brasa

I'm no psychiatrist, but by reading SR posts, most (if not all) of their drug abuse stories are due to some kind of mental illness: depression, anxiety, OCD, PTSD, anhedonia, panic syndrome, you name it...

It seems that we're all self-medicating. If mental illness is a common variable among us, wouldn't make more sense that (other than stop using) we first consult a psych doctor instead of xyz recovery groups?

Until I got the right diagnosis for my mental issues and right medications, I could not stop booze to achieve oblivion and peace. I still have an occasion craving but I can get over them much easier.

I'm glad many here have suggest people to address the root of the problem (thanks Dee).

What do you think?

SoberHoopsFan

Unfortunately, I cannot blame my drinking on mental illness of any kind. In sobriety, I am mentally and physically healthy and normal. When in the throes of my alcohol addiction, I'm one step short of being a lunatic. For me, the booze takes my sanity. Without it, I have it back. But I don't doubt that some people may have fallen further into drinking to combat or medicate another mental illness. That's just not the case for a lot of us though...

biminiblue

Well, when I started drinking it was to numb emotional pain.

That morphed into chronic anxiety and depression due to alcohol. Had I gone through the emotional pain using other tools (not sure how many psychological tools an eleven year old has access to, however) I would not have taken a drink in the first place.

Stopping drinking and using self-reflection has restored me to mental health. The alcohol temporarily relieves and then becomes the cause of anxiety and depression. It really isn't possible to access the emotions necessary to process pain and loss while under the influence.

readerbaby71

I was just thinking about this very subject this morning. I do believe alcoholism or any addiction in itself is a mental illness. No sane person would do this sh!t to themselves!

Sonrisa12

All people of all walks of life have something... just different degrees of it. If you take an abnormal psych class, you start to diagnose yourself with everything and its pretty funny. Our professor said that - we are all symptomatic of something abnormal, just to different degrees. Why does one person reach for alcohol and another for pills? Or excessive exercise versus drinking 20 cokes a day? Or a person who chooses therapy sessions or has an affair? So many ways we humans cope with the stresses in our lives. We all have our mechanisms of coping with situations and some are better at handling it versus others. Some have their chosen poison (not always pharmaceutical or drug related). Some people have different thresholds of what they can cope with and what they can't. And environment plays a big factor as well (what you had to deal with in your life to this point).

Do I think alcohol masks or we self medicate with it? Yes, I do. But I can only speak for myself in that regard. That is exactly what I used it for. But in the end I think as humans we all have a lose wire in there somewhere, its just our mechanism for coping with life and problems that differs. I don't think there is a 'normal' human out there. A person may appear normal, but in the end, we all have our own stuff we are dealing with internally. I don't think the box of 'normal' exists.

All I know is that I just want to be me, alcohol free

PurpleKnight

I drank for many reasons, boredom was a big one, so much time in the evenings and drinking was an easy solution, I also continued to drink beyond it affecting my life because I didn't really like myself, it helped me escape into oblivion every evening, and then by the end I drank because that's what I did, it finally became an unbreakable habit, and I drank because I could, all my free time outside of work was an excuse to drink!!

Though funny enough I didn't need a Dr to tell me by the end that alcohol wasn't a sustainable way forward, I think we all have a voice in our heads that starts to flag up our drinking sooner or later, and when I finally quit I didn't need any medication to sort out the reasons why I drank, I just needed to slowly create a new life for myself, deal with that boredom, those old habits, with new activities, things to do in my evenings other than drinking, and with that I learnt to like myself in my new found lifestyle!!

FeenixxRising

Doesn't fit for me I'm afraid. I just enjoyed drinking, and I usually drank when I was in good mood.

awuh1

I have posted this link numerous times, but it again seems relevant to your OP. It's a letter to one of the founding members of AA from Carl Jung, a very famous psychiatrist. I find it fascinating that such a prominent psychiatrist would see the problem in this way.

A.A. History -- Dr. Carl Jung's Letter To Bill Wilson, Jan 30, 1961