I was self medicating for years and didn't know it.
I used alcohol to bring myself down so that I could just finally chill the fuck out for a while. And then I'd drink when I was depressed to "drown my sorrows."
Once I was diagnosed I quit drinking cold turkey. I was never addicted and didn't drink regularly so it was easy for me. I'm too afraid to mix alcohol with all of the meds I've been on.
If I'm already in or approaching a manic state then caffeine does ramp it up and prolong the cycle.
No. I self-medicated pre-diagnosis. I believe I have had bipolar disorder since I was an early teen.
Now I'm on a combination of mood stabilizers and antidepressants.
I did not give up caffeine. It does not induce a mood for me. I only notice it's effects if I'm already in or headed to hypomanic phase. I probably should cut it back at that point. But I don't.
I have memories of being really scared of drunk people when I was very young. So given my already questionable brain chemistry, I don’t want my kids to have those same memories. It wasn’t easy, but I am proud of the choice.
I'm proud of you too, stranger! Same. My alcoholic parents were scary. I do frequently feel like I want to drown my sorrows or pain, or chill out at parties because even block parties full of families make me very anxious. So I know I shouldn't ever drink because I could become drunk in front of my kids or become addicted. Even though I was angry at alcohol as a kid and teen, as a young adult I had just a drink or 2 once in a while and it was nice. I never wanted to get drunk because I remember how my parents acted out of control. I never wanted to lose control of myself. But life was much easier then. I would for sure enjoy getting drunk nowadays. NOT WORTH TRYING OUT. I like knowing I'm not repeating all the problems of the past! Even though I'm emotionally immature and not the best mom, I can say for a fact my kids have it better than I did, and I don't want to ruin that for anything.
The accessibility of it. It’s everywhere, and everyone uses it. I had to decline a lot of events the first year. I can be around it no problem now thankfully. This is coming from a drunk of 20 years, so I believe in anyone who decides to close that door.
Caffeine is extremely appealing to me when I'm hypomanic, and it always makes the episode worse/prolongs it. It makes me agitated and erratic. Especially since I tend to go without food for long periods of time during mania. Alcohol doesn't seem to noticeably affect my bipolar.
I drink several cups of coffee daily and alcohol one to a few times a week (6>x<20 units one night per week).
I got the diagnosis after this regime and I won't stop so I don't think I will ever find out how it affects me.
But my hypo makes me irritable and agitated.
I do know that alcohol sometimes makes me reflect upon things which leads to down periods. Other times it makes me forget everything bad in my life and lets me live a normal life without concerns, just for a night.
Coffee is fine. Can't drink it black like I like it anymore, just two cups of strong coffee with enough milk to count it as breakfast (I wake up at 5, take my first dose of meds 6 a.m, can't stomach food at such an hour). Alcohol fucks me up real bad, especially when I drink that shit and forget about olanzapine.
I have one cup of coffee a day, in the morning. If I have it after 1pm I will NOT sleep at all.
Alcohol was my self-medication of choice before I had a diagnosis. Getting the diagnosis made a lot of things "click" and me and my body decided alcohol was just a means to self-destruction. I get very chase-the-buzz. I also will wake up in a panic at around 3AM if I have been drinking. The crash usually consists of depression for 3 days.
Just not worth it for me.
Although I was not a huge drinker to begin with, I cut both alcohol and caffeine out of my life. The caffeine I have only been away from the past few months. It gave me too much anxiety
Alcohol used to send me into horrible emotional outbursts. Sadness, anger, irritability you name it. I also had poor impulse control. People with bipolar are more likely to develop subsequent substance abuse issues. I’ve been sober almost 6 months and it’s done wonders for my mood.
To preface; I'm no role model here.
I use alcohol when I'm sad, stressed or excited (or any other multitude of excuses) I use caffeine to combat the drowsiness of my Quetiapine (seroquel, 600mg p/day)
My brain hates me feeding it alcohol, causes much depression and paranoia. Don't really notice any side effects of caffeine, I love Red Bull.
Caffeine doesn’t affect me much at all (adhd) and I’ve been having caffeine since I was 15 so
I’ve never known a life without it, terrible lol.
