Alcohol anxiety

[neophyte]

I've touched on here a few times about alcohol giving me crippling anxiety and paranoia the morning after drinking. i found out today that it has a name. Alcohol Anxiety not exactly an official title, but its definition really resonates to my experience exactly.

Alcohol Anxiety

Typically experienced the day after drinking, the condition is characterized by symptoms ranging from mild anxiety and shakiness to severe paranoia with shortness of breath and a racing heart rate. This can often result in feeling like a complete nervous wreck! Linked to social anxiety, alcohol anxiety can then impact into other areas of a sufferer’s life. Alcohol anxiety seems to develop slowly – often over months or even years – and unless drinking is reduced or ceased, it tends to only get worse as time goes on. As there is a lack of general knowledge about this issue, symptoms can go on for a while before a sufferer is even able to make the connection between their drinking and the negative physical and mental effects they experience. This is exacerbated by the rarity of the condition – feelings of isolation are common, as sufferers feel alienated from their friends who do not experience the same effects and cannot understand that it even exists.

The section i bolded really stood out to me. That was my exact experience. I threw away a great job because of paranoid delusions. but it was a blessing in disguise, it got me sober, and now i have a new job thats better.

I wonder if anyone experienced similar? Is this really a rare phenomenon as the article suggests?

[Ne/Neva Eva]

Alcohol anxiety

I thought anxiety induced by alcohol was a fairly common experience, even for people who aren't alcoholics? (There's a lot of information in that blog post that had me scratching my head in wonder.)

Yes, I've posted about the fact that even a glass of wine makes me feel not-myself the next day. The symptoms that I experience aren't extreme, and haven't been for years.

[Fred_The_Cat]

Alcohol anxiety

Spot on. I would add that lightening up on drinking for an extended period and then spending a night going back to your old ways will slam you much harder with anxiety than regular drinking.

I've been in a shitty mood the past couple of weeks (as I posted in another thread, I suspect PAWS since it's been about 60 days since I've majorly shut the tap on drinking), and Friday I said screw it and decided to get drunk. I ended up having 2 margaritas (actually a regular weekly occurrence until last month), and passed out at home. When I woke up I felt shaky, disoriented, half alive, etc. I took 60 mg of bac (maintenance dose is 50) knowing that helps some when I go overboard.

For the rest of the day, it felt like a bomb had gone off in my head. I couldn't think in complete sentences, and when I could think it was in circles. Trying to sleep was terrible, my thoughts were so splintered that it reminded me of those nightmares I had in school of math problems made of fragments of all my classes combined that couldn't possibly be solved.

This morning is a bit better, my mind feels partly back but still frail. You are absolutely right in saying that it worsens over time.

[YouKayBee]

Alcohol anxiety

Isn't this effect because alcohol damps down your nervous system, then rebounds back up futher than it was to start with afterwards, thus increase anxiety?

[Fred_The_Cat]

Alcohol anxiety

That, and I think it could be a more mild example of the "kindling effect" where each subsequent time you dry out, if you ever get wet again it will be way more intense drying out the next time.

[YouKayBee]

Alcohol anxiety

Fred_The_Cat;1657110 wrote: That, and I think it could be a more mild example of the "kindling effect" where each subsequent time you dry out, if you ever get wet again it will be way more intense drying out the next time.

Yes that's it. I've also heard something along the lines of, if someone who's used Naltrexone ever drinks again without the medication, that there is a further kindling effect due to receptor multiplication which is a direct result of how Naltrexone works.

Remembering how horrible all of drinking alcohol's side effects were, which included paranoia and anxiety it's enough to put me off drinking alcohol ever again full stop!

I also think there's a chicken and egg thing here, which can also be applied to depression. Was the person initially depressed or anxious, or did the alcohol consumption (depressant) bring it on, and if it is underlying how much can be ascribed to alcohol. Then of course the self-medicating makes it even harder to quit, but until it's taken away and PAWS eliminated, then it's very difficult to tell.

[Ne/Neva Eva]

Alcohol anxiety

Fred_The_Cat;1657110 wrote: That, and I think it could be a more mild example of the "kindling effect" where each subsequent time you dry out, if you ever get wet again it will be way more intense drying out the next time.

Hey, guys, the "kindling effect" is a favorite topic of one of the members of this forum. Here's the thing about it, though: It was based on one bit of research that was widely and thoroughly discredited, as was the PhD doc who wrote it. It doesn't exist.

That's not to say that getting drunk after a period of sobriety doesn't lead to the holy-hell-of-hangovers. My personal thought is that I used to feel like that every single effin' day of my life. It was "normal" to be hungover. Now? Ohmygod it is the worst thing ever. And then it used to be if I drank more than my normal amount of 1.5 daily bottles of wine. The last time I got drunk/was horribly hungover I had 3 or 4 margaritas. That's nothing for me back in alcoholic days.

