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Did alcohol ever take away your emotions from you or was it something else?

Jabberwocky

Jabberwocky

Frumious Bandersnatch
Joined
Nov 3, 1999
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Have been pondering this question as i've been drinking a lot as of recent. At present i've been so different towards my family. Specifically whilst they have been warm and over comforting to some degree I have been going the opposite direction.

My bro had his kid only last month and I was quite warm towards my nephew at the start however these past 2 weeks whilst bogged down with uni assignments etc and me having been drinking i've simply lost interest in a lot of things.

It's disturbing I was my old life back of when I was training hard and looking after myself and yet I can't seem to do it no matter how hard I think about it and know what to do I still can't.

Any suggestions anyone?
 
Hey m8 , I can understand wot u mean with the lack of emotions (numbness) your feeling im feeling the same way in my case drugs and drink have numbed me a bit but i was gettin anxiety attacks and it was like my brain shut of my emotions i think its a defensive mechanism if u wanna talk im always here to talk too man, Look after yourself! Andy ,
 
For me drinking had pretty awful rebound depression effects. It used to only accompany heavy drinking but now if I drink 5-6 drinks in a night I feel extra bummed out the next day or two.

If your in university try checking out some of the mental health programs they have. Counseling or seeing a psychiatrist, I'm pretty sure most schools offer it free to students. Definitely something you want to check out before it gets worse.
 
Alcohol is a CNS depressant. If you're feeling alot of stress, a drink or 2 can make you feel a little better. But if you are depressed, consuming alot of alcohol will not improve your depression.
 
I got the same feeling when I smoked weed. Then it got worse when I added any downers, but I 'had' to because the anxiety was becoming too much and there were some complications to quitting.

Alcohol definitely makes you less interested in your surroundings. In my experience, it's not especially depressing, harmful or addictive compared to other downers. I like to stick with alcohol when I don't want to down myself too much.

If you're just using alcohol, quit and you'll probably start feeling better within weeks. It's by far the best choice. Wait half a year and see how you feel. It's difficult at first, but you will begin to remember and relearn. I sometimes feel like my arm is disconnected from me and it's grabbing the drugs on its own.

Well, the drugs make it even worse, and quitting IS possible and is often easier to do than losing weight (if you're obese). These have been demonstrated.
 
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How much are you drinking, and how frequently? Heavy substance use of any kind can disconnect us from our emotions.

Stress can also be a factor, as you mentioned your university assignments. Alcohol seems to have more a pull if I'm feeling particularly anxious, and my desire to drink pretty much goes away if I'm properly managing my stress, except for a few drinks once in a while. Anxiety itself also can mask other emotions and make us feel more isolated.
 
Yes excess alcohol can blunt emotions. It can also result in excessive or unstable emotions.

Another thing that can happen is a polarization between a person's drunk state and their sober state. Sober becomes drudgery and emotionally shallow and drunk becomes the time they can emote and have fun.

A sure fire test to how much of a role alcohol is playing would be a months abstinence. A month might seem to short to some people to really fully identify the role alcohol has in this but I think a month give you at least a pretty good glimpse. After a month you might have identified some other factors involved and be able to work on those.

Therapy or anything else utilized in the midst of heavy use is not likely going to be able to sort out causes that may exist aside from alcohol consumption.
 
Alcohol affects everyone differently. For me it causes irrational, exaggerated emotions like anger, dysphoria, irritability and depression, so I just don't use it. It definitely has the potential to cause unpleasant emotional states, so don't underestimate its ability to make you feel abnormally shitty. People with depression often find that drinking makes it worse yet continue to do it anyway.

I suggest quitting or cutting back on the alcohol first and foremost. If that doesn't help, the next step would be getting evaluated for depression and other mental disorders. In either case, excessive drinking is not healthy and will solve nothing. Stop now before a physical dependence develops.
 
alcohol never took away my emotions, i would say it made them unstable though. caring about my family was actually one of the things that helped me stop drinking (i knew they wouldn't be pleased if i died from alcoholism). benzos on the other hand, took awya my emotions.
 
Alcohol definetelt took away my emotions to a certain extent and made me numb. I have never had another drug quite like alcohol for that feeling of total oblivion where nothing matters. I used to be and still am i guess a alcoholic though i don't drink these days at all. I used to drink alot when feeling depressed or whatever but it made my moods 1000 times worse.

So yeah i would say quit drinking for sure.
 
I think alcohol can take away emotions in the short term for sure... but I think its more it takes away 'you' - It can make you so apathetic.

either waym if you have work to do and you're using alcohol to help relieve stress.. it may impact other areas of your life.