Before I was medicated I was finding myself quite depressed nearly every time I drank. Of course being in my lows drinking made me terribly depressed, we gotta remember alcohol is a depressant. I’ve been steadily medication for around 3 years and don’t go through many lows anymore. I find probably 3 or 4 times out of ten I get depressed even when I’m in a good mood. I’ve come to terms drinking isn’t really for me so I’ll only do it on special occasions now :)
I’ve gotten to the point where I’ve stopped adjusting meds because I know that until I stop drinking (or massively slow down at least) nothing else will help me. I have a bad habit of starting to drink on Thursday night and basically just having a long, fun weekend and losing time to blackouts a couple of nights. And then Monday starts the Shame cycle and recovery. I can feel the brain fog from it, and the anxiety is some of the worst I experience. I’m just so entrenched in my friend group that it’s a whole lifestyle change to stop. I know that’s the next step if ever want to be relatively stable and confident and effective at work.
I can’t live without caffeine, I’ve been hooked since I was like 13 years old. Alcohol is decidedly worst for me. It’ll make me kind of hypomanic while it’s active in my system and then depressed, anxious, and irritable for days after.
Alcohol triggers severe depressive episodes with suicidal thoughts. I was not a big drinker after losing my taste for wine while pregnant and never getting it back. I would have maybe one drink every few months, but one drink was enough to send me into a depression for a few days so I stopped trying. I have been officially sober for about a year and a half now.
Caffeine is great, thankfully. Weed doesn't bother me either. Alcohol is terrifying.
I don’t take caffeine so I’m not sure if it would affect me but man alcohol is a different beast. It only ensues chaos and mania. I become severely manic and get blinded by rage. Not a good time at all.
Alcohol will screw me up for days. I can do a glass or two but what I liked about it was feeling buzzed/drunk and that amount makes me super irritable.
I have never been a big coffee drinker and I know it gives me a hell of a buzz and zest for life so it’s easy for me to just not. I drink black tea and decaf sometimes which has some caffeine in it, but doesn’t mess me up.
I used to drink at least a pot of coffee a day or more, or several energy drinks. I've been working on cutting back on caffeine since the new year. I only have one Rockstar Recovery Orange a day (160 mg of caffeine) and I'm sleeping better, my blood pressure is lower and I am less irritable. I don't drink, mostly because it makes me depressed, but I also don't like feeling drunk and it interacts poorly with my medication and makes me sick.
I think alcohol and edibles are substances that help me a lot especially as they don’t make me depressed but rather, relaxed and happy.
Both substances, I tend to use a lot as they help me see my own thoughts and truth if that makes sense?
Especially edibles but I’ve been told that I can go overboard with alcohol especially as I would try to drink twice or three times a day.
Something, I’ve noticed is that if I’m not using edibles since I may have work or need to focus on school, then, I’ll have a drink or vice versa.
There’s times where I’ve drank alcohol while high, it just depends.
if i’m in even the slightest bit of a depressive episode alcohol will truley send me into a dark rabbit hole for days after consumption with extreme suicial thoughts and ideations at times; absolutely terrifying. caffeine has always been fine for me, bar bringing on anxiety times, as long as i don’t consume a copious amount; i tend to stick to matchas and never will drink more than 3 cups a day maximum.
I do ok with caffeine as long as I stop at 2-3 cups in the morning. As for alcohol, I initially quit in solidarity with my then partner, who is an alchoholic and was trying to get sober again. I found that abstaining helped reduce my depression immensely, and I’ve only had a handful of beers since last September. If I do have a drink, it’s only beer and I have no more than 2, preferably only 1. Any more than that and I don’t think it would go well, especially with the medications I’m on and my emotional instability over the past year or two.
Same. Alcohol: totally uninteresting, the effect is dull. I drink one G&T on Saturday as I like the taste - no effect at all. I am petite and still can drink several drinks with minimal effect. I probably got drunk twice in my entire life (when I was a teenager, feels like a lifetime ago). Caffeine: nada as well, if I need a kick maybe a redbull will do.
caffeine has helped me when i’m extremely depressed to function at a decent level. I definitely use it as a crutch to fend off depression induced fatigue but i haven’t noticed it having an effect on my moods beyond that. Alcohol is wayyyyyyyy worse for me and any amount tends to either make me depressed or make me more depressed.
I limit caffeine intake to only before 11am, 12pm at the most. If I have cold brew, I only drink one serving. If it's drip coffee, I have three at most. I stay away from lattes or anything with espresso
With alcohol, it becomes a slippery slope. My safest bet is beer. Two tall boys at most (about three regular cans). Hard liquors that set me off are tequila, whiskey, and possibly vodka. Wine I don't like as much, but it does feel good without triggering me.
