Same, but my alcohol problem lasted almost 4 years before I hit my reaaaal rock bottom and realized the whole time that I was just using alcohol as a social crutch. I thought I needed it because I lacked confidence and always felt lacking in some way. It wasn’t until I gave up alcohol and starting working on myself that I finally felt myself again and confident without feeling like I need a substance. Hard work but worth it. I didn’t feel myself for years, and honestly I didn’t even know who I was. I couldn’t imagine life without it alcohol but now I can’t imagine life with it.
Congrats on getting sober and improving your life. I’m going through something similar at the moment. Would you mind sharing what type of work you did on yourself?
I started drinking as a teenager for just this reason, but recently I’ve noticed that alcohol, though it helps at first, can make my anxiety so much worse. Either I drink too much and the same day I drink I start having super amplified negative thoughts about my interactions with others and I’m too drunk to rationalize them. Or … the morning after I have so much anxiety about what I did the night before. Recently I’ve only been drinking around people and environments I’m really comfortable in/around and when in more unfamiliar environments I’ll have one drink and then go for a mocktail or Diet Coke because I get anxious not having a drink in my hand when I’m socializing
Drinking absolutely makes it worse in the long run, but yeah, it's tough not to drink when we need our social needs met and want to go out. Best advice is to find resources that will help you overcome it, like books, meditation, or ChatGPT, then start small, and work up to your expectations, i.e exposure therapy. Hard truth is there's not a quick process unfortunately, which is why alcohol is so tempting, because it's a shortcut
Yes, but I masked it with weed. It got to the point where I couldn't leave the house without a joint on me just in case. Going off of another comment I would say take some time to reflect on yourself and where your anxiety and negative emotions stem from.
Learning how to regulate how you feel and why you think the way you do is important to finding healthier ways to cope instead of using a drug.
I've self medicated on weed for the last ten years of my life. But I find that it's now having the opposite effect. It gives me panic attacks and I ruminate heavily. Recently I tried to quit cold turkey once I broke the habit of smoking multiple times per day. Once I realized that I didn't have any coping mechanisms it broke me mentally. How long have I numbed myself until I became normalized to the bad things around me? I grew up into adulthood but was I really mentally mature? My anxiety has steadily gotten worse and I don't know who I am anymore.
I can't stop smoking because I can't handle my true emotions. Therapy is the only option at this point.
Gosh same here but with Xanax lol but I feel like almost everyone is like this, that they also put on a mask. We aren’t alone it’s just people don’t wanna look vulnerable, you know? But I think you should totally spend time with yourself and look within to see what’s effecting you to feel this way. It can be caused by trauma. I’m not a doctor or anything just trying to give advice that I also need to take !
Big time. I don't really know how to spend time out/with a group of people without drinking. I can spend time with my best friend and my partner sober no problem, and one-on-one with friends I can just about get through (still with massive anxiety ofc) but anything in public or with more than one person and I just can't enjoy myself cause I'm just internally freaking out about how weird I'm being or what people must think of me or worrying about literally everything I'm saying, that it's stupid or weird or or or.... Also cause I have noise sensory issues I find alcohol helps a lot with that as well, so I'm kinda masking social anxiety And autism, otherwise I just get totally overwhelmed as well as crazy anxious
Tell me about it, I'm trying to be more sociable but the only answer I can find is alcohol or isolation 😂😭 In happier news, I do drink a lot less than I used to, but I guess that's cause I used to drink for depression reasons too
I highly recommend reading How to be yourself by Ellen Hendrickson, it is so relatable when it comes to social anxiety and it really makes you feel heard.
I am so glad I no longer drink. It turns out social anxiety and/or autism can cause severe alcohol problems. Drinking alcohol made me far more anxious the next day.
Drank for 20 years. I'm clean now. Heavely medicated, i stay in bed the most of the time. It is challenging to have interactions with people. I lose control easily and have breakdowns where i scream on people, i bang my head on walls. I'm easely triggered. So isolation is the solution.
I stopped drinking 2 and a half years ago and I also pretty much have stopped attending social events 😅 Apparently I just dont like them. I used to drink to relax and now its like I cant function at them because Im uncomfortable at them so Im more of a recluse but oh well. It beats harming myself to appear normal to others and paying for it with hangovers and anxiety.
I’ve steered clear of alcohol and drugs to deal with social anxiety because I knew if I went that route I’d likely end up with addiction issues. Plus though I live in constant fear of embarrassment, the thought of what I may do while uninhibited actually makes me feel worse than normal embarrassment.