I think maybe you could try quitting the alcohol cold turkey, it is unlikely you would have any siginificant withdrawal symptoms as you have been doing... try it for a couple of weeks.. your outlook on life/mood will probably improve loads...

best of luck!
 
I should have of mentioned I have been a long time sufferer of depression and have had anxiety issues from time to time. I've been seeing psych's off and on for a few years now and perhaps this is why I have been drinking more than ever because my life is just always shit or so it feels that way.

It feels as if I am off from where I am meant to be and I then go off and sabotage it. An example of this is me losing $4800 on gambling saturday night, I don't even know how it happened or why it happened but at the time I didn't care. It's like as if I hit these lows just to get back up again.........

Any how I do agree with the no more drinking, I am going to avoid it like the plague for this week and then make it a goal also for nex week.
 
Alcohol started to dull my emotions and personality when I started to use it as a way to escape emotional pain, before that it was all good times, a way of life that I loved and over identified with for a while.

I think Alcohol is the worst drug for depression, I sometimes wish I could drink like I used to but it just makes me depressed these days.

If you can just abstain for awhile and bounce back you're in good shape, if you're still depressed you'll have to figure out how you're going to deal with it. When I stopped drinking I didn't feel any better and I turned to other drugs which was not a wise thing to do.

Good luck, you can do it!
 
unsettled said:
Alcohol started to dull my emotions and personality when I started to use it as a way to escape emotional pain, before that it was all good times, a way of life that I loved and over identified with for a while.

I think Alcohol is the worst drug for depression, I sometimes wish I could drink like I used to but it just makes me depressed these days.

If you can just abstain for awhile and bounce back you're in good shape, if you're still depressed you'll have to figure out how you're going to deal with it. When I stopped drinking I didn't feel any better and I turned to other drugs which was not a wise thing to do.

Good luck, you can do it!
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Word, if you already feel 'downed,' alcohol makes you feel even worse. But when anxiety and even paranoia strike, it's pretty decent. Alcohol allows me to think less without giving me the sleepy, bored feeling benzos sometimes give.
 
noonoo said:
Have been pondering this question as i've been drinking a lot as of recent. At present i've been so different towards my family. Specifically whilst they have been warm and over comforting to some degree I have been going the opposite direction.

My bro had his kid only last month and I was quite warm towards my nephew at the start however these past 2 weeks whilst bogged down with uni assignments etc and me having been drinking i've simply lost interest in a lot of things.

It's disturbing I was my old life back of when I was training hard and looking after myself and yet I can't seem to do it no matter how hard I think about it and know what to do I still can't.

Any suggestions anyone?
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Well, cutting back on the drink would be certainly a start, then it will be easier to gauge how much of an influence the alcohol use is to your emotional state.

Personally, I've been quite the drinker for a number of years with a few month or so breaks in there, and over the past six months it became a serious problem. I found that I was drinking in many cases to intensify my emotions and now having cut back they still remain but not with such a fervent intensity as they did while under the influence almost all day every day.

This is a difficult question to try to answer, but if not simply for your physical health it sounds like you may benefit from cessation or a decrease in your alcohol consumption. If the feeling remains maybe you should try speaking with a professional, but if you just need to shoot the shit and get stuff off of you mind this is a fantastic forum with many who would be happy to discourse with you.

Best of luck, I can empathize with your situation more than I care to.


~Monk
 
dankstersauce said:
For me drinking had pretty awful rebound depression effects. It used to only accompany heavy drinking but now if I drink 5-6 drinks in a night I feel extra bummed out the next day or two.

If your in university try checking out some of the mental health programs they have. Counseling or seeing a psychiatrist, I'm pretty sure most schools offer it free to students. Definitely something you want to check out before it gets worse.
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Yeah I'm like that too with drinking, I used to drink lots of booze pretty much daily and while I do not do that now doing all of this alcohol abuse daily was not good for any anxiety and depression I was having then at the time.

Even if I just drink a low amount of booze say like 1-3 drinks I can get depressed and I'll stay depressed for the next day or two.
 
Benzos really messed with my emotions. They eventually caused anhedonia and made me feel like a zombie robot and this lasted long after stopping them. I feel that GABAergic drugs are the worst. Long-term use of benzos causes some pretty serious physical and psychological side effects that can take years to go away after stopping.

Alcohol also acts on GABA, so I'm not surprised you are feeling this way. I'd also suggest trying to stop the drinking to see where you're at. Also keep in mind that the GABA system is the slowest to revert back to normal, so the longer you're off the alcohol the better.
 
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