In many cases, people have a drink or two to overcome depression and anxiety. A stressful job, a relationship breakup, or personal disappointments are common reasons for drinking. But something happens along the way, and the temporary problem with its quick solution becomes a permanent fixture in life. It’s at this juncture that an alcohol use disorder establishes itself and makes depression or anxiety much worse.
Recognizing Anxiety and Its Initial Response to Alcohol
The drink to calm nerves, take the edge off the day, or help unwind from stress is a familiar fixture. It suggests that alcohol can somehow ease anxious thoughts or moods. Scientists classify the drug as a depressant. Therefore, it would make sense that its sedative properties could work on depression and anxiety.
The problem begins when you equate anxiety relief with alcohol consumption. Depending on the stress level in your life, you may need a lot of unwinding time. A frequent decision to imbibe results in your body’s buildup of a physical tolerance to the drug. You have to drink more to get the same comfortable numbness you enjoyed when first self-medicating for depression and anxiety.
Defining Depression
You’ve heard the expression of drowning your sorrows. It refers to the intentional numbing of feelings relating particularly to depression and anxiety. There’s no doubt that a few drinks will mellow you out. Heading down this road if you suffer from depression, as opposed to the occasional bout of the blues, is dangerous.
For starters, you form a habit of self-medicating with alcohol whenever you experience symptoms of depression and anxiety. If a doctor has prescribed antidepressant medication for you, alcohol can interfere with it. Also, since alcohol is a depressant itself, it worsens the functioning of the central nervous system rather than helping it. This outcome frequently results in self-sabotaging activities such as excessive sleeping and overeating.
How Does Alcohol Affect Anxiety
As alcohol enters your bloodstream, it affects the brain’s neurotransmitters. People who are at the onset of an alcohol use disorder report the rush associated with dopamine release. (This effect stops at later stages but its memory reinforces alcohol abuse.) Because the substance destabilizes serotonin levels as well as hormonal balances in the pituitary, it can worsen anxiety.
You drink more to get to the comfortably numb stage. As you chase this elusive way of being, you may begin to imbibe daily more than you should. When you try to stop drinking, you’ll notice that depression and anxiety suddenly get worse. Anxiety, alongside increased heart rate and shaking, is one of the alcohol withdrawal symptoms therapists expect at a detox facility.
But there are other caveats to consider. For example, did you know that overindulging in alcohol could lead to hypoglycemia, which counts anxiety among its symptoms? Now, you pile on situation-based anxiety on the stress caused by a physical condition. If you also suffer from a psychological type of anxiety, you’ll be worse off than before.
How Does Alcohol Affect Depression
The substance also has an unpleasant effect on depression. When you drink to intoxication, you tend to make bad decisions. These may result in financial, professional, academic, or relationships problems. As a result, you feel down, which adds to the feelings of depression you’re already grappling with.
Alcohol adversely affects the norepinephrine content of your bloodstream. This chemical, together with serotonin, is a mood regulator of your system. When the substance runs low, you naturally feel a little down. This feeling compounds if you’re already battling clinical depression.
In fact, alcohol consumption disrupts a number of neurotransmitters, hormones, and even essential vitamin levels. It’s a well-known fact that folic acid decreases considerably with alcohol intake. When the decline reaches critical levels, a depressed state of mind is a natural psychological response to the physical crisis. The same goes for thiamine and dopamine.
Treatment Ends a Vicious Cycle
You drink to forget, but feelings of anxiety, an inability to sleep, and worries about errors in judgment keep you up. So, you drink more. Eventually, you also deal with liver disease, obesity, cardiovascular problems, and vitamin deficiencies. As your physical condition worsens, your brain’s health suffers as well.
You lose memory functions, and the brain shrinks. Adding to depression and anxiety now is the inability to process new information the way you used to. You may notice problems with motor skills that remain with you even when you’re sober. You worry about your health.
The only way out of this vicious circle is treatment. However, not every kind of rehab fits the bill. When you’re battling depression and anxiety as well as an addiction, you need the kind of program that customizes approaches. Just following a posted website schedule with a list of talk therapy sessions is simply not enough.
How to Overcome Depression and Anxiety with Individualized Care
When your depression and anxiety are parts of a dual diagnosis, you need expert care. Your emphasis is on personal care where the therapist knows you as an individual and not a case file. Moreover, you want a treatment approach that builds on your uniqueness.
When getting to the why of your addiction, experts might employ modalities such as:
- Trauma treatment that provides you insight into unresolved issues from the past that affects your life today
- Co-occurring mental health diagnosis and treatment to help you regain control over your mental, emotional, spiritual, and physical wellbeing
- An emphasized whole-person approach to healing, which acknowledges that alcohol abuse is more than just drinking too much
- Residential treatment that provides a framework for healing – whether it’s for 30 days, 90 days, or longer
- Therapy that builds on your progress and provides for growth opportunities, challenges, and ultimately relapse prevention techniques
Finding the Cause of Addiction
Getting to the cause of an alcohol addiction also requires a closer look at any anxieties or episodes of depression you have. This process offers a pivotal opportunity to turn around the way you handle stress, disappointment, and problems. It also opens the door to healthy lifestyle changes that provide you the tools for making constructive improvements. Examples might include new fitness goals, identity work, goal setting, and relationship mending.
Of course, only you can decide in which direction you want to take your recovery. Because your motivation to get well is instrumental for success, it makes sense for therapists to work with you. Once again, this calls for a complete customization of a program that fits you perfectly simply because it’s put together for your needs. There’s no point in trying out someone else’s rehab experience only to walk away and find that it doesn’t work for you.
At Healing Springs, you find a community of professionals who work hard to create a home-like atmosphere for clients. By collaborating with you in your efforts to attain sobriety and healing, they can create a customized rehab experience. This approach is helpful in getting to the why of your addiction and overcoming it. Find out what this could look like for you today by dialing 866-656-8384 and getting the help you deserve!