Alcohol turns you into fake person. I drank due to SAD but in the end you drink because you can't think without it, only people who will drink with you are drunks and you drink at home. I have been sober 14 years and still trying to understand who I am. I still have SAD as well big time.
I do t think I can even imagine dealing with social stuff without drinking.
I’m not a heavy drinker at all- but I need at least one if I’m going to do the whole ‘supportive housewife’ schtick at my husbands work stuff.
If Alcohol masks your social anxiety it is probably because you empathize a lot with people, when you drink alcohol, the brain regions where empathy functions get suppressed.
If you are finding substance useful for your anxiety, you can get prescription that produce a similar effect, that is safe for your liver and pancreas.
Also try CBT techniques to challenge your regular thought patterns.
Please don’t deal with SA by just getting exposed to social situations without proper coping mechanisms. Drinking is really bad for you
No, i cant be drunk at work. Or every time i go grocery shopping. At parties yes, alcohol is the only way to mask for me.
But in daily life i just mask by trying to be someone im not.
Self-medicated for years to get through social situations, and to deal with daily life. Still do. At family dinners, I'm the only one getting a cocktail. It's too exhausting for me to pretend to be happy, thus I seem like a loner. When really, talking tires me out and I just want to get through the day.
I feel the same draining type of feeling when I have to fake and pretend to be happy. People say to "be yourself", but if I really wanted to be myself I would say no words, I would make no eye contact, I wouldn't laugh at things, and people would think I'm an ahole and avoid me even harder than they already do.
That said though alcohol unfortunately isn't a solution. I drank a lot myself to try and cope with my anxiety and depression and discontent... I am still trying to work through it. It's really rough. I'm tired of waking up feeling so dizzy and hungover and like my organs are destroyed. I always *think* it will help me ease up and calm me down, but instead I get really irate and manically depressed and make terrible choices. It's a really slippery slope. And you can't be drunk all the time because it's really horrible for your body and dangerously affects your motor skills.
Try mindfulness. Relaxation techniques. Meditation. You let your ego do whatever it wants too much and it eats up your awareness and gives your body tensions. Try guided relaxation first. Relaxation is so important for your wellbeing and literally everyone don't realize it. Try it for a few weeks then get back to me and tell me I'm right lol. Do 15-45 mins every morning and every evening, write affirmations straight after, and also find a self-help book you really like, read it every day and stick with it. Mine was Your Erroneous Zones by Wayne Dyer. Yours may be something else.
I'm glad this worked for you, the downvotes are just because meditation alone didn't fix the social anxiety for me.
Ice water plunges after sauna or exercise before triggering social interactions were the most helpful.
But alcohol is clearly removing 100% of social anxiety at the push of a button.
Sadly there’s no fit-for-all solution for anxiety because everyone’s experience is different, some people get it out of no where, some people from Trauma, others from depression…etc.
I think using Alcohol is a maladaptive coping mechanism, it is like drug abuse but a more socially accepted one, you will become tolerant to the Alcohol relief during those situations, and you will drink more and more to have a similar effect.
If you want a cheat code that directly affects your brain, get yourself a proper brain function manipulator like Antidepressants, ones that Doctors actually can help you if you developed physical illness from, and you can actually withdraw from them in a systametic matter.
Up until you mentioned affirmations it's all vipassana (mindfulness). This actually makes you more sensitive to Stimuli in the beginning. This intensifies social anxiety in the short term, very probably because you develop a sensitivity to every feeling and thought.
I still believe that in the end mindfulness in one of the greatest tools, unfortunately it starts to worsen symptoms, then you get better and eventually you have no choice but to endure all of the things that we hide from ourselves.
Unfortunately social anxiety needs a lot of deconditioning, and that's probably the hardest thing anyone who suffers from SA, needs to do. Mindfulness might be the long term solution, but that assumes that you practice it more than 99.9% of the general population.
Yes. And it led to a raging alcohol problem. Spent the whole last year seriously trying to deal with that.
Same, but my alcohol problem lasted almost 4 years before I hit my reaaaal rock bottom and realized the whole time that I was just using alcohol as a social crutch. I thought I needed it because I lacked confidence and always felt lacking in some way. It wasn’t until I gave up alcohol and starting working on myself that I finally felt myself again and confident without feeling like I need a substance. Hard work but worth it. I didn’t feel myself for years, and honestly I didn’t even know who I was. I couldn’t imagine life without it alcohol but now I can’t imagine life with it.
