Hi Everyone-
I am new to this community. I struggle with extreme anxiety. I can drink two bottles of wine in a night myself and have been able to drink more than that. I wake up feeling very badly when I do that but I keep doing it. I want to be sober but the anxiety is debilitating even though I am on anti anxiety meds. I joined this app for support. I am battling this on my own. I have told my family I don’t drink anymore and it is easy to hide because I live in Africa and they live on the other side of the world from me in the USA. When I am not at work, I am alone. I have friends but I live in a majority Muslim country where most people don’t drink. I feel stuck, like I don’t know how to get sober. I can go several days without drinking. My rule is only on the weekends. Then I drink to excess. I just find myself looking forward to the weekend and I isolate myself and when I do that, I get more anxious. Anyone else out there have a similar experience? How do I get out of my own head and my own way?
I should also mention here that when I don’t drink, I don’t sleep. I have severe insomnia without the alcohol. I don’t know how to get back on track.
Welcome! For me, it takes a week or two of sobriety for my body to get into a healthy sleep cycle. Alcohol might put me to sleep, but it's crappy sleep. Have you tried the Natrol brand stress and anxiety day and nighttime formula? It has helped me, and the nighttime compound has melatonin on it. Two books that helped me put alcohol into perspective are 'The Alcohol Experiment' by Annie Grace, and 'Alan Carr's quit drinking without willpower'. Although I have slipped since reading them they have helped me really understand what alcohol does and how the body reacts to it, and much more. This is also a great community, and I'm glad you're here.
Do you know that alcohol make depression and anxiety worse? Maybe you should check yourself into a hospital and get medically detoxed and put on the right meds. It’s a vicious cycle with depression, anxiety and drinking. Drinking doesn’t make it better and just mask the depression and anxiety. Please get the right help once and for all. You won’t be sorry. Dying from alcohol is brutal.
Is there AA where you live?
That is where I found a solution to the drink problem.
No, we don’t have AA in Senegal but I found an online meeting with SMART.
Yes I know it makes it worse but in the short term it is what takes the anxiety away. I need to find other solutions. My issue isn’t detox per se, it is finding the tools to deal with my anxiety differently.
Ok great.
If you have access to the internet then you can attend AA meetings.
DRINKING ALCOHOL, HEIGHTENS ANXIETY.
IF YOU DRINK OFTEN, IT KEEPS YOU IN A STATE OF ANXIETY ALL THE TIME.
If you drink to alleviate anxiety, then you are in the vicious
cycle.
It’s what goes around comes around, right? Only worse bc the brain becomes addicted to the cycle.
What if any medical insurance coverage do you have? Will you ever return to the US? What kind of resources are around you there? Anything???
I mean, all our support to you is normally grounded on US soil, but your situation is so very different. How long do you mean by “short term”?
I do not plan to return to the USA. I don’t have great insurance so I am on my own basically
Well, sorry to hear that. You look like a friend I knew from Pennsylvania. Good luck with the SMART program?
Honey it’s not taking the anxiety away it’s masking it and as far as sleeping, your not getting the right sleep. Sorry cop out. If you were to get the right help they could prescribe you something to help you get the right nights sleep like they did for me. Sounds to me your making every excuse in the book to warrant your drinking. 2 bottles of wine in a night is too much. You need help my friend. Take what you want leave the rest. But your playing Russian roulette with 2 bottles of wine a night. I was drinking that much if not more and I went and had my liver checked and was told to stop immediately. For a woman that’s too much. Sorry but not sugar coating recovery. It’s no joke.
Like Nancy said.
Where I live, You don’t need insurance to get help with addiction. A hospital should take you in. Addiction is something that most places will go out of their way to help. Seek out no excuses. AA is on zoom 247 around the world.
I took suffer from the binge drinking variety of alcoholism and it can be so hard to stop. The rise in anxiety when you withdraw sucks, but even more so I noticed that the time I had with my own thoughts just sitting around sober was even worse. I will say that after maybe 4 weeks of struggling through I started to notice that my brain chemistry was getting back to normal and I actually felt very motivated to find sober activities to try. Definitely try to get people around you and find hobbies. Boredom can be one of the most dangerous relapse triggers
Welcome! First, give yourself a big hug. You deserve it. And take some deep breathes … a cycle of anxiety and alcoholism is a “chicken or the egg” argument. I found that increasing stress-relieving and endorphin/cortisol producing activities were the most immediately helpful to curb the desire to drink to relieve anxiety. Yoga, speed walking, intervals of each - anything to get you moving and breathing. I was so deep in my alcoholism, I physically required medical intervention and detox (more than once) and I am forever grateful. There are a lot of chemicals out of whack right now in your body, so if I were in your shoes, I would reach out pretty quickly for some medical help and advise. Just a suggestion!
I know it is too much. I don’t drink that every night. I drink that on most weekend nights though. I know I need to figure this out. That is why I am here. I need suggestions for what to do and how to deal with it. I have a really good job here in Sénégal I just need to figure out how to make this cycle stop. I stopped drinking for 6 months so I know I can do it. It was hard but I did it. I just started again and that is the problem.
Find a meeting online here:
I find that routine and predictability help a lot with not drinking. I am on vacation right now and that is not good for me.
Love what Julie G just said.