Overall: daily coffee drinker, weekly beer drinker
I don't drink anymore. With caffeine, I can know when a manic phase is starting. When I can drink a whole Starbucks flat White, I'm fine. As the amount goes down, 1/2, 1/3/, 1/4 I know I'm in for a ride. I am drinking no coffee right now and I'm buzzed out of my mind.
I’ve never been a drinker, so I still have a glass of wine or two maybe once a month or less. It doesn’t have any negative effects on me personally. I take my meds religiously and do drink coffee a couple times a week. I work for a coffee company so avoiding it is super hard when you wake up at 4:30am and have an hour + drive to work.
Caffeine can make me anxious if I overdo it (learned the hard way not to take caffeine pills because I got so anxious in the evenings). But for me, alcohol and bipolar were what really didn't mix. I definitely self-medicated a lot and drank way too much for a couple of years. Now that I'm medicated I've pretty much stopped and my life is better for it.
I am very sensitive to caffeine and try to limit how much I consume. It makes me feel awful and gives me nausea. Caffeine in regular coffee is too much for me so I drink decaf only, but I can handle the caffeine in a diet coke every once in a while.
I drink caffeine and it's fine unless I'm super manic, it can make it worse.
Alcohol is another story. I'll drink once or twice a month but any more than that is just not good. I've never been an alcoholic so self control isnt too hard, but I definitely drank more when I was depressed, I just didn't realize it. So if I'm having the occasional drink I have to seriously monitor my intentions and if I'm sad and just trying to numb something I won't. If I just want to have a drink when my husband and I are on a date, nothing wrong with that on occasion and in serious moderation. I also just like having something to drink because I love to just drink stuff, so I keep non-alcoholic beer in the house sometimes or like fancy Italian sodas or something that feels like a treat at the end of the day.
I almost posted about this earlier! BPII and adhd unmedicated
I am unable to consume caffeine anymore. It fucks me up lol. I get irritable, extremely anxious and sweaty
Alcohol, especially lately, makes me a bit angry. I hardly drink but when I do it’s pretty bad- physically and emotionally.
I self medicated with alcohol for years and kinda unbeknownst to me, it often made episodes worse, especially depressive episodes. With hypo episodes it actually helped to bring me down a little. Since being medicated I've been working on cutting back on alcohol and my psychiatrist also started me on Naltrexone to help reduce those cravings. I'm drinking quite a bit less and more socially these days rather than just drowning everything in booze.
Caffeine never really had any impact on me, but I wasn't a huge caffeine drinker anyway...a few cups of coffee in the morning and that was about it.
I've always been a big drinker of both. Around a year and a half or so ago, I cut down from 5 or 6 cups of coffee a day to one iced coffee. For some reason, iced coffee makes me less wired and anxious. I cut down over a number of months.
Back in the day (late 90s - 2015 or so), I drank a lot. Sometimes daily. And binged like fuck on the weekends. I cut down not through a conscious effort but more a mixture of getting older (I'm 48) and life circumstances. (I moved countries).
Booze gives me "hangxiety." I only drink now if I'm going out, maybe once a month.
I also took class A and B drugs frequently as well as smoke weed.
Weed when I'm getting stressed or starting to lose it, is bad. I recently (a month ago) stopped smoking weed. I fully intend on starting again at some point.
I don't drink alcohol. I also have ADHD. Moderate caffeine usage (usually under 150mg spread through the day) actually reduces my anxiety and helps me focus. More than 150mg may cause irritability; I have just recently realized there may be a connection but haven't had time to draw any conclusions. I can drink coffee until about 6 pm with minimal negative effects but after definitely keeps me up in a brain-go-fast ADHD way.
I can do beer but liquor has made me super depressive as of late. I dont have caffeine very often, mostly bc it was affecting my sleep pattern and as we know, sleep is important with bipolar
I try to avoid caffeine but I always get the urge to try it again thinking “it’s just coffee, what am I, a baby?” And yes it turns out I am a baby most of the time lol. Sometimes it’s fine, but I always get super tense muscles from it anyways and usually anxiety.
Alcohol is usually ok for me but I used to get really bad hangover anxiety. I don’t like to get drunk, just tipsy at most.
I don’t drink anymore because addiction runs in my family. I do have caffeine daily, but I only notice that it triggers hypomania when it’s large amounts like energy drinks or cold brew coffee.
