Does booze really make you feel better?

[nancy]

I have been thinking about this topic on my own, but also moreso recently due to feelings expressed in some of the threads.

I always thought alcohol was soothing for my feelings, making me feel less alone, giving me a release. I felt as though I was allowed to feel.

I think the way I see it now is that it is soothing in a way that is not constructive. It's like having an echo for your depressive thoughts. so it is comforting in a way, you feel that your depressive thoughts are being heard and allowed to vent. They are reinforced. Everything seems unfair.

But having read about why cognitive behavior therapy works (fixing distortions in thought), I realize that if you are depressed you have a lot of distorted thoughts. The last thing you need is an echo of those thoughts, reinforcement. It's more than just engaging in self-pity. It's reinforcing unrealistically negative thought patterns.

Think about it, if you have a distortion like: my whole life is a failure. that is just magnified with drinking though you may feel better about being a failure for a while. .the correct response, though, is for someone to challenge that distorted belief.

If you have a friend who is feeling bad, you don't throw a lot of bad memories at the person, which is what you do to yourself with drinking a lot of times. You reinforce good things.

I wonder what other people think about this.

[Determinator]

Does booze really make you feel better?

Good question Nancy, sometimes booze made me temporarily happy, sometimes it made me sleepy, sometimes wired, really pretty unpredictable. No matter the reaction, if I drank to be happy as a coping mechanism...it was a mistake, as it's just a setup to misery as we've learned.
As you've said we must challenge our distortions. I like that.

[MyHeartIsDrenchedInWine]

Does booze really make you feel better?

Hi Nancy,

Sometimes I stay up all night drinking wine and journaling things that have screwed with my head throughout my life...mostly 2 very controlling & manipulative people, my Mother and husband. Drinking allowed me to face some painful truths that I couldn't face sober. Sober, I just shoved the heartbreaking incidents under the carpet. If you keep shoving things under the carpet without working them through in your mind it catches up with you and you become all confused and disoriented and don't see life clearly....that's the way it is for me anyway. I have gone over the journal entries a couple of times sober and then usually throw them out. I find it cathartic and it really helps to end the process of going over and over things in my head. There is something about the writing that gets my head all organized and I feel so much better.

I know there is something to what you are saying though, I would like to look into it. Have you had a lot of therapy? Right now I am working on strengthening myself in any and everyway I can so that I can face reality sober....That's my goal.

Luvya, Myheart

[Finding My Self]

Does booze really make you feel better?

Nancy - I think you've put it so well. Yes, I guess my 'Muddled thread' is about having reached the pile of poo that wont go under the carpet now.... Alcohol numbed the feelings but did absolutley nothing about removing or dealing with the causes. That's now's joy - and it is really. Hard but a joy.

I love the use of the echo analogy - remember it well and see it so clearly in others when they're p'd.

Thanks Nancy.
Love FMF x

[Deilight]

Does booze really make you feel better?

I agree wholeheartedly Nancy! Since I have been sober, life feels more manageable and even though my mood still goes up and down at least I go up a bit! Drinking started making me very aggressive and angry while drunk to the point of suicidal depression. I "felt" only the bad things and didn't like anyone around me including myself! I think people with dinking problems lose the "happy" part of being drunk and go straight into the "dark" part. Well, I do at least. While drinking I thought I was releasing stuff but in fact was creating more. Echo is a great way to describe that.

Thanks Nancy

[nancy]

Does booze really make you feel better?

Hey My Heart:

You make a good point. I used alcohol for a long time in exactly the way you mentioned, to face very painful things I could not face sober. I think actually it did help in that respect because it was cathartic, allowing me to dig these things out and come to grips with them.

Since then though, I used it for loneliness,when i felt very down. And it just seems to magnify those feelings. It was very unhealthy in that sense. There was nothing positive in terms of getting me out of it, it just seemed to exacerbate negative views.

Actually, now that I think about it, those early experiences with catharsis set me up to use booze for all emotional pain.

I have had a lot of therapy, but not very good therapy for the most part. Only one helped me in any significant way.

[MyHeartIsDrenchedInWine]

Does booze really make you feel better?

That makes sense. Is the Cognitive Behavior Therapy the one that worked?

[nancy]

Does booze really make you feel better?

My Heart:

the therapy was based loosely on CBT and other types of psychology. so it sure wasnt by the book, like the book Feeling Good, where you outlline the specific types of distortions and then keep a journal. At the time, I had never read that stuff.

I do remember that very negative self-views were challenged effectively and that is what CBT is essentially about. It challenges your depressive world-view. my therapy was very effective. Also he de-personalized a lot of troubling issues that i was taken on myself. He didn't tell me he was doing this, just talked me through a lot of things based on that premise. Personalization is a trait of depressing thinking, in CBT.

Anyway, it was very helpful

[MyHeartIsDrenchedInWine]

Does booze really make you feel better?

Hmmmm, My psychiatrist wants to do some kind of thing where she shakes a pencil in front of my eyes while I talk about things that "haunt" me. I really do NOT like talking about problems and find it depressing. Journaling seems to help though.

I do make an effort not to personalize things. I know one counselor told me. "He would do the same thing with anyone in your position"....in other words...whoever his wife and Mother of his children would be would get the same issues, HIS "issues" thrown at them.

It still hurts though.

[nancy]

Does booze really make you feel better?

Well, my therapist didn't use any pencils.

But I had a lot of negative self-talk. "personalization". "overgeneralization" I guess. "fortune telling" the worst things would happen.

He never told me these are terms spelled out in CBT.

but if I would talk about how things were never going to work out, he would challenge it.
At times he would flat out say: I don't believe you
not that I was being dishonest, just that I had created some very negative scenarios around my life story.