For many people, alcohol replaced your brain's need to learn to cope with stress on its own. Alcohol doesn't help you cope, it simply numbs emotions so that your brain doesn't need to cope.

What happens is that once you've quit drinking alcohol, long after the withdrawal symptoms are over (which we'll get to in a second) your brain is essentially left without any ability to cope with even the most mild stresses.

It will have forgotten how to deal with stress and anxiety, and so the moment you experience any type of extreme stress it's going to tell you that you need to drink, since drinking is the only way it knows how to cope.

That's where the real problem comes in, and that's why those that want to quit drinking also need to start looking at how to regain those coping skills that they've lost.

The key is to not try to replace the effects of alcohol, you don't want something else that numbs your anxiety without helping you cope with it. What you're trying to do is reduce the impact of what happens to your brain when you're dealing with stress.

Be safe!