Alcohol And Anxiety – Is it time to ditch the booze?

Alcohol and anxiety can go hand in hand for some, a strange relationship that can easily become a dependent one. You feel anxious…. you drink… the next day you’re still anxious and you drink again.

While you might think that a glass of wine here and there will calm your anxiety, it’s dangerous to use alcohol as though it were a medication. If you begin to rely on alcohol too much for it’s calming effects, your alcohol use can easily increase and if alcohol use becomes heavy, this can increase your feelings of anxiety in general.

You will feel more anxious whenever you’re not drinking and this in turn will make you reach for the bottle again.

It is true that the effect of alcohol can feel similar to some anti-anxiety medications, it can make you feel more relaxed and carefree. Suddenly that voice in your head muttering away with relentless anxiety messages quietens down and you feel free from the stress that has been plaguing you throughout the day.

But this will give you a false sense of security. Those little anxious thoughts have not disappeared for good and could well be back with vengeance the following morning – in fact, they will be much louder in the morning if you have a hangover in addition to your anxiety to battle.

Does this mean you should give up drinking?

If you’ve arrived at this page, it probably means you’ve been worrying about your alcohol use and how it effects your anxiety. This really depends on how much you’re drinking and how you’re feeling in response to that – everyone reacts differently.

A glass or two of wine a couple of times a week or more, may do little to effect someone’s level of anxiety – whereas for someone else who is perhaps suffering a lot, it could be more detrimental.

The point is, if YOU are concerned about your alcohol intake, you need to think about how you should adjust it. No matter what, binge drinking once or more every week is going to have a negative effect on you ultimately and that should avoided if you’re suffering from anxiety.

That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t go out and enjoy yourself – but you need to be aware beforehand that if you do make the decision to have several alcoholic drinks, the likelihood is you will need a recovery period where you may be feeling more anxious than usual.

So, if you’re going out to a big event, either choose to really limit your alcohol consumption to a couple of drinks, or at the very least ensure that you have a day following it where there are not too many anxiety-inducing events occurring and you can recover.

Don’t make the mistake of continuing to drink on the following days, this will not help you and ultimately prolong your recovery time.

Consider too, that you can quickly build up a tolerance to alcohol. So, whereas a glass of wine once did the trick to help you unwind after a long and stressful day… it’s not long before that doesn’t have the same effect…you now need two glasses….and so on.

Alcohol effects the neurotransmitters in our brain, including serotonin, that effects our mood. As such we can feel more anxious and feel low once the effects of the alcohol begin to fade.

Using alcohol to help you with social anxiety can be even more devastating. As how often in the day do we need to engage with other people in college or work, let alone other social events outside of these times.

If we start relying on alcohol to help cope with social anxiety, this can filter in dangerously to so many of our daily activities that there is a high risk for dependency and addiction. By drinking during work hours, you’d also be risking your career and your job.

In order to make sure you’re on the right track with your drinking, it’s a good idea to check out the signs for dependence….

The Signs Of Alcohol Dependence

You start to panic when you’re going to have your next drink
You may start to plan events, family activities and work events around alcohol
Once you start drinking, you find it hard to stop
You start to feel that you may need to start drinking when you wake up
When you do try and cut down on drinking, you suffer withdrawal symptoms – such as shaking, sweating, nausea and these symptoms disappear once you drink alcohol again.

Alcohol is not a realistic or beneficial treatment for anxiety – quite the opposite, it can have devastating consequences.

Risks of alcohol misuse are wide and varied but the effects of long-term misuse also include…

Various forms of cancer, including mouth, liver, breast and bowl cancer.
Liver disease.
Pancreatitis.
Stroke.
Depression.
High blood pressure.
Dementia.
Infertility.

If you find yourself reaching for alcohol more regularly than you’d like and think you’re using it to suppress your anxiety, considering alternative things you can do when you feel the urge to drink is a good idea. If you can come up with ways that you can do something else to unwind and make those behaviours a habit, you can begin to break the cycle.

What you may like to try and include into your routine to combat the urge to drink will be individual for everyone, but here are some ideas to get you started.

Include meditation within your daily routine, you can get some fantastic guided meditation CD’s which can provide healing relaxation.
Running a relaxing bubble bath with some scented candles
Exercise – my personal preference is running, but simply going out for a walk when the urge to drink takes you, can be a great distraction.
Try writing down your feelings in a journal, sometimes simply writing down how you feel and what you’re worried about can really reduce your stress levels
Consider using essential oils to ease your anxiety, or getting an essential oils diffuser, which creates a scented mist than can last for hours and help you unwind.
There are some great breathing exercises you can do to help reduce your anxiety, the more you practice them, the more effective they can become – so check them out!
Try experimenting with different herbal teas, find one you love and preferably one that is calming, such as chamomile or bergamot.
Read a new book or listen to an audio book – sometimes when anxiety takes hold, it can be difficult to concentrate, especially on something that requires particular attention such as reading, but an audio book is a great alternative and you can get audio copies of a huge number of books now.
Listen to an uplifting or relaxing music CD, something that you love that you know will make you happy.

You’ve made a huge step acknowledging that you’re relying on alcohol to try and soothe your anxiety. If the need to drink is controlling you more than you think it should – you can now start to make steps to decrease your dependence on it. The fact you’ve thought about it and want to improve is the first step – it’s up to you to take the next one!