JADIII

I've been on here for a while and have had some luck but mostly not a lot of luck.

I've read a lot on here but don't post much. I'm "told" that posting here a lot (daily) helps with sobriety. Who knows if I'm over reacting but I have a few questions that may help me on my journey.

So I'm only on day 2-3 as I use a daily counter but I don't think that helps as I always give in and check it way too often but I'm not sure what I'm looking for or at.

So this may sound odd but I'm really a morning drinker (which I know is a problem). So in a nutshell, I'll have 3 shots (pick your poison) in those little nip bottles which basically takes away my anxiety that I have. Once I have those in me, I feel "fine" and can work and focus, etc. Once I have those, I really don't need anything else for the day (ok maybe one more) but then I'm done by 11 AM (god I feel stupid even putting this into words). I look back at some texts/emails that I send during those morning hours and see an interesting man that is funny fun to be around. I do nice things for my kids, I'm not snippy but I'm also basically sitting here working alone in my home.

So basically I'm sitting here and have not had anything to drink which I'm happy with but the anxiety is turning up.

I've also used that play it forward and I've been trying to do that. I think about getting that nipper and sitting in my car and once I have that first sip the fun is done. As I've mentioned here, actually driving to the liquor store is actually more "exciting" than actually drinking the nipper (pretty deranged).

Anyway, sorry to ramble but wanted to just get my thoughts out and get feedback from the gang here as you're a helpful bunch!

Thanks for allowing me to participate.

MLD51

My first thought (take it with a grain of salt) is that you are using alcohol to medicate an anxiety problem, instead of using therapy or anti-anxiety medication.Next thought is that you have very possibly CREATED an anxiety problem just by using alcohol. I had pretty awful anxiety while I was drinking. I'd think I needed alcohol to feel better, and for some time, it worked ok. But over time, those couple of drinks to "calm my nerves" gradually turned into more like a bottle of wine a day, and sometimes more. I was actually diagnosed with anxiety disorder by a therapist while I was still drinking, and was on medication for it, but she didn't know I was drinking so much. Anti-depressants and anti-anxiety meds really don't work well when you have alcohol on board. When I quit drinking, my anxiety almost immediately seemed much less of a problem. I was able to taper off the meds and I have not needed them since. Alcohol can really mess up your brain chemistry. And for those of us with alcohol use disorder, it's a very slippery slope and downward spiral. Feel anxiety, drink. Feel better for a little while. Feel anxiety again, drink more, feel more anxiety, drink more.... and so on. Before you know it, you're a mess.

It may feel to you now that those little nippers are helping, and you are a nicer person after you have them, but to me, this looks like a real problem just waiting to happen. You have a pattern and habit developing which is really unhealthy. It's much more useful to deal with anxiety in other ways. And you know this, or you would not be here, asking for our input.

Free2bme888

Hi, big hugs.

I find it very uncomfortable to be sitting on the fence, feeling crappy drinking, feeling crappy not drinking.

Hoping, wishing, thinking about being sober doesn’t work by themselves, although that’s a good start.

Changing that stinking thinking is what works, and building a sober life that you love.

How do you do that?

I read here a lot, and I LISTEN here……I read Alcohol Explained, and many other books. I research liver disease. I read relapse stories, as morbid as that sounds. I’m actively becoming mindful about my thoughts.

You CAN heal, you CAN change your damaged brain and body…..

Keep at it. When the pain of remaining the same exceeds the pain of the unknown, scary, and unchartered, you WILL succeed.

🤓❤️

DriGuy

I'm guessing MLD51 is in the ballpark. Drinking causes anxiety, but for me the anxiety came in the withdrawal, and would be there for days, but I never let it get that far, because I'd drink when it started to show up, much as I'll speculate you are doing. Alcohol does that. It actually creates an anxiety which requires drinking to ease the anxiety that the drinking causes in the first place. This self perpetuating cause and effect is called "addiction." And the longer it goes on over years, the worse it will get.

