I have severe anxiety, mainly social anxiety. I've been prescribed every non addictive drug there is over the past 10 years. Nothing works. About 2 months ago I started drinking on a daily basis. I now drink 24/7 all day everyday. But I never get drunk. Honestly I can't stand the nauseous sickness I get when I overdrink. I drink just enough to where I can cope with my social anxiety. Since I started drinking my life has improved immensely. I can now socialize, maintain a job, and actually enjoy life to some point. But I know I can't do this forever, or can I? So I decided to stop. Now I haven't been drinking religiously for years like many alcoholics but I've been drinking all day everyday for 2-3 months. I was expecting withdrawal. But I had no withdrawal whatsoever. Mind you I ended up going back to drinking 3 days later. Other than tolerance and the money I throw out on liquor I have had no negative consequences. I'm happier and more socially active than I have ever been. I feel like I can be a functioning alcoholic. I feel like I can finally have a life and future. I never get drunk, never overdrink.....I don't know. Any input would be appreciated.
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I need input on my situation
- Thread starter Jdepps
- Start date
pinpoint
Bluelighter
Probably the smartest thing you said. Eventually it will turn on you and when alcohol turns on you shit gets ugly fast.
Is there no other option? Why avoid addicting pharmaceuticals just to end up self-medicating with the poison that is alcohol?
Its not that I'm avoiding addictive pharmaceuticals. Its that I can't seem to find a doctor that will prescribe them. I was prescribed Klonopin a couple years ago and it was a miracle pill. I felt better than I ever thought I could. While I do have a background of abusing drugs I have a lot of self control and if I'm taking something that helps me I have no problem taking it as prescribed. I never abused the Klonopin. But I ended up being taken off it because I moved to a different state and couldn't find a Dr who would keep me on it.
Burnt Offerings
Bluelight Crew
How can you drink "all day everyday" and not get drunk?
I drink until I get a decent buzz and than don't drink for 2-3 hours. Once the buzz fades I drink again. I was worried at the beginning I'd eventually get to that stage where I drink until I get blasted and pass out but I've been doing this for 3 months and maybe have only gotten drunk twice, if that. I've been to rehab many time, not by choice. I have a lot of self control and know when to say to no. Accept for Heroin. That is one drug I could not have self control with. And because of that I will never touch it again. But one time in rehab I said I was a functioning addict with self control and apparently that is forbidden and not possible to them. I feel like I'm an exception to that....
InHerOwnWrite
Bluelighter
This is one of the reasons that alcohol is so insidious and can become an addiction long before you realize it is even a problem.
Please PM me if you are sincerely concerned about this becoming an issue for you, and we can talk about it. I've been through this shit (alcohol for over 10 yrs and H for about 5) again and again, and it seems like there's a good amount of hope for you to escape this and not become dependent on alcohol. You're not that far in yet, but it sounds like you could be headed there pretty soon.
I'm not one of those AA people who's saying you can never drink at all because you've had a problem with another drug. I think there are people who've had problems with drugs in the past who are capable of enjoying alcohol socially and safely. You may be able to drink "normally" without it becoming an addiction, but the way you're drinking now is certainly not the way most people would consider "normal", it is the way most people would consider indicative of an alcohol addiction in the making.
Please PM me if you are sincerely concerned about this becoming an issue for you, and we can talk about it. I've been through this shit (alcohol for over 10 yrs and H for about 5) again and again, and it seems like there's a good amount of hope for you to escape this and not become dependent on alcohol. You're not that far in yet, but it sounds like you could be headed there pretty soon.
I'm not one of those AA people who's saying you can never drink at all because you've had a problem with another drug. I think there are people who've had problems with drugs in the past who are capable of enjoying alcohol socially and safely. You may be able to drink "normally" without it becoming an addiction, but the way you're drinking now is certainly not the way most people would consider "normal", it is the way most people would consider indicative of an alcohol addiction in the making.
sekio
Bluelight Crew
Other Drugs -> The Dark Side
You can't maintain such a habit for that long before it starts taking a toll on your body and mind. Alcohol is very toxic so even if you don't feel like it's having a negative impact on your physical and mental health right now it eventually will.