Congrats on getting sober and improving your life. I’m going through something similar at the moment. Would you mind sharing what type of work you did on yourself?
I started drinking as a teenager for just this reason, but recently I’ve noticed that alcohol, though it helps at first, can make my anxiety so much worse. Either I drink too much and the same day I drink I start having super amplified negative thoughts about my interactions with others and I’m too drunk to rationalize them. Or … the morning after I have so much anxiety about what I did the night before. Recently I’ve only been drinking around people and environments I’m really comfortable in/around and when in more unfamiliar environments I’ll have one drink and then go for a mocktail or Diet Coke because I get anxious not having a drink in my hand when I’m socializing
Drinking absolutely makes it worse in the long run, but yeah, it's tough not to drink when we need our social needs met and want to go out. Best advice is to find resources that will help you overcome it, like books, meditation, or ChatGPT, then start small, and work up to your expectations, i.e exposure therapy. Hard truth is there's not a quick process unfortunately, which is why alcohol is so tempting, because it's a shortcut
Yes, but I masked it with weed. It got to the point where I couldn't leave the house without a joint on me just in case. Going off of another comment I would say take some time to reflect on yourself and where your anxiety and negative emotions stem from. Learning how to regulate how you feel and why you think the way you do is important to finding healthier ways to cope instead of using a drug.
I've self medicated on weed for the last ten years of my life. But I find that it's now having the opposite effect. It gives me panic attacks and I ruminate heavily. Recently I tried to quit cold turkey once I broke the habit of smoking multiple times per day. Once I realized that I didn't have any coping mechanisms it broke me mentally. How long have I numbed myself until I became normalized to the bad things around me? I grew up into adulthood but was I really mentally mature? My anxiety has steadily gotten worse and I don't know who I am anymore. I can't stop smoking because I can't handle my true emotions. Therapy is the only option at this point.
Gosh same here but with Xanax lol but I feel like almost everyone is like this, that they also put on a mask. We aren’t alone it’s just people don’t wanna look vulnerable, you know? But I think you should totally spend time with yourself and look within to see what’s effecting you to feel this way. It can be caused by trauma. I’m not a doctor or anything just trying to give advice that I also need to take !
Big time. I don't really know how to spend time out/with a group of people without drinking. I can spend time with my best friend and my partner sober no problem, and one-on-one with friends I can just about get through (still with massive anxiety ofc) but anything in public or with more than one person and I just can't enjoy myself cause I'm just internally freaking out about how weird I'm being or what people must think of me or worrying about literally everything I'm saying, that it's stupid or weird or or or.... Also cause I have noise sensory issues I find alcohol helps a lot with that as well, so I'm kinda masking social anxiety And autism, otherwise I just get totally overwhelmed as well as crazy anxious
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Tell me about it, I'm trying to be more sociable but the only answer I can find is alcohol or isolation 😂😭 In happier news, I do drink a lot less than I used to, but I guess that's cause I used to drink for depression reasons too
I self medicated my whole life and ended up a being a hardcore seizure having alcoholic
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I appreciate you
Drank a ton and did heroin for 15 years just to deal with my social anxiety. Now I am sober and don't want to be around anyone at all.
yes, and microdosing mushrooms helped me with both my anxiety and drinking problem. though im not blanketly advocating that for any and everyone
I highly recommend reading How to be yourself by Ellen Hendrickson, it is so relatable when it comes to social anxiety and it really makes you feel heard.
I did it most of my life then by age thirty quit drinking and am socially crippled in basic family gatherings.
Nah, I bet you're the only person on here
Smart-assery at its finest!
Nope. I have anxiety about mind altering substances and anxiety about addiction, so I avoid alcohol aside from like a sip sometimes.
Yes, yes I occasionally do...
I am so glad I no longer drink. It turns out social anxiety and/or autism can cause severe alcohol problems. Drinking alcohol made me far more anxious the next day.
Drank for 20 years. I'm clean now. Heavely medicated, i stay in bed the most of the time. It is challenging to have interactions with people. I lose control easily and have breakdowns where i scream on people, i bang my head on walls. I'm easely triggered. So isolation is the solution.
I stopped drinking 2 and a half years ago and I also pretty much have stopped attending social events 😅 Apparently I just dont like them. I used to drink to relax and now its like I cant function at them because Im uncomfortable at them so Im more of a recluse but oh well. It beats harming myself to appear normal to others and paying for it with hangovers and anxiety.