I'm not making it up. It is explained well in the book, "Under the Influence," which gets deep into the chemistry of addiction. In addition, I've read about and heard from certain alcoholics, who simply can't function well unless they keep some amount of alcohol in their system. An extreme story was told to me by a fellow in AA, who realized he had to stop drinking. He had been sober a couple of days, and someone had given him some phone numbers of people who would pick him up and take him to a meeting, which he was wanting to do, but he couldn't read the phone numbers, because the withdrawal had gotten to a point that he couldn't even focus his eyes enough to read the phone numbers. He had to buy a six pack and sit on the curb drinking until he had enough alcohol to focus his eyes so he could make the call.

This sort of cycle may explain why you need a few belts in the morning to function the rest of the day, except on those days when you need one more in the afternoon. Of course, your problem is not focusing your eyes. It's focusing your mind on the tasks ahead. The guy I told about was by that time in his life, probably way past where you are right now.

Think on that. It may help, or maybe your anxiety is different or caused by a biological imbalance or something else. I could be way off in left field in my speculations, but I'm rock solid sure that alcohol is only making it worse.

JADIII

Thanks for the kind responses. A few things, I do see a psychologist and its nice to talk to someone. I think the thing that sometimes confuses me or makes me thing I've over reacting is that I do have an off button. I know everyone is very, very different on how much they drink and what trouble the have had and I've literally read thousands of entries on here and everyone is super different.

Sorry, I'm just so confused as I have all kinds of anxiety and depression (I also take Celexa but it hasn't helped much if at all). I feel like I'm literally a fragile little bird and I analyze each move I make and every step I take to just avoid drinking. It's like constantly being in a hyper state of awareness which really, really sucks.

Anna

I was like that, too. It was almost an adrenaline rush for me, which became kind of an addiction in itself.

You probably know that alcoholism is a progressive disease and that the drinking will probably escalate over time.

Have you thought of finding healthy ways to deal with anxiety? Here are some books that really helped me a lot. And, don't underestimate proper breathing and/or meditating:

Amen, Daniel Change Your Brain, Change Your Life

Bassett, Lucinda From Panic to Power

Burns, David MD When Panic Attacks

Chodron, Pema The Places that Scare You

Doidge, Norman MD The Brain that Changes Itself

Dyer, Wayne Change Your Thoughts, Change Your Life

Orsilla, Ken Mindful Way Through Anxiety

JADIII

So when you sit here and say F*** it, this is the only way I can feel better versus sitting here like a zombie. How do you just say "No".

MrPL

I got to a similar conclusion a few months before my drinking stopped. I convinced myself I was more patient, fun, talkative, kind, all sorts of qualities.

Even if there was a hint of truth on this, it only worked up to a point. Whenever I couldn’t drink the picture was different. This created an instability for those around me, including my kids who since I quit have made it clear they prefer generally cool
dad than sometimes super cool sometimes super stressed dad.

Worth saying that in a few weeks the “snippy” behaviour disappeared completely, so I assume it was my addiction trying to get me to drink.

aasharon90

It wont be easy at first to stay sober. There will be withdrawal
symptoms to follow. As it is different for everyone, some may
need extra help where some can handle it on their own.

Alcohol and substance abuse affects us emotionally, physically,
mentally, psychologically, spiritually, etc. leaving us totally
bankrupt.

It is advised to seek help if one has been drinking for a long
time. Also quitting abruptly from a toxic substance can cause
more harm than good.

Having someone like medical attention or supervision to
monitor you while learning to stay sober is a good and wise
decision.

The longer you stay sober then the fog and noise in
your head will eventually lesson as time goes on.

Steely

Hi JADlll, when you say you have "3 shots in those little nip bottles", does this mean that you have 3 standard drinks a day? I'm from Australia and don't know how you 'measure' in North America.

I know it's not all about quantity, but would be interested to know so as to respond appropriately.

Anxiety does seem to be central though.

JADIII

Hi Steely, yes they are 3 standard shots in an airline type of bottle. I’m actually embarrassed to say that I actually went to the liquor store and bought them and drove around for a bit and threw them away. I’m not sure if that s victory or not as I wasted 10 dollars

JADIII

Hi Steely, yes they are 3 standard shots in an airline type of bottle. I’m actually embarrassed to say that I actually went to the liquor store and bought them and drove around for a bit and threw them away. I’m not sure if that s victory or not as I wasted 10 dollars

FlyingDutchMan

I’d call that a victory, no doubt about it.