I think being hungover is normal, don't you? And hating being hungover is no longer a reason to drink. Now it's a reason to suffer alone, under covers in a dark room and wonder WHY tequila exists???! (Not that I don't love a tiny little bit of the stuff very, very occasionally. just sayin')

[paulywogg]

Alcohol anxiety

This is me,years ago when i first started drinking,i had no idea about anxiety,never felt it,never had it whatever,went to a new gp told him my symptoms,told him about my drinking what does he do?prescribes klonopin duh,why the feck didn't he explain the al and anxiety connection instead of throwing pills at me?that was 6 years ago,i've yet to figure out how i'm gonna deal with that situation

[StuckinLA]

Alcohol anxiety

Yeah I thought this was just called withdrawal? :H

[Samandkatharine]

Alcohol anxiety

All this talk of anxiety is making me anxious.

Sam

[spiritwolf333]

Alcohol anxiety

In my experience, it was this "next" morning anxiety that led to my full flight into alcoholism. There came a morning when I finally gave into the anxiety and attempted to cure the problem with just one 16oz can of alcoholic comfort. Unfortunately, my brain recorded this temporary fix as a then permanent solution.

That morning, my so-called anxiety cure led me into my final flight into full fledged alcoholism and daily drinking - beginning in the mornings. All of this debacle eventually led me to baclofen.

I did find out one thing on this full time dance with alcohol, I did not feel any anxiety. But of course, I did not feel life like was working with me anymore and that I would soon die or get help.

I do think that baclofen helps erase some of those brain etched alcoholic memories, but some memories stay around for a long time.

Just a thought.

[neophyte]

Alcohol anxiety

my hangovers were benign when i started drinking. in the early days i was a bit out of it for the first half of the day. i suffer from social anxiety, i convinced myself the booze was helping me in this hangover state because i didnt care about being anxious. but over time the opposite was true and it got worse and worse.

I got to the stage like Fred, of anxiety in the morning. Ususally i would wake up at 4am in a panic, then i'd right myself with a few shots, i enjoyed it at the time because it gave me a warm feeling in my belly as i drifted back into sleep and the anxiety melted away. I had always said, i would never ever start day time drinking. alcohol however forces you into the situation to feel normal.

I feel as if alcoholics have to discover this all for themselves when they recover. for a long time i had problems reconciling the things that i did when i was sober but anxious from alcohol were not me, were not rational decisions. with articles like that, it reminds me that i can safely say i can blame the alcohol for putting me in that state of mind.

[skullbabyland]

Alcohol anxiety

For me, I had lots of anxiety before alcohol was ever in the picture, and for years alcohol then became the way in which I felt it go away. But then it crept back in worse than before each morning after, growing huge until my life was an anxiety nightmare, I could hardly work or function through all the fear. I too have made rash work/career decisions from a place of alcohol-fueled fear, anxiety, paranoia.
Yep a good reminder for me that alcohol=intense anxiety. The two go hand in hand. I need to remember this when a drink sounds like a good idea.

[Bminor]

Alcohol anxiety

I got this all the time, it's why I would usually just wake up and start drinking again right away.

[padoo]

Alcohol anxiety

Neophyte, spiritwolf , paulywogg and everyone else,

Thanks so much for this info. I suffer exactly from this and have never been able to find others articulating it in the way I suffer until now. While I had and do experience non-alcohol anxiety, a bit like paulywogg, I never experienced what I would call real unbearable anxiety until it was brought on by alcohol. I drank from a young age (about 13) and heavily on a social basis as it was part of my life and the society I was raised in, and still very much is. It was at about the age of 20 that I started to suffer blackouts and experienced extreme anxiety from this. Very soon after I promised myself that I would try and fix this problem but never managed to, except briefly, probably suffering an episode of getting way too drunk and the anxiety that goes with it on an average of every 2 or 3 weeks and partook in heavy drinking at least (and often more than) once a week. Just Like spiritwolf, one morning (about 6 years later) the anxiety after a heavy 2 or 3 day session with blackouts, I had the bright idea to drink again the next morning as the anxiety was too much to bear. Unlike spiritwolf this has not (yet) resulted in full time alcoholism or everyday drinking, just a very serious drinking problem. Sometimes I can go about a month without having a blackout and sometimes I can have a blackout and not resort to alcohol to deal with the anxiety, though often I can end up on benders for a few days and miss work, avoid speaking to friends and family etc. Miraculously I have managed to maintain a successful career in a high stress industry throughout all of this though fear this could easily change.

Very sorry for this very lengthy post. It is my first and I have started on bac only a few weeks ago. On 100mg I had one of my episodes last week and partied and then ended up drinking in my room alone for 2 days after. I have just moved up to 120mg and am suffering fatigue, vertigo and nausea. I guess my goal is more to be able to control my drinking than to stop altogether. Not sure if that is a valid goal. It is strange because sometimes I can go a month or so and feel no anxiety at all and feel pretty great and then slip back into hell from one of my episodes. So it seems that my situation is a bit different from most others who take bac but nonetheless trying to change my dangerous and destructive drinking alone has failed for 10 years and I have tried other things (including therapy and naltrexone) and I feel I will ruin my life if I don't suceed to change.

Any advice or tips would be very much appreciated. Thanks.