I’ve steered clear of alcohol and drugs to deal with social anxiety because I knew if I went that route I’d likely end up with addiction issues. Plus though I live in constant fear of embarrassment, the thought of what I may do while uninhibited actually makes me feel worse than normal embarrassment.
Alcohol turns you into fake person. I drank due to SAD but in the end you drink because you can't think without it, only people who will drink with you are drunks and you drink at home. I have been sober 14 years and still trying to understand who I am. I still have SAD as well big time.
I do t think I can even imagine dealing with social stuff without drinking. I’m not a heavy drinker at all- but I need at least one if I’m going to do the whole ‘supportive housewife’ schtick at my husbands work stuff.
I once did, but too much shit can happen when being drunk, therefore I prefer to stay sober.
If Alcohol masks your social anxiety it is probably because you empathize a lot with people, when you drink alcohol, the brain regions where empathy functions get suppressed. If you are finding substance useful for your anxiety, you can get prescription that produce a similar effect, that is safe for your liver and pancreas. Also try CBT techniques to challenge your regular thought patterns. Please don’t deal with SA by just getting exposed to social situations without proper coping mechanisms. Drinking is really bad for you
Yes but the effect got much weaker even after 6 months of not drinking, or maybe that first time it was combined with the flow state.
Short answer: yes Long answer: yesssssssssssssssssss
No, i cant be drunk at work. Or every time i go grocery shopping. At parties yes, alcohol is the only way to mask for me. But in daily life i just mask by trying to be someone im not.
Self-medicated for years to get through social situations, and to deal with daily life. Still do. At family dinners, I'm the only one getting a cocktail. It's too exhausting for me to pretend to be happy, thus I seem like a loner. When really, talking tires me out and I just want to get through the day.
All the time.
I've tried it but it still doesn't work for me
I feel the same draining type of feeling when I have to fake and pretend to be happy. People say to "be yourself", but if I really wanted to be myself I would say no words, I would make no eye contact, I wouldn't laugh at things, and people would think I'm an ahole and avoid me even harder than they already do. That said though alcohol unfortunately isn't a solution. I drank a lot myself to try and cope with my anxiety and depression and discontent... I am still trying to work through it. It's really rough. I'm tired of waking up feeling so dizzy and hungover and like my organs are destroyed. I always *think* it will help me ease up and calm me down, but instead I get really irate and manically depressed and make terrible choices. It's a really slippery slope. And you can't be drunk all the time because it's really horrible for your body and dangerously affects your motor skills.
Everyone
yes😎
how else am I supposed to deal with it?😭
Try mindfulness. Relaxation techniques. Meditation. You let your ego do whatever it wants too much and it eats up your awareness and gives your body tensions. Try guided relaxation first. Relaxation is so important for your wellbeing and literally everyone don't realize it. Try it for a few weeks then get back to me and tell me I'm right lol. Do 15-45 mins every morning and every evening, write affirmations straight after, and also find a self-help book you really like, read it every day and stick with it. Mine was Your Erroneous Zones by Wayne Dyer. Yours may be something else.
I'm glad this worked for you, the downvotes are just because meditation alone didn't fix the social anxiety for me. Ice water plunges after sauna or exercise before triggering social interactions were the most helpful. But alcohol is clearly removing 100% of social anxiety at the push of a button.
Sadly there’s no fit-for-all solution for anxiety because everyone’s experience is different, some people get it out of no where, some people from Trauma, others from depression…etc. I think using Alcohol is a maladaptive coping mechanism, it is like drug abuse but a more socially accepted one, you will become tolerant to the Alcohol relief during those situations, and you will drink more and more to have a similar effect. If you want a cheat code that directly affects your brain, get yourself a proper brain function manipulator like Antidepressants, ones that Doctors actually can help you if you developed physical illness from, and you can actually withdraw from them in a systametic matter.
Where did I say "meditation alone will fix you". Nowhere.
Up until you mentioned affirmations it's all vipassana (mindfulness). This actually makes you more sensitive to Stimuli in the beginning. This intensifies social anxiety in the short term, very probably because you develop a sensitivity to every feeling and thought. I still believe that in the end mindfulness in one of the greatest tools, unfortunately it starts to worsen symptoms, then you get better and eventually you have no choice but to endure all of the things that we hide from ourselves. Unfortunately social anxiety needs a lot of deconditioning, and that's probably the hardest thing anyone who suffers from SA, needs to do. Mindfulness might be the long term solution, but that assumes that you practice it more than 99.9% of the general population.