A simple Google search will yield way more information than I have the time to mention now, but I'll mention a few things that alcohol may cause:
Liver damage (fatty liver and cirrhosis) which can lead to liver failure, weight gains or losses (due to it's effects on appetite), muscle spasms and tremors, headaches and dehydration, lowered inhibitions (this may seem like It's helping with anxiety but it's also going to cause you to do things you normally wouldn't as well as not doing things you normally would do), a change in sleep patterns, mood swings, and the inevitable withdrawal symptoms if you continue drinking this often.
You need to address the symptoms that you are using the alcohol to treat before it gets to the point where it makes them worse, or at the very least causes you to need more to achieve the same effects [tolerance].
I was homeless before and the DOC that was represented the most by the homeless community around me (and by a large margin) was alcohol, so that should give you an idea of the mental destruction that it causes. As one of the previous posters mentioned, you are not too far deep in just yet, so your best bet is to stop now before it gets any worse.
I know that you said that you didn't experience any withdrawals when you stopped, but trust that if you are to continue drinking they will eventually start, and after the first time it happens it will happen after shorter and shorter binges to the point where one week-long bender will leave you withdrawing when you stop, and believe me that alcohol withdrawal is not pretty or fun.
The alcoholics in the detox that I was in were having a way worse time than the opioid/opiate addicts in there. Not only did they require a lot more medicine to counteract all the damage they did to themselves, but they also required some additional shots of ativan in cases where they were freaking out due to their debilitating symptoms such as horrible anxiety, tremors, and spikes in blood pressure which required an extended stay in order to be safely discharged, and even then they still had a ways to go.
A simple Google search will yield way more information than I have the time to mention now, but I'll mention a few things that alcohol may cause:
Liver damage (fatty liver and cirrhosis) which can lead to liver failure, weight gains or losses (due to it's effects on appetite), muscle spasms and tremors, headaches and dehydration, lowered inhibitions (this may seem like It's helping with anxiety but it's also going to cause you to do things you normally wouldn't as well as not doing things you normally would do), a change in sleep patterns, mood swings, and the inevitable withdrawal symptoms if you continue drinking this often.
You need to address the symptoms that you are using the alcohol to treat before it gets to the point where it makes them worse, or at the very least causes you to need more to achieve the same effects [tolerance].
I was homeless before and the DOC that was represented the most by the homeless community around me (and by a large margin) was alcohol, so that should give you an idea of the mental destruction that it causes. As one of the previous posters mentioned, you are not too far deep in just yet, so your best bet is to stop now before it gets any worse.
I know that you said that you didn't experience any withdrawals when you stopped, but trust that if you are to continue drinking they will eventually start, and after the first time it happens it will happen after shorter and shorter binges to the point where one week-long bender will leave you withdrawing when you stop, and believe me that alcohol withdrawal is not pretty or fun.
The alcoholics in the detox that I was in were having a way worse time than the opioid/opiate addicts in there. Not only did they require a lot more medicine to counteract all the damage they did to themselves, but they also required some additional shots of ativan in cases where they were freaking out due to their debilitating symptoms such as horrible anxiety, tremors, and spikes in blood pressure which required an extended stay in order to be safely discharged, and even then they still had a ways to go.
speedballs_over
Bluelighter
I'd like to chime in as I have a life-long very severe anxiety disorder, I've been in "remission" from a five year stint of active IV heroin abuse for the last decade, I too drank daily* (but only at night and weekends, fwiw) over a twenty year period but never had a serious drinking problem. I stopped drinking about two years ago, entirely on my own b/c I recognized that alcohol was exacerbating my anxiety. I did not drink when I used dope, see last paragraph* for important HR info regarding why I did not do that, and why I urge others to not mix them either.
The thing with anxiety disorders and drinking is that when one first takes up self-medicating with alcohol it seems like the panacea one's been looking for and that all will be fine emotionally/socially when one can drink. Problem solved, right? Maybe... for a few weeks, months maybe even years. But in that time if the person watches closely they'll see that their anxiety is often worse when they aren't able to drink - when their blood alcohol level drops they feel rebound anxiety that is worse than their 'baseline' anxiety. Compounding this is that alcohol diminishes one's ability to judge it's effects on oneself. So it is very much possible to get into a cycle of trying to drink one's way out of experiencing severe anxiety - but one simply may not be able to do so and one can become boxed in and can't function without alcohol - even if they're not an alcoholic per se. Thankfully as this was happening to me I realized it and decided to try to stop drinking. It took some effort as drinking was a deeply ingrained habit I'd formed, but after six months or so I was able to simply not even think about it, or if I did I'd recall how bad I'd feel each AM when I was "sober" and that would put me off the idea.