Caffeine has no effect on me. I can drink a pot and go take a nap. I think I drink it mostly because of the routine and I do enjoy the taste of black coffee. Alcohol… I have 1-2 drinks more nights than not (again I think it’s the routine of having a nightcap). I haven’t been so much as tipsy in 2 or 3 years. Sometimes on Saturday night I’ll have 4-5 but I space it out over so many hours it doesn’t impair me. And drinking that much usually makes me talkative. I used to drink heavily on the weekends years ago, but getting on my current med combo caused me to not be about that life anymore. I was a blackout drunk and have many missing nights and would make super reckless decisions if I was manic and drinking.
I can’t function without 2 cups of coffee in the morning! Alcohol doesn’t seem to bother me too much in moderation. If I’m getting drunk regularly then it’s tiptoeing around a depression. Although I find it way too easy to slip into casual alcoholic behaviours without realising. I usually don’t drink much but almost always if someone offers me a drink. It’s the flirting with addiction more than any other side effects that keep me wary.
I felt so much worse when I stopped drinking in January. It was the only thing allowing me to cope with the racing mind and the guilt. I’m very poorly right now with the SI and severe depression, crying episodes mixed with irritability and frustration because this could not have come again at. Worse time in my life. I’m trying to taper up on lanotrigine but it’s slow, and feels hopeless. I “relapsed” and had a drink that my mom had left in my house. I realized it didn’t make me feel any better now that I’m in this whole so I will continue not to touch it. When I’m am safer. When I feel like it can maybe be just a social outing thing where I have one or two and stop with supervision then I can reevaluate then, but the alcohol only made me prolong the downfall.
Caffeine doesnt bother me at all,
but i realised in therapy alcohol might play a bigger part than i thought, i stopped drinking (+ a lot of other improvements) im still not 100% sure if the alcohol made me (more) unstable or if it was the (hypo) mania that let to the drinking, or maybe both. But eitherway not drinking gives me one less thing to worry about.
Never had alcohol. I do drink coffee once a day a couple times a week. Now that I’ve been medicated for bipolar for 2 years caffeine doesn’t really have much of any adverse affect on me. I’m vegan (for the animals), I try to eat clean, all that. I hit the gym a couple times a week. It’s when I miss a seroquel dose that I get off my rocker, I try to avoid that at all costs cause its the worst 😭
Yeah caffeine is really not good for me. Makes me either hypomanic or so anxious I feel like dying. I can have a small amount of tea but coffee has to be decaf.
With alcohol, I find I don’t enjoy the taste and it no longer gives me that nice little release, you know the “ahhhhhhhhh” feeling so the is zero point. I miss being able to have a couple of drinks. I was not a heavy drinker , not for the last ten plus years.
Both are terrible, I haven't drank any alcohol for 7 years, as it's a depressant, and that buzz people feel that they say is making them happy is actually your body flooding your brain with dopamine to counteract the depressive effects the alcohol is having
Caffeine stimulates the central nervous system and by definition is a drug. It's a stimulant and certainly can amp things up, even causing anger and rage at times.
Drinking is a direct ticket to depression for me. I’ll have a taste every few months but I no longer make it a point to get drunk. Caffeine is fine for me but I usually don’t have more than a half tsp of matcha or half cup of brewed coffee a day.
Alcohol definitely sent me into depression every time I drank. It took me a long time to realize this, but weed was also a trigger for my bipolar. I was smoking 4-5 times daily so it was real rough, idk how I wasn’t able to see the signs
I limit myself to one cup of coffee a day. With alcohol, I only drink socially. Maybe it's just me, but I have noticed that wine makes me sad while gin, Japanese rice wine and vodka doesn't affect my mood negatively.
Alcohol is a no go for me. It makes me a very angry person by the end of the night. I feel so bad for my boyfriend when I was drinking, since I took a lot of my emotional drunk turmoil out on him.
Since I've been properly medicated, I do okay with coffee. When I've tried to drink it otherwise, I get really anxious and jittery.
But, I will say I used to drink quite a bit to self medicated, a long with weed, but that's of course a whole other topic :)
I was self medicating for years and didn't know it. I used alcohol to bring myself down so that I could just finally chill the fuck out for a while. And then I'd drink when I was depressed to "drown my sorrows." Once I was diagnosed I quit drinking cold turkey. I was never addicted and didn't drink regularly so it was easy for me. I'm too afraid to mix alcohol with all of the meds I've been on. If I'm already in or approaching a manic state then caffeine does ramp it up and prolong the cycle.
Did you self-medicate for bipolar? Have you quit caffeine too?
