Overwhelmed with anxiety and depression
 

Hey there soberfriends

Like a whole bunch of you I suffer from anxiety and depression and I've found myself struggling to not just feel like the weight of the world is on my shoulders.

Its anxiety that's the main problem, no matter what I do I am convinced something awful is about to happen to me and somehow my life is going to take a very dark turn for the worse. It can be anything, its mainly hypochondria but honestly it can be loads of things.

If I get over one fear I'll find another soon enough.

Right now eye strain and anxiety is making me dizzy and I just imagine awful things happening inside my body and collapsing.

Urgh, man. I don't usually let it get to me this badly but today has been awful. I've honestly felt like this for a long time, most of my life in some way or another.

Booze kept the demons away, for a little while. And now they are back.

All I can do is make it through each day and work on my therapy and keep off anything to make this worse. But the overwhelming fear I guess is this won't get better.

I can relate all too well. Anxiety is seriously the scariest and worst thing to deal with.

I get it.. anxiety and depression are part of my deal, too. An irony about the hypochondria is that stopping drinking has actually made it much less likely for you to have any physical ailments develop! Heavy drinking can harm your eyesight, your cardiovascular system and blood pressure, your joints.. on and on. You actually are much more likely now to be healing and getting rid of ailments! Try to focus on that.. on how much healthier you are with each day not drinking poison.

Beyond that.. have you ever spoken to your doctor about your anxiety? There may be a treatment that will help, especially now that you aren't drinking.

Take care! Post here whenever you are overwhelmed.

I can relate to the constant worry & anxiety. Might be helpful to do meditation......there are all sorts of apps & I find them very helpful. They have meditations for letting go. We copped with alcohol & need to learn other ways of coping, just know you are not alone in what you are experiencing. Take care of you.

I'd echo what Mariah said about meditation. Mindfulness has now replaced alcohol as my "quick fix" solution for anxiety. As soon as I feel my anxiety levels rising, I find somewhere quiet and focus on my breathing. Sounds far too simple to work but it's a lot more effective than drinking a load of poison. My mind darts all over the place and I find the lengthy meditations difficult so I listen to 10 minute meditations that I find on youtube. I try to do 10 minutes every morning and I can tell the days I haven't done it as anxiety seems to creep up on me quicker.

If you haven't tried mindfulness yet, I'd definitely give it a go. It certainly won't do you any harm. Good luck :)

Yeah I've given mindfullness a try in the past and found it useful but didn't stick to it for long enough/try it in a decent environment so I'm going to give it a go after I've had some sleep.

Hopefully that, exercise, cbt, eating right and things getting better as alcohol/tobacco cravings go will help a lot.

I concur with meditation. It's definitely helped me. I also have anxiety and have had depressive episodes over the last 12 years. I have been on AD in the past, but right now I'm taking St. John's Wort, B complex vitamins and vitamin C, and a few other vitamins and it has improved my mood a lot. Worth looking into.

It's somewhat comforting to know that while I came here to address my drinking, so many others have issues with anxiety and depression as well (the root cause for my drinking) and I feel less alone in so many aspects. When anxiety and depression occur together, it just really sucks. Idk how else to put it.
Practicing mindfulness is something I'm working on. My therapist said that for me to be mindful of thoughts that are a result of my anxious mind working and to imagine myself on a beach and those thoughts are like seagulls. If there's just one flying around me it will eventually leave if I ignore it, but when I entertain it and start tossing it food, then the whole flock shows up. I find this is true...my thoughts do tend to snowball into panic attacks because I feed them in the first place.

if you keep working at it- with sincerity and honesty and a counsellor, it slowly gets better.

I understand what you are going through. Medication is always an option. I have talked to so many people in recovery and they need it. It's just the way that their brain is wired. You may want to see a psychiatrist.

I have tried some medication but for some reason it never worked for me, I know my mother who suffers from similar issues had to go through a trial and error process for years before getting something that works. So yeah, right now I'm trying to go down the all natural route.