A few years ago, when I was about age 40, I was still drinking b/w two and six beers a day. When I would wake up in the AM the intensity of my generalized anxiety was obviously in direct proportion to how much I drank the prior evening. It also affected the quality of my sleep. I stopped drinking over a period of about six months and noticed a very big improvement in my general anxiety level. Panic attacks also slowed in frequency. The effect is dramatic enough that I cannot be prodded into drinking, I do not crave it and I now avoid it.
An anxiety reducing substance like a benzo is best used to get anxiety under control while you engage in therapy to learn to reduce your anxiety while you reduce the amount of benzo you take - ideally. That's a lot of hard work, I've been at it for seven years and I'm slowly reducing my clonazepam as I learn to deal with my anxiety through behavior modification and cognitive techniques for assimilating my anxiety so that it isn't my mortal enemy, but something I can learn to reduce and live with when it does flare up.
*I know this is stated all over the board here, but it cannot be said enough, imo: I didn't drink when I was slamming dope, so subtract several years in the middle of those twenty years of daily drinking and substitute dope instead. I subscribe to, and "sell" subscriptions to, the 'don't mix alcohol with opiates' program b/c close friends of mine who drank and slammed dope have passed away from the combination. Choose one or the other please, if you use both don't mix them. And adding in a benzo is a great way to flirt with death. My only Ods were the few occasions where I did mix benzos and dope, once with a single beer – a night I almost did not survive (and I had tolerance to all three substances at the time!)
Best wishes to you in your attempts to get a a handle on your anxiety. It is a terrible condition for many of us.
The thing with anxiety disorders and drinking is that when one first takes up self-medicating with alcohol it seems like the panacea one's been looking for and that all will be fine emotionally/socially when one can drink. Problem solved, right? Maybe... for a few weeks, months maybe even years. But in that time if the person watches closely they'll see that their anxiety is often worse when they aren't able to drink - when their blood alcohol level drops they feel rebound anxiety that is worse than their 'baseline' anxiety. Compounding this is that alcohol diminishes one's ability to judge it's effects on oneself. So it is very much possible to get into a cycle of trying to drink one's way out of experiencing severe anxiety - but one simply may not be able to do so and one can become boxed in and can't function without alcohol - even if they're not an alcoholic per se. Thankfully as this was happening to me I realized it and decided to try to stop drinking. It took some effort as drinking was a deeply ingrained habit I'd formed, but after six months or so I was able to simply not even think about it, or if I did I'd recall how bad I'd feel each AM when I was "sober" and that would put me off the idea.
A few years ago, when I was about age 40, I was still drinking b/w two and six beers a day. When I would wake up in the AM the intensity of my generalized anxiety was obviously in direct proportion to how much I drank the prior evening. It also affected the quality of my sleep. I stopped drinking over a period of about six months and noticed a very big improvement in my general anxiety level. Panic attacks also slowed in frequency. The effect is dramatic enough that I cannot be prodded into drinking, I do not crave it and I now avoid it.
An anxiety reducing substance like a benzo is best used to get anxiety under control while you engage in therapy to learn to reduce your anxiety while you reduce the amount of benzo you take - ideally. That's a lot of hard work, I've been at it for seven years and I'm slowly reducing my clonazepam as I learn to deal with my anxiety through behavior modification and cognitive techniques for assimilating my anxiety so that it isn't my mortal enemy, but something I can learn to reduce and live with when it does flare up.
*I know this is stated all over the board here, but it cannot be said enough, imo: I didn't drink when I was slamming dope, so subtract several years in the middle of those twenty years of daily drinking and substitute dope instead. I subscribe to, and "sell" subscriptions to, the 'don't mix alcohol with opiates' program b/c close friends of mine who drank and slammed dope have passed away from the combination. Choose one or the other please, if you use both don't mix them. And adding in a benzo is a great way to flirt with death. My only Ods were the few occasions where I did mix benzos and dope, once with a single beer – a night I almost did not survive (and I had tolerance to all three substances at the time!)