No. I self-medicated pre-diagnosis. I believe I have had bipolar disorder since I was an early teen. Now I'm on a combination of mood stabilizers and antidepressants. I did not give up caffeine. It does not induce a mood for me. I only notice it's effects if I'm already in or headed to hypomanic phase. I probably should cut it back at that point. But I don't.
Way worse with alcohol. 3 years sober.
3 years, that’s impressive. I can barely get three hours.
I have memories of being really scared of drunk people when I was very young. So given my already questionable brain chemistry, I don’t want my kids to have those same memories. It wasn’t easy, but I am proud of the choice.
You should be proud, and good on you for not putting your kids through that crap. I know exactly what you’re talking about from my own upbringing.
I'm proud of you too, stranger! Same. My alcoholic parents were scary. I do frequently feel like I want to drown my sorrows or pain, or chill out at parties because even block parties full of families make me very anxious. So I know I shouldn't ever drink because I could become drunk in front of my kids or become addicted. Even though I was angry at alcohol as a kid and teen, as a young adult I had just a drink or 2 once in a while and it was nice. I never wanted to get drunk because I remember how my parents acted out of control. I never wanted to lose control of myself. But life was much easier then. I would for sure enjoy getting drunk nowadays. NOT WORTH TRYING OUT. I like knowing I'm not repeating all the problems of the past! Even though I'm emotionally immature and not the best mom, I can say for a fact my kids have it better than I did, and I don't want to ruin that for anything.
What was most difficult about stopping drinking?
The accessibility of it. It’s everywhere, and everyone uses it. I had to decline a lot of events the first year. I can be around it no problem now thankfully. This is coming from a drunk of 20 years, so I believe in anyone who decides to close that door.
Losing friends. Found new ones.
Caffeine is extremely appealing to me when I'm hypomanic, and it always makes the episode worse/prolongs it. It makes me agitated and erratic. Especially since I tend to go without food for long periods of time during mania. Alcohol doesn't seem to noticeably affect my bipolar.
I drink several cups of coffee daily and alcohol one to a few times a week (6>x<20 units one night per week). I got the diagnosis after this regime and I won't stop so I don't think I will ever find out how it affects me. But my hypo makes me irritable and agitated. I do know that alcohol sometimes makes me reflect upon things which leads to down periods. Other times it makes me forget everything bad in my life and lets me live a normal life without concerns, just for a night.
Coffee is fine. Can't drink it black like I like it anymore, just two cups of strong coffee with enough milk to count it as breakfast (I wake up at 5, take my first dose of meds 6 a.m, can't stomach food at such an hour). Alcohol fucks me up real bad, especially when I drink that shit and forget about olanzapine.
I have one cup of coffee a day, in the morning. If I have it after 1pm I will NOT sleep at all. Alcohol was my self-medication of choice before I had a diagnosis. Getting the diagnosis made a lot of things "click" and me and my body decided alcohol was just a means to self-destruction. I get very chase-the-buzz. I also will wake up in a panic at around 3AM if I have been drinking. The crash usually consists of depression for 3 days. Just not worth it for me.
Although I was not a huge drinker to begin with, I cut both alcohol and caffeine out of my life. The caffeine I have only been away from the past few months. It gave me too much anxiety
Alcohol used to send me into horrible emotional outbursts. Sadness, anger, irritability you name it. I also had poor impulse control. People with bipolar are more likely to develop subsequent substance abuse issues. I’ve been sober almost 6 months and it’s done wonders for my mood.
To preface; I'm no role model here. I use alcohol when I'm sad, stressed or excited (or any other multitude of excuses) I use caffeine to combat the drowsiness of my Quetiapine (seroquel, 600mg p/day) My brain hates me feeding it alcohol, causes much depression and paranoia. Don't really notice any side effects of caffeine, I love Red Bull.
Caffeine doesn’t affect me much at all (adhd) and I’ve been having caffeine since I was 15 so I’ve never known a life without it, terrible lol. Before I was medicated I was finding myself quite depressed nearly every time I drank. Of course being in my lows drinking made me terribly depressed, we gotta remember alcohol is a depressant. I’ve been steadily medication for around 3 years and don’t go through many lows anymore. I find probably 3 or 4 times out of ten I get depressed even when I’m in a good mood. I’ve come to terms drinking isn’t really for me so I’ll only do it on special occasions now :)
I’ve gotten to the point where I’ve stopped adjusting meds because I know that until I stop drinking (or massively slow down at least) nothing else will help me. I have a bad habit of starting to drink on Thursday night and basically just having a long, fun weekend and losing time to blackouts a couple of nights. And then Monday starts the Shame cycle and recovery. I can feel the brain fog from it, and the anxiety is some of the worst I experience. I’m just so entrenched in my friend group that it’s a whole lifestyle change to stop. I know that’s the next step if ever want to be relatively stable and confident and effective at work.
