Alcohol Anxiety On The Night After Drinking Heavily(enough to get a bad hangover)

[RTrain]

So this is a question manky for the heavy drinkers who would probably be referred to as "weekend alcoholics", basically those who tie one on about 1 or 2 times a week, mostly on Fri/Saturday nights. Or maybe just once a month even, just enough where you'd have a decent sample size to work with.

On a night you drink pretty heavily, I mean drinking not to blackout level. But, you are definitely gonna feel like ass the next morning and probably not feel decent until late morning or sometime in the afternoon(depending on when you stopped drinking the prior day/night). So on the following night or late evening, after drinking this much, anyone ever start to get bad anxiety? I am prone to having mild anxiety, but it seems to be the worst the night after I drink a lot. If I am going to have a panic attack level of anxiety, its typically during these occasions. It usually is after the hangover has passed, too. I am actually feeling kind of decent then I just start worrying about stupid stuff that I am usually making up in my head or, when it's real bad, having a panic attack.

This is pretty common for me, I have many times had a few drinks to ward off the anxiety, so I feel it could be related to my body expecting to get some alcohol in it around the same time I would've started drinking the night before.

I also find the day after a hangover is when I get the worst depression. I am typically not a person who suffers from much depression. But 2 days after a heavy drinking episode I will feel pretty down. The next day I'll be fine as long as I lay off the booze. I feel this is definitely a more neurologic related situation with an unbalance of chemicals in the brain. So I guess it's kind of a 2 part question, anyone get that effect from drinking, too?

 

[barada]

This is a fairly common affliction. Alcohol reduces the serotonin in the brain, and if you are already predisposed to anxiety you are more likely to experience hangover anxiety. I no longer drink, but in those days of heavy drinking I found myself having very prevalent anxiety and worry over trivial things.
My wife gets it so bad she has to close the curtains and lie in bed the entire day. We are both recovering addicts and predisposed to anxiety.

What you are suffering is common. You will probably want to find vitamin supplements and whatever you can find that is SAFE to reduce the anxiety.

 

[isaaccain]

Personally I get fuck all hangover even after like half a bottle of vodka so I don't have much advice to give except maybe herbal teas, herbal medicines like St. John's Wart (ask your doctor if you're taking any medications), or phenibut. You could try and blag some benzos off of your doctor. If you live in the EU you'll be put on a programme as apposed to just given medication, you'd have to take an SSRI for a period of time as well as go to CBT (cognitive behavioural therapy) and if the psychiatrists see no improvement after a few months you MIGHT be given diazepam. If you go out two or three times a week and your anxiety is really bad, then this might be worth it, but it doesn't really sound like it to me. I guess an advantage of going through all that is you could take a few before going out to get you a bit more wasted

 

[ovo1024]

This happens to me every time. I'm guaranteed to get bad anxiety on my hangover

 

[downerhead]

I have a terrible panic disorder that requires me to be RXd 8mg of Xanax daily. I've had this for many years and have a lot of experience with anxiety, panic attacks, benzos, booze, opioids/opiates to self medicate (before I got chronic pain from an accident and now require high dose opioid therapy, I would self medicate with pharm opioids, heroin, booze, benzos, barbs, pretty much any kind of downer I could get, which back home was pretty much everything). From my experiencing using booze to combat pain and panic before under doctors' care, you seem to be experiencing rebound anxiety. Remember that alcohol is a GABA-ergic drug too, and when you drink to relieve anxiety that you have anyway, the next day may be like taking opioids and benzos, then suddenly cutting off the supply. Your GABA-A receptors are going to go nuts thinking "where's the stuff that makes it better?".

I'm not a doctor, but I think rebound anxiety is what you're going thru. I base this on my experience with decades of continuous opioid/opiate, benzo, booze, and barb use. I've gone thru the same thing. Since you live in the U.S. and we have way better access to benzo scripts than our European cousins, I would get a script from a Dr. Benzo scripts are pretty easy to get. Xanax works best for me and I've rarely had trouble getting RXd it when I could afford the doctor. They may be tighter in NE, but even the most tight ass doctor will usually at least give you Ativan/lorazepam (don't mention a single thing about drinking, you don't drink, never have, and have never done drugs, or they won't give them to you, just let them know that you have major problems with anxiety and panic attacks. You may get some quacks that want to put you on SSRI/SNRI/Ant-Psychotic crazy meds. Just tell them you have a bad reaction to them and, you may strike out at a doctor or two but you you should find someone to RX you what you need within a couple doctors. I would even go online and Google prescribers of benzodiazapines in NE (and the part of the state you live in) and compare them. So yeah, that's what I'd do and I really do think rebound anxiety is the cause of it.