Best wishes to you in your attempts to get a a handle on your anxiety. It is a terrible condition for many of us.
^ I completely agree with your post, but wanted to add to it that I believe that a lot of people using benzos for anxiety may have their anxiety reduced to a tolerable level unbenounced to them but do not know it yet due to experiencing anxiety in between doses when withdrawals may start to creep on.
I had horrible anxiety which I was prescribed benzos to treat for a long time, but once I got off of them and all the withdrawals subsided my anxiety wasn't all that bad. I don't know when it got better though since I would always experience rebound anxiety as the benzos wore off, so it's tough to figure out when you are ready to come off of benzos due to the withdrawals from them mirroring the symptoms they are treating.
What I'm getting at is that I feel that benzos should be used more sparingly in order to make the transition easier once you get off of them, and also to allow for you to be able to better judge when you're ready to come off of them.
I had horrible anxiety which I was prescribed benzos to treat for a long time, but once I got off of them and all the withdrawals subsided my anxiety wasn't all that bad. I don't know when it got better though since I would always experience rebound anxiety as the benzos wore off, so it's tough to figure out when you are ready to come off of benzos due to the withdrawals from them mirroring the symptoms they are treating.
What I'm getting at is that I feel that benzos should be used more sparingly in order to make the transition easier once you get off of them, and also to allow for you to be able to better judge when you're ready to come off of them.
phatass
Bluelighter
i guess you need to obtain a good benzo from a doc, and follow some form of therapy for your social anxiety issues (the latter will also improve chances of the former)... Benzos aren't necessarily for life, but be carefull, theyre hella addictive, though far less bad than booze IMO/IME
Its a slippery slope. 12 years ago I drank and only drank beer after coming off c and h. I thought it was much better, but then a few years later started doing pills which seemed harmless in comparison as well. Later saw that I was backing out a lot. Alcohol might be worse because its a bit more socially acceptable? For treating anxiety the way you described, that is not just "loosening up" as many ppl find useful in social situations. After relying solely n that for years and years, when it's removed and I m approaching 50, its obvious that alcohol and drugs have set me way back from as far as anxiety goes. BTW, I have never gotten the shakes
Just saying, there can be severe consequences even without being an alcoholic. Sounds like you where doing better with klonopin for your anxiety. Another poster said if you can quit the behavior early on, by all means! It is not a grand illusion. Glad to know you are at least noticing when you've had enough and then stop for 2,:3 hours.
Cliffy78
Bluelighter
- Joined
- Jun 17, 2014
- Messages
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Op/ you may "have it under control" now but soon your current intake of alcohol won't cover your symptoms. You'll drink a little more and more etc.
the drinking will create new problems, both physical and mental. I've been there and I destroyed my body and mind in about 6yrs of drinking. I know ur not me but I just wanted to say it's not worth it. Be careful! Try to find a new shrink that will help u. Be honest with them and they'll help u. It may not be kpins right away but just try all the bullshit they have to offer u first and just be honest with them. This is how u ply the game. Eventually you'll find something that works for you.
Alcohol is pure poison and it's toying with you. Making you think things are different when they're really not. Just be safe and do the dr thing, you'll be a happier person for it. The booze will lead to horrifying anxiety in the end. It won't cover your current anxiety for ever, soon you'll have diminishing returns. Be good to yourself and play the dr game, trust me. Psychosis is just around the corner if u stay on your current path. Take care and god bless...
the drinking will create new problems, both physical and mental. I've been there and I destroyed my body and mind in about 6yrs of drinking. I know ur not me but I just wanted to say it's not worth it. Be careful! Try to find a new shrink that will help u. Be honest with them and they'll help u. It may not be kpins right away but just try all the bullshit they have to offer u first and just be honest with them. This is how u ply the game. Eventually you'll find something that works for you.
Alcohol is pure poison and it's toying with you. Making you think things are different when they're really not. Just be safe and do the dr thing, you'll be a happier person for it. The booze will lead to horrifying anxiety in the end. It won't cover your current anxiety for ever, soon you'll have diminishing returns. Be good to yourself and play the dr game, trust me. Psychosis is just around the corner if u stay on your current path. Take care and god bless...