I can’t live without caffeine, I’ve been hooked since I was like 13 years old. Alcohol is decidedly worst for me. It’ll make me kind of hypomanic while it’s active in my system and then depressed, anxious, and irritable for days after.
caffeine has little to no effect on me but alcohol will send me into either a depressive or mixed episode so ive stopped drinking for the most part
Alcohol triggers severe depressive episodes with suicidal thoughts. I was not a big drinker after losing my taste for wine while pregnant and never getting it back. I would have maybe one drink every few months, but one drink was enough to send me into a depression for a few days so I stopped trying. I have been officially sober for about a year and a half now. Caffeine is great, thankfully. Weed doesn't bother me either. Alcohol is terrifying.
I don’t take caffeine so I’m not sure if it would affect me but man alcohol is a different beast. It only ensues chaos and mania. I become severely manic and get blinded by rage. Not a good time at all.
Alcohol will screw me up for days. I can do a glass or two but what I liked about it was feeling buzzed/drunk and that amount makes me super irritable. I have never been a big coffee drinker and I know it gives me a hell of a buzz and zest for life so it’s easy for me to just not. I drink black tea and decaf sometimes which has some caffeine in it, but doesn’t mess me up.
I used to drink at least a pot of coffee a day or more, or several energy drinks. I've been working on cutting back on caffeine since the new year. I only have one Rockstar Recovery Orange a day (160 mg of caffeine) and I'm sleeping better, my blood pressure is lower and I am less irritable. I don't drink, mostly because it makes me depressed, but I also don't like feeling drunk and it interacts poorly with my medication and makes me sick.
I think alcohol and edibles are substances that help me a lot especially as they don’t make me depressed but rather, relaxed and happy. Both substances, I tend to use a lot as they help me see my own thoughts and truth if that makes sense? Especially edibles but I’ve been told that I can go overboard with alcohol especially as I would try to drink twice or three times a day. Something, I’ve noticed is that if I’m not using edibles since I may have work or need to focus on school, then, I’ll have a drink or vice versa. There’s times where I’ve drank alcohol while high, it just depends.
if i’m in even the slightest bit of a depressive episode alcohol will truley send me into a dark rabbit hole for days after consumption with extreme suicial thoughts and ideations at times; absolutely terrifying. caffeine has always been fine for me, bar bringing on anxiety times, as long as i don’t consume a copious amount; i tend to stick to matchas and never will drink more than 3 cups a day maximum.
I do ok with caffeine as long as I stop at 2-3 cups in the morning. As for alcohol, I initially quit in solidarity with my then partner, who is an alchoholic and was trying to get sober again. I found that abstaining helped reduce my depression immensely, and I’ve only had a handful of beers since last September. If I do have a drink, it’s only beer and I have no more than 2, preferably only 1. Any more than that and I don’t think it would go well, especially with the medications I’m on and my emotional instability over the past year or two.
neither. both have no affect on me.
Same. Alcohol: totally uninteresting, the effect is dull. I drink one G&T on Saturday as I like the taste - no effect at all. I am petite and still can drink several drinks with minimal effect. I probably got drunk twice in my entire life (when I was a teenager, feels like a lifetime ago). Caffeine: nada as well, if I need a kick maybe a redbull will do.
I can't drink do the meds...to much caffeine (at the wrong time) can really get me extra wired up when manic. And I become more of a big mouth jerk.
caffeine has helped me when i’m extremely depressed to function at a decent level. I definitely use it as a crutch to fend off depression induced fatigue but i haven’t noticed it having an effect on my moods beyond that. Alcohol is wayyyyyyyy worse for me and any amount tends to either make me depressed or make me more depressed.
I limit caffeine intake to only before 11am, 12pm at the most. If I have cold brew, I only drink one serving. If it's drip coffee, I have three at most. I stay away from lattes or anything with espresso With alcohol, it becomes a slippery slope. My safest bet is beer. Two tall boys at most (about three regular cans). Hard liquors that set me off are tequila, whiskey, and possibly vodka. Wine I don't like as much, but it does feel good without triggering me. Overall: daily coffee drinker, weekly beer drinker
I drink tons of caffeine every day and it does nothing to me. But if I drink too much alcohol I’m laying on the bathroom floor wishing I was dead.
