LDT

My alcohol induced anxiety and severe panic attacks landed me in th E.R. About 10 times (truthfully). I don't drink now and have little to no anxiety, and never have panic attacks when I'm sober ..... This is my experience.

tomsteve

anxiety was one of the reasons i drank. i had it early in recovery. what helped me was understandng what the anxiety was for me. it was fear( anxiety-fearful concern or interest). so larning what the underlying fear was and seeing if there was anything i could do about it helped greatly.
i can still get em and recently went though a period where they were coming out of nowhere and i couldnt pinpoint what was bringing them on. it took time,but the problem was found and the solution worked and they went away.

Change4good

I am 14 days sober. I had horrible anxiety when drinking, and it has COMPLETELY vanished.

Halzuzu

I started having horrible panic attacks about 2 years into my heavy drinking and I had never had them before drinking. Hands shaking, heart racing, dry mouth, felt like I couldnt breathe, etc. I started to notice that I had them if I went more than a couple of hours without a drink. At my heaviest drinking I was drinking all day, everyday, starting first thing when I got out of bed in the morning, so I think the panic/anxiety attacks were caused by a physical need to have alcohol in my system (aka withdrawels). They continued for about a 3-4 weeks into sobriety but I havent had one in the last 2 months.

Dee74

Hi and welcome Tim
as you can see there's no 'right' answer

I'm not sure how long you've been sober but in my experience generally 3 months is a good time frame to judge what might be a transitory anxiety issue from recovery and one which may be more permanent.

of course your mileage may vary

D

hypochondriac

Me! I remember at one point being genuinely confused because I thought that my anxiety would get better as I got older, instead it got much much worse. When I was young I was shy and anxious by nature but as I got older if I was nervous I would feel like I was going to pass out (did on a few occasions), I developed vertigo, and at the grand old age of 26 I had my first panic attack. Funny enough I was with family and my sis asked if I had been drinking a lot (which I had) and she said not to worry it was probably just that. I would continue to have panic attacks which gradually got worse with time, to the extent that I didn't feel safe leaving the house. This was basically because I was a secret drinker and home was where the booze was. It still took me a while to make the booze connection despite how obvious it was. I came to reevaluate my concept of anxiety in this time, not nervousness but blind panic feeling like I am about to die... I had a few panic attacks in the first week of quitting but have been panic free since then. Even then any anxiety (there's been some, it's only natural) has been quite frankly laughable compared to what I put up with while drinking.

I'd quit if I was you x

penny74

Yes, but took it a while.
And the constant hyperventilating went as well.

quitforme79

I'm with natom...only a Dr can really diagnose/treat you BUT my anxiety decreased immensely soon after I quit drinking. I am anxious today but I can identify why---just certain things that are stressing me out. In the end of my drinking, the anxiety during hangovers was just hell. Even if I had a panic attack today it still wouldn't be worse than that!

RevivingOphelia

Hi Tim,

I didn't have anxiety until about five years ago and after many years of drinking (the last few years about 3-4 times a week/2 or so bottles of wine). I went on SSRI's. I didn't stop drinking. The anxiety became crushing. Even more so, for the couple of days after a drinking night.

It's been 51 days since my last drink. I am still on an SSRI, but my anxiety is 75% less than when I was drinking. I started to feel a LOT less anxious about 10 days after drinking.

Sobriety has totally helped my anxiety.

Best to you.

sober4metoday

I had a lot of anxiety during my many years of drinking (I started in my mid teens and only quit once when I was pregnant 22 years ago). I took some meds on and off but it was so weird because the stuff didn't seem to work for me......hmmmmmm....wonder wonder why that was?? Well, I soon realized when I became sober that I no longer was as anxious (or guilt ridden, or sick, or humiliated, or _________, etc etc).

So after almost 1 year of not touching the stuff I went out last night and had a couple glasses of wine. I've been so incredibly anxious today that it ain't even funny! I've had heart palpitations, shallow breathing, racing thoughts - I definitely don't miss that crap!

So for me, becoming sober helped with my anxiety tremendously. I started to really feel better after about 2 months of sobriety.

Scoob720

I know. That when I was anxious I drank to ease the anxiety. While drinking all anxiety was gone. The next day however was an anxiety nightmare so I would drink again to releave the anxiety. So the vicious cycle continues.
Now however being sober for 11 days, anxiety way down, almost completely gone, sleeping better. Thank God I don't have to deal with that anymore.

timbrodie

Thanks for showing me love. I wanted hope and I got it -- I doubt I could have gotten it anywhere else.

I've been sober for over a week now, the waking up in a pool of sweat and the nightmares are all gone now, and I feel great. I get to do the things I actually need to do to become someone, and I don't think I'll ever start drinking again.

Thank you!

2granddaughters

Don't be too disappointed if it returns, don't think you got it.

Keep in touch tim and let us know how you are doing. What you are thinking and feeling.

Hope for the best.. prepare for the worst.

Very few that I know get to walk away unscathed from this. Time will tell. Just be honest.

All the best.

Bob R