sammyjac1

I am a mother to two great little boys-- two years old and three and a half. I have a great husband and a nice life, but my past demons and anxiety create a path that continues to take me off track. I have to put things behind me to be happy for good. I'm worried I'm ruining my children and they deserve a happy, healthy mother.

My drinking has consumed my life over the last 18 years. I've quit on and off, and have always maintained my responsibilities, but each time I fall back to the bottle my depression, anxiety and insomnia get worse. I've completed rehab programs, AA, therapy, and nothing seems to stick. Partly because I'm not ready and my anxiety and insomnia cause me to fall back. Has anyone who has quit over and over feel they've permanently ruin their brains? It seems to get worse each time. Does the anxiety and insomnia get better? How long has it lasted? How about depression? I just want to sleep, and feel happy again and less anxious.

I honestly feel this time I'm going to quit for good because it is my decision. Drinking has given me high blood pressure, which I hope goes away. It is scaring me that I'd lose my children and husband who are most important to me and I want my life back. I don't want to reach the bottom of the hole. I have to much to lose.

I've been seeing a doctor to help me. She has put me on Gabaphetin to sleep. 600mg at night, plus magnesium and glycine. During the day I have 100 mg of Gabaphetin for anxiety and Ativan for this first week. I also take vitamin b complex and vitamin d. Does anyone take anything to help get their cortisol back to normal? Maybe Seriphos? How long is this going to take before I feel better? Have I permanently ruined my body? I hate alcohol. It has created so many issues for my health and life that I need to fix. This has to get better!

Mentium

I'm not sure how much right I have to offer advice as I have only been sober eight days (though I was 11 months last year), but I would like to offer at least an observation from my own experience as someone who has had anxiety issues much of my life. And that is that although alcohol does nail anxiety pretty effectively - I used to feel it ebb away as that second glass of wine was hitting my brain - the cumulative effect is to increase anxiety over time. Indeed it can increase it to the levels I have experienced, where your life becomes one of fearfulness and almost terrifying.

Perhaps you could explore other paths to combatting your anxiety - relaxation, meditation, perhaps short term even prescribed medication. Personally I have taken up addiction counselling to explore those issues.

Thepatman

I think patience is key. Your body and mind needs to heal.

If you eat good food, exercise a bit, take time to take deep breaths and meditate a bit, things will level out.

IOAA2

Hi.
I identify with your difficulties to certain degrees. While I continued to drink things/me got progressively worse hence alcoholism is a progressive dis ease like it or not, I didn’t.

This progression continued until the signposts said to stop digging, I’d had it!
Fortunately I had good sober people around me showing me the path of sobriety but I continued to need to wave the white flag of surrender to the more powerful first drink.

Fortunately I was taught to accept the fact that I cannot drink alcohol in safety and needed to be honest with myself about my drinking.

After a reasonable time of emotional and mental pain I needed to start working the program which hangs on the wall of most meetings. The big thing is I/we need to work on and change the reasons we drank, I’m far from perfect but it’s worked for a lot of years now keeping me sober/dry.

BE WELL

Latte

My experience was that for the first few times, once I had quit for awhile I started to feel less anxiety etc.

One thing I did learn was that I need an antidepressant! I was self medicating my depression with depressants! Ack! Once I medicated my depression correctly, I could address the other issues. I'm not saying everyone who has depression from drinking should go on one, I'm just saying, for me-it was the answer. I have to pay attention to my nutrition, my sleep and my physical health to that my mental health stays in check. Our bodies are directly tied to our brains. My body will show outward signs of breaking down as well as inward. Anxiety, depression, bouts of sleep issues, if I don't treat the whole thing!

Today I exercise, eat a balanced diet, limit my caffeine and see a therapist. I take my medications as directed by my doctors who know my history and who I have been honest with. It's amazing what I can accomplish when I do these things.

It's not easy. You have a family to take care of-they come first, etc. I've done that. I gave that family away because I was not taking care of myself. I started using so I could take care of it all and ended up having to start over. You know how they tell you to put the mask on your face first in an airplane? I think of it like that. I can't take care of anyone or anything until I put that mask on.

You can do this. Stick around. Read over in the Woman's Recovery section and post there for support too.