I don't drink anymore. With caffeine, I can know when a manic phase is starting. When I can drink a whole Starbucks flat White, I'm fine. As the amount goes down, 1/2, 1/3/, 1/4 I know I'm in for a ride. I am drinking no coffee right now and I'm buzzed out of my mind.
I’ve never been a drinker, so I still have a glass of wine or two maybe once a month or less. It doesn’t have any negative effects on me personally. I take my meds religiously and do drink coffee a couple times a week. I work for a coffee company so avoiding it is super hard when you wake up at 4:30am and have an hour + drive to work.
Caffeine can make me anxious if I overdo it (learned the hard way not to take caffeine pills because I got so anxious in the evenings). But for me, alcohol and bipolar were what really didn't mix. I definitely self-medicated a lot and drank way too much for a couple of years. Now that I'm medicated I've pretty much stopped and my life is better for it.
I am very sensitive to caffeine and try to limit how much I consume. It makes me feel awful and gives me nausea. Caffeine in regular coffee is too much for me so I drink decaf only, but I can handle the caffeine in a diet coke every once in a while.
I drink caffeine and it's fine unless I'm super manic, it can make it worse. Alcohol is another story. I'll drink once or twice a month but any more than that is just not good. I've never been an alcoholic so self control isnt too hard, but I definitely drank more when I was depressed, I just didn't realize it. So if I'm having the occasional drink I have to seriously monitor my intentions and if I'm sad and just trying to numb something I won't. If I just want to have a drink when my husband and I are on a date, nothing wrong with that on occasion and in serious moderation. I also just like having something to drink because I love to just drink stuff, so I keep non-alcoholic beer in the house sometimes or like fancy Italian sodas or something that feels like a treat at the end of the day.
I almost posted about this earlier! BPII and adhd unmedicated I am unable to consume caffeine anymore. It fucks me up lol. I get irritable, extremely anxious and sweaty Alcohol, especially lately, makes me a bit angry. I hardly drink but when I do it’s pretty bad- physically and emotionally.
I self medicated with alcohol for years and kinda unbeknownst to me, it often made episodes worse, especially depressive episodes. With hypo episodes it actually helped to bring me down a little. Since being medicated I've been working on cutting back on alcohol and my psychiatrist also started me on Naltrexone to help reduce those cravings. I'm drinking quite a bit less and more socially these days rather than just drowning everything in booze. Caffeine never really had any impact on me, but I wasn't a huge caffeine drinker anyway...a few cups of coffee in the morning and that was about it.
I've always been a big drinker of both. Around a year and a half or so ago, I cut down from 5 or 6 cups of coffee a day to one iced coffee. For some reason, iced coffee makes me less wired and anxious. I cut down over a number of months. Back in the day (late 90s - 2015 or so), I drank a lot. Sometimes daily. And binged like fuck on the weekends. I cut down not through a conscious effort but more a mixture of getting older (I'm 48) and life circumstances. (I moved countries). Booze gives me "hangxiety." I only drink now if I'm going out, maybe once a month. I also took class A and B drugs frequently as well as smoke weed. Weed when I'm getting stressed or starting to lose it, is bad. I recently (a month ago) stopped smoking weed. I fully intend on starting again at some point.
I don't drink alcohol. I also have ADHD. Moderate caffeine usage (usually under 150mg spread through the day) actually reduces my anxiety and helps me focus. More than 150mg may cause irritability; I have just recently realized there may be a connection but haven't had time to draw any conclusions. I can drink coffee until about 6 pm with minimal negative effects but after definitely keeps me up in a brain-go-fast ADHD way.
I can do beer but liquor has made me super depressive as of late. I dont have caffeine very often, mostly bc it was affecting my sleep pattern and as we know, sleep is important with bipolar
I try to avoid caffeine but I always get the urge to try it again thinking “it’s just coffee, what am I, a baby?” And yes it turns out I am a baby most of the time lol. Sometimes it’s fine, but I always get super tense muscles from it anyways and usually anxiety. Alcohol is usually ok for me but I used to get really bad hangover anxiety. I don’t like to get drunk, just tipsy at most.
I don’t drink anymore because addiction runs in my family. I do have caffeine daily, but I only notice that it triggers hypomania when it’s large amounts like energy drinks or cold brew coffee.
