A lot of people started drinking because they suffered from anxiety- this could be social anxiety, work stress, ADHD restlessness etc).

After drinking for a while the whole addiction/endorphin loop kicked in, as we learned from Dr Sinclair.

For those of you who are cured/semi-cured and did suffer some form of anxiety, What has now happened to the underlying anxiousness that precipitated your drinking? Do you now fight it in other ways? Did alcohol take away your source of anxiety (lost your stressful job)?, do you have a new addiction? is your anxiety/restlessness still there?

I'm extremely curious how you deal with anxiety now?

Thanks,

PS I've lifted this topic from a recent post by Ocean (I've just tried to word it a little different)

Deuce and Ocean are similar.

I went through a very specific form of Gestalt "body centered" therapy. This was not the standard talk patient directed talk therapy. Most of it happened in a men's group. The two therapists running the group were very direct and tough. In a typical meeting a group member would bring up an issue he was dealing with and the two therapists would drill him for about an hour forcing him to confront the underlying psychological reasons for the issue. They did this by having the patient take on the persona of the force that was causing him to feel the way he did. I know this sounds strange but it was really effective. Often this would result in a kind of mental break down of sorts and uncontrollable tears. But this upwelling of grief in the context of a supportive group was very cathartic. This more than anything really changed me as a person and purged me of my anxiety. I came to see that my anxiety was really a repression of my true feelings. Because I could not express my true feelings they expressed themselves in an indirect way anxiety, depression, passive aggressive behavior etc. I could go on and on...

I'm not cured, I've only taken one dose so far.

But I do have anxiety and OCD. I'm planning to get some therapy (CBT, ERP) in the coming months to go along with the sinclair treatment.

Are you taking any anti-anxiety meds, Wrench?

Nope. Tried anxiety meds once 10 years ago and didn't really feel they were right for me. I guess I preferred self medication more

I haven't tried NAL yet, because as you can read in my posts I was sober for a year and a half or so, and have been dabbling here and there the past year....

I can't speak from the aspect of being cured with NAL, but my anxiety was both worse and better at the same time after I quit......

I had a handful of panic attacks and dozens of near panic attacks, I guess we'll call them a moderate anxiety attack. Where I know it could go to panic unless I do some deep breathing, or get out of a situation that's pushing me over the edge.

I don't think the alcohol was the cause, but the more addicted you get it feeds the anxiety because you begin having subtle withdrawal symptoms and you kinda freak out about how you're feeling.

I felt that my period of sobriety I was mostly white-knuckling it all the time. I was weird in social situations, I sat around too much and thought (there were other serious tragedies and events that same year which made it even more impossible) but I have to say, I haven't been really near to a full panic attack. Have a hard time relaxing, etc etc and when work was going crazy for 9 months I had trouble sleeping, but no panic attacks, just the moderate anxiety and most days pretty decent.

I'm hoping that the deprivation syndrome will dissipate after I train with NAL and get some extinction going. I wonder too how much of the anxiety is part of the addiction, vs the rest of my life? I think not having the monkey on my back should allow me to be more relaxed and not have as many of those "I really really really want a drink" moments.

I can say, that my vacations from sobriety have left me feeling much better in general with regard to the deprivation syndrome. I feel like it's acted as a pressure relief valve, when I knew it was eating at me I'd blow off a little steam in a very controlled (mostly) manner compared with my old booze habit. But more out of survival than anything. When you know drinking a bottle of whiskey is going to render you useless and detoxing for a week, you definitely think twice about it and mostly I've been able to just get a little buzz and call it good. But even then I still have to detox and that **** is getting really really old.

Don't mean to hijack, I can tell you what it's like without NAL, I'm hoping others will chime in because I'd like to hear what they have to say about it.

Zk

Hi,
A lot of people started drinking because they suffered from anxiety- this could be social anxiety, work stress, ADHD restlessness etc).

I think one of the benefits of TSM is that it eliminates (or greatly reduces) running to alcohol as a remedy for being stressed/anxious. When the smoke clears, if there's still an underlying mental unrest, you have the opportunity to work on it without the haze of booze getting in the way.

On the other hand, if you can recognize it and start dealing with it as you're using TSM, so much the better. The downside of the traditional approach to treating an Alcohol Use Disorder tends to rely on the conscious part of the brain. While that works for some, the urge to drink (that comes from the unconscious part of the brain or the "Lizard Brain" as it's been called) generally wins out in the end. That's where TSM comes in handy to eventually help clear the "noise" caused by drinking itself.

I'm dysthymic and have been for most of my life. Alcohol (as a CNS depressant) only made that worse. Using TSM to get the booze out of the way has made progress easier for me.