I have constant panic and anxiety which I know stems from drinking too much, but drinking helps ease it. It’s a vicious cycle. I need help.
It is a vicious cycle. However, I believe you may have it backwards. Whether you were aware of it or not, your panic and anxiety most likely was there before you ever picked up the drink. Alcohol may have helped ease it at one point. As our drinking progresses, the alcohol doesn’t work as well and we need to drink more and more to get relief. As the drinking progresses even further, we create so much more chaos in our life’s…which creates even more panic and anxiety.
Now we take away the alcohol, and we are still left with all of this unresolved panic and anxiety. Alcohol is just a symptom, it is not the problem. The problem is us, and the way we choose to deal with our feelings. I think if you start attacking it from this point a view, you will have much better long term results. This is just my opinion based on my experiences.
Ugh, I wrote something then lost it... anyway, yes, I know exactly what you're talking about, I was in that cycle too. You may have had the anxiety before drinking, but in the end, drinking causes anxiety and makes any existing anxiety worse. It causes your brain to produce stress hormones to try to bring you back to homeostasis. Dinorphrine is one of the chemicals produced. The shaky body, racing heart, can't sleep, mind catastrophizing everything is due to the stress hormones. Drinking again will temporarily relieve that or some of it, but it is also causing it. I know, for me, I'd drink to get rid of that awful feeling and sometimes never get rid of it :/. It's a very viscious cycle. I will find some links to back this up, but it's absolutely a thing. I hope you can find peace
Anxiety and Alcohol Use Disorders - PMC -- more science heavy, see the substance induced anxiety model