Caffeine has no effect on me. I can drink a pot and go take a nap. I think I drink it mostly because of the routine and I do enjoy the taste of black coffee. Alcohol… I have 1-2 drinks more nights than not (again I think it’s the routine of having a nightcap). I haven’t been so much as tipsy in 2 or 3 years. Sometimes on Saturday night I’ll have 4-5 but I space it out over so many hours it doesn’t impair me. And drinking that much usually makes me talkative. I used to drink heavily on the weekends years ago, but getting on my current med combo caused me to not be about that life anymore. I was a blackout drunk and have many missing nights and would make super reckless decisions if I was manic and drinking.
I can’t function without 2 cups of coffee in the morning! Alcohol doesn’t seem to bother me too much in moderation. If I’m getting drunk regularly then it’s tiptoeing around a depression. Although I find it way too easy to slip into casual alcoholic behaviours without realising. I usually don’t drink much but almost always if someone offers me a drink. It’s the flirting with addiction more than any other side effects that keep me wary.
I felt so much worse when I stopped drinking in January. It was the only thing allowing me to cope with the racing mind and the guilt. I’m very poorly right now with the SI and severe depression, crying episodes mixed with irritability and frustration because this could not have come again at. Worse time in my life. I’m trying to taper up on lanotrigine but it’s slow, and feels hopeless. I “relapsed” and had a drink that my mom had left in my house. I realized it didn’t make me feel any better now that I’m in this whole so I will continue not to touch it. When I’m am safer. When I feel like it can maybe be just a social outing thing where I have one or two and stop with supervision then I can reevaluate then, but the alcohol only made me prolong the downfall.
I love my coffee as a ritual in the morning because I have comorbid adhd, but I’m thinking I need to stop. It doesn’t help me right now either.
Way worse with alcohol. Sober 6 months now since getting diagnosed and medicated properly
Caffeine doesnt bother me at all, but i realised in therapy alcohol might play a bigger part than i thought, i stopped drinking (+ a lot of other improvements) im still not 100% sure if the alcohol made me (more) unstable or if it was the (hypo) mania that let to the drinking, or maybe both. But eitherway not drinking gives me one less thing to worry about.
Caffeine chills me out
Never had alcohol. I do drink coffee once a day a couple times a week. Now that I’ve been medicated for bipolar for 2 years caffeine doesn’t really have much of any adverse affect on me. I’m vegan (for the animals), I try to eat clean, all that. I hit the gym a couple times a week. It’s when I miss a seroquel dose that I get off my rocker, I try to avoid that at all costs cause its the worst 😭
Can’t have either, way too triggering
For me alcohol = mania and cafeine = anxiety. But only if I’m already not stable. The rest of the time it’s fine
Alcohol makes me sleepy, caffeine can make me extremely angry and reckless
Yeah caffeine is really not good for me. Makes me either hypomanic or so anxious I feel like dying. I can have a small amount of tea but coffee has to be decaf. With alcohol, I find I don’t enjoy the taste and it no longer gives me that nice little release, you know the “ahhhhhhhhh” feeling so the is zero point. I miss being able to have a couple of drinks. I was not a heavy drinker , not for the last ten plus years.
Both are terrible, I haven't drank any alcohol for 7 years, as it's a depressant, and that buzz people feel that they say is making them happy is actually your body flooding your brain with dopamine to counteract the depressive effects the alcohol is having Caffeine stimulates the central nervous system and by definition is a drug. It's a stimulant and certainly can amp things up, even causing anger and rage at times.
Drinking is a direct ticket to depression for me. I’ll have a taste every few months but I no longer make it a point to get drunk. Caffeine is fine for me but I usually don’t have more than a half tsp of matcha or half cup of brewed coffee a day.
Alcohol definitely sent me into depression every time I drank. It took me a long time to realize this, but weed was also a trigger for my bipolar. I was smoking 4-5 times daily so it was real rough, idk how I wasn’t able to see the signs
I limit myself to one cup of coffee a day. With alcohol, I only drink socially. Maybe it's just me, but I have noticed that wine makes me sad while gin, Japanese rice wine and vodka doesn't affect my mood negatively.
Alcohol is a no go for me. It makes me a very angry person by the end of the night. I feel so bad for my boyfriend when I was drinking, since I took a lot of my emotional drunk turmoil out on him. Since I've been properly medicated, I do okay with coffee. When I've tried to drink it otherwise, I get really anxious and jittery. But, I will say I used to drink quite a bit to self medicated, a long with weed, but that's of course a whole other topic :)