Tailai

The same as you I would drink in the morning. I would have a glass or two of vodka right after I woke up. Solid pours and it calmed me down. If I didn’t drink, I would sit on the edge of my bed staring at the news wondering how on earth could I get moving and start the day. You mentioned you feel the drinking lessens the anxiety so you can communicate more easily and your example was work emails. My question to you is was there a time in your life when you could do that without the alcohol? I ask because I know my main objective in a sober life was to get back to who I was. It took a while for me but after several months I started getting it back and now it’s as natural feeling as ever. That’s just me, and I know anxiety is different for everyone, especially the intensity.

Colin1

Hi JADIII. One question for you. Does the doctor prescribing the Celexa know about your drinking pattern?

JADIII

Yes. I’m stopping the Celexa as it’s made me a complete mess over the last 2 months. I told him today. Oh and as fas the work thing, I used to be an aggressive cold caller with a to do list a page long which I followed through on each day. Now I just go through the motions. In fact I had a call with my boss today and asked about my bonus which we discussed last week with the amount etc. had no recollection of the specifics and she had to re hash. Embarrassing....

Dee74

When the only tool I had was alcohol, it was hard not to drink.
I didn't want to drink anymore so I got new tools.

I had good results with breathing exercises and anxiety.
https://www.soberrecovery.com/forums...technique.html (Dr Weil's 4-7-8 Breathing Technique)
https://www.soberrecovery.com/forums...disorders.html (Coping with anxiety and panic disorders)

I also got prescribed a beta blocker for something else that I think helped.

I use techniques like Urge Surfing for anxiety too.

https://www.soberrecovery.com/forums...e-surfing.html (urge surfing)
https://www.soberrecovery.com/forums...ml#post7527935 (For Dee-Urge Surfing)

None of those things are an instant fix, and I'm still anxious - always have been, and always will be I think. But, after a lot of work, its not debilitating now. I'm the best I've ever been.

You can point out the differences in your story to others - but noone comes to SR because they're happy with the way they drink.

If you dream of a better life, I reckon the first step is to stop drinking

Steely

I reckon it was a victory JADlll. Any drink we ditch when we're not wanting to drink is a victory. The 'ditch' was worth every penny of your 10 dollars.

It really doesn't have anything to do with 'quantity' JAD. More to do do with how we use alcohol imho. I used it to escape the way I felt about my now, and my past. It is so much better now , and I have grown so much in 2 short years. Never thought it would happen, and am so very grateful.

I've never been able to tolerate antidepressants either, but have found with ongoing sobriety, greater connection with myself, my depression has lessened heaps.

I've been anxious just about all of my life JADD. I've found that by coming here, and putting alcohol down, even this has improved. I'm still anxious, but not with the additional anxiety that alcohol brought upon me. And by that I don't mean the physical aspects, but the role alcohol played in my life in trying to cope with the anxiety. It was like alcohol became a symbol for anxiety. With its removal, I am learning ways to deal with it without escape.

Keep coming here to talk about it JADD. Anxiety sucks. We are ok as we are.

JADIII

Thanks so much for the info, I appreciate it. Going on day 3 now and have a few questions.

I know I'm really early in this and I don't feel much better mentally but I do have what seems like a knot of stress in the middle of my chest. Then sometimes in my back. Of course now that I'm scanning my body I have some bruises too (I take an 81 MG aspirin each day which may explain that) but over all, it seems like I have a lot of cuts, scrapes, blemishes that I've not really noticed or just didn't care.

So did you have a come to Jesus moment where you just started feeling better or did you gradually feel better each day? Just asking

MLD51

It took a while for me to really feel better overall. I had some pretty serious anxiety right at the beginning, but that could have been mostly from the DUI I had just gotten, which was terrifying and just extremely humiliating. I was facing a lot of legal consequences, and the withdrawal from alcohol was a little rough for me for a few days. I can recall crying and sleeping a lot, barely getting to my part-time job those first few days. I was also working to get into treatment and finding AA meetings, so there was a lot going on. But I made it through, and started feeling a little better in a week, then it just gradually got better. It isn't going to happen in a few days. Hang in there! You've got a great start!

And it sounds like you are beginning to realize those 3 little bottles were affecting you more than you realized, if you don't recall conversations. 3 drinks in rapid succession like that would have definitely made me feel tipsy, and if you are just going through the motions at work.