, 06:31 PM
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I drank to medicate depression and anxiety but of course only made it worse. I find that, sober, my meds work as they should and really help me. When I was drinking I never gave my meds a chance to work. Now sober they do work and my mental health is kept in check with meds and exercise.
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Old 04-02-2012, 06:46 PM
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ditto - sobriety and meds worked WONDERS for me. I think it is mostly the sobriety though.

Inside my skin I feel like a completely different person. Much better.
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Old 04-02-2012, 07:12 PM
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Hi Maples

for me I had to work on my underlying issues (depression and anxiety) and also on the problem I created trying to fix those problems myself (drinking and drugs).

I recommend therapy/counselling - I felt I was lost on a great dark sea with nothing but blackness around me - I needed someone (someone with expertise) who wasn't in that blackness to help guide me back to 'shore'.

I also used exercise meditation and breathing exercises to help my anxiety and depression - the results weren't immediate...it took a while and a good deal of work... but they did come eventually - and the outcome was a far more positive and healthy experience than drinking or drugging

D
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Old 04-02-2012, 09:30 PM
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I found that the main thing I needed to work on was getting a much quieter mind. Mindfulness, meditation, learning to live in the present (much easier said than done) and regular exercise were also very important.

If you learn to look at your thoughts as a non-judgmental outside observer you will over time gain a separation of sorts. The observer, watcher or whatever you prefer to call it can be visualized as a ball of pure white light, a third eye or nothing at all. This would be pure consciousness, the now, the gap, the space between thoughts, it's known by many different names.

The self, the ego, the mind that processes thought, feels emotion, the part that is made up of our collection of memories is the part that must be quieted down. A turbulant mind will race from one thought to the next, to the past and the future. There are many methods to quiet your mind and tons of reading material on the topic.

Everything comes from the mind so gaining some semblance of control over it will prove invaluable in all your endeavors. All of the other posts also have great suggestions, just remember that there is no one thing, no magic wand, it is an ongoing process, a work in progress.
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Old 04-03-2012, 05:28 AM
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I suffered both, CBT therapy has helped a great deal with the depression and anxiety, also learning some self acceptance. Actually I realized in the end that alcohol was only exacerbating the mental health issues, I had some terrible anxiety and depressive episodes before I stopped.

I have medical support, people who help me address these issues. At first I reasoned that the 12 steps weren't really relevant to me, but I do find a lot of the conventional material on alcoholism/addiction helpful. I let the professionals deal with the mental health side of things, but also involve myself in the other recovery resources around.
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Old 04-03-2012, 06:25 AM
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Maples, you're right to be concerned about the mental health issues that pushed you to drinking. For me, I had had depression for years before I started drinking. I needed to get it properly diagnosed and treated before I could stop drinking. Again for me, antidepressants level the playing field. Now, I know that a bad day is just a bad day and that I am capable to getting through it and feeling better. I keep a very, very close watch on my depression because it's a big part of my recovery.
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