You're not alone.

Mel12

Recovery feelings of chronic anxiety I recognize as having seeds from before I used anything. In having inborn tendencies towards anxiety, I suppose my brain was "pre-ruined." Using substances probably made things worse, and today I probably have some permanent brain effects or damage. I have enough brain left, I would like to think, to have a life with what time remains.


Withdrawal, PAWS, and the like, they say, can drag out the bad feelings for a long time--I hear even up to a year or more. Others here will know more about this syndrome.

My experience? Quitting has drastically reduced instances where I manufacture external situations that produce enormous stress. Quitting so far has reduced my problem to managing internal tendencies towards stress, instead of having external train wrecks to also manage (apart from old train wrecks that still need cleaning up).

Regarding my underlying anxiety (and not PAWS), medication has not been a solution for me. I have been through a parade of medicines that never did anything I could notice. I still take a maintenance dose of an SSRI which feels no more effective than a sugar pill to me.

I exercise a great deal, which I find to be an effective partial treatment for anxiety and depression.

It is crazy, isn't it? I wouldn't give a martini and a cigarette to a dog because I believe it is evil and horrible to torture animals. Yet look at what I have done to myself. Crazy.

It sounds like you are on a great track to a much, much better life! I am rooting for you!!

Mel

lakeofglitter

I agree with Latte, I was treating depression with a depressant (alcohol) also. I just started Lexapro a few days ago but my understanding is that it takes 4-6 weeks to see the benefits, so I guess I'll just have to wait it out. I am also seeing a counselor.

I'm 3 1/2 months sober and I've been all over the place regarding mood swings...one minute I'm happy and the next I'm bursting into tears.

I figure that I've abused my body for so long I can't expect things to improve as soon as I would like. I have to be patient - not my strongest characteristic lol!

I find that taking walks and exercising really helps clear my mind.

Keep faith - things will improve. We just have to give it time.

andy8m

My quitting service explained the importance of vitamin B1 to help brain recovery. So as well as the B Complex I take (which I assume would contain B1) I was also put on a seperate B1 vitamin 3 times a day. These prescriptions will run 1 - 2 years. So far so good +6 months & feel great

strategery

For me, it took a little over a month of sobriety to get through the initial tiredness, but I did not use any medication. I do not have anxiety or depression, so I cannot guide you there.

I would not recommend doing anything to mess around with your cortisol levels unless it is documented medically, which your doctor will then treat you for.

LBrain

one thing is certain, when you quit ingesting alcohol into your system, it gets better.

The human body is a wonderful organism.

Anna

I agree that each time you start drinking and stop again, it gets harder and harder to manage.

You can learn to manage the anxiety. There are lots of good books on how to deal with anxiety without using medication. These are two that helped me a lot:

From Panic to Power by Lucinda Bassett
When Panic Attacks by Robert Burns MD

Soberwolf

Welcome Sammyjac

Bmac

Anxiety, insomnia, depression, blood pressure, happiness. The real question here is will any of those get better if I CONTINUE to drink? No. Will it be difficult at first? Maybe. Will those things get better? Absolutely!

hope22

Welcome Sammyjac, you will find a lot of support on this site. I used to drink in order to cope with my anxiety and depression. What I didn't realize until after I was sober for several months, was that drinking was causing a lot of my anxiety. This may or may not be the case with you, but until you take alcohol out of the equation it will be hard to tell.

PurpleKnight

Welcome to the Forum Sammyjac!!

sammyjac1

I keep reminding myself things have got to get better. The emptiness and awful guilt drinking leaves you with is something not worth repeating.

Soberwolf

Exactly !!

And it does indeed get better

NikTes

This is my experience as well. I never saw how things shifted though -- the points where the alcohol goes from being an easy access medication for the anxiety to being a big part of the problem of anxiety -- to being its creator, promoter and magnifier. It was only until after I quit drinking, a few days in, that the realization hit me. I was gobsmacked. And it was only then did I realize how bad my drinking had become and that I wasn't just abusing alcohol, but that I was an alcoholic. Progressive disease indeed. And sneaky.

I'm still working on other ways to combat the anxiety, but at least, alcohol- free, the anxiety is at manageable minimum now.