Rusty Zipper

your in the right place here VC

instant

As far as I am aware alcohol is not a recommended treatment for any emotional or psychological / mental disorder. It sounds to me that alcohol has you cornered. There are only two ways out.

Abbzi

C4999.. thank u I needed to hear that

Treating anxiety with alcohol is the closest thing to a deal with the Devil that I can think of... you will pay more than you think.

VCycle.. for me when I dont drink..when I push myself.. the anxiety passes.. Ive locked myself in the house due to fear..for months....Hell one goal in sobriety was to go to the mailbox and say hello to one person... when I did..ud think I won the olympics..I was so proud of myself...

baby steps for me.. and be gentle on urself [that was hard for me to learn]

lookinforward

VC you helped me smile on days that weren't so good for me in my early days of SR.A little woot here and there did me wonders. I pray that today is a better day for you. You have many people on here that care for you and are here for you. There is a motivational poster at work that I never noticed when I would come in sauced up everyday. I see it everyday now and the meaning helps keep me in my sober life....If you dont ride the wave of change you will be crushed beneath it. Keep Moving forward. Get out of the cycle you are in. There is a huge difference between existing and living. You know this. Get that independent vibrant woman back. She is still there. You just have to wake her up.
Day by Day
Dave

inforit

I have a 30 year habit that went bad. I went from having drinks to having to drink. And I was totally functional until I wasn't.When the stuff hit the fan, I was putting my youngest daughter on the bus, drinking all morning and sleeping it off before I had to go get her. I have a lot of people in my life that want to know why. I used to think that why didn't matter. Why is everything, and I have come to understand this fact intimately. For me it's a huge number of factors, but I think the main one is that I have isolated myself from everyone. I can't admit that I am an alcoholic without admitting my participation in the process.I thought that nobody cared. I thought that I was alone in this world. I thought that the only way to feel better was to drink. I think I still kind of feel that way. The only thing I DO know is
a. It will kill me
b. I don't want to die
c. if I don't talk about it, it isn't going to get better, and total strangers are GRRRRRRREAAAT, in the immortal words of TTG!!(Tony the Tiger)

I hope that we can connect somehow.

Terminally Unique

The alcohol will literally poison and warp your mind. It induces depression, paranoia, anxiety, and often aggression. I remember sitting at home with the window blinds down, completely isolated, and even routine sounds like a telephone call or the mail man would distress me.

Madness. Only one way out - no more alcohol.

As Dee pointed out, it isn't easy once you've gotten used to daily drinking, but over time, one can re-adjust.

littlefish

Yes viciouscycle: I drank like that.
You just described my drinking to a T, almost. (I had withdrawals, two quite serious that landed me in the ER). But, the drill was the same. Wake up hungover and cure the hangover with more alcohol. I was at chronic stage for around 5 years, sadly, and the morning beer cure did work. After the first curative beers, my hands stopped shaking and I could get on with my day. Within about 2 hours though, I'd have to have another 2 beers or the withdrawals would start kicking in. Then 2 or 3 hours after that, I'd have more drinks and by the end of the day I was drunk again.

I think a lot of us drank like you. Zencat has given you good advice: try to find a program. You're not drinking normally and in your post copied and pasted here, you have apparently had some serious consequences from drinking.

When I quit and put myself into an outpatient treatment program and walked into my first AA meeting....I was confused and emotionally troubled, had lost a lot of social skills, isolated and stayed at home 24/7, hadn't read a novel for 5 years, (too drunk at night to read in bed), and had slowly stopped doing a lot of others things I used to enjoy in life. I stopped riding my bicycle after having a bad fall, drunk of course.

Now I'm sitting here sipping a cold one, (a coffee latté) and my brand new bicycle is in the garage after being used twice today. Life gets a whole lot better when you are sober. But, it's hard to envision that when you are trapped inside the bottle, depressed and afraid of living.
A program will help you navigate the path to recovery, and it will help you learn how to be happy and not afraid.