[RamblinClementine]

I got sick this week, first with the stomach flu and now with the regular flu. I realized it was the longest streak in a year or more I haven't had beer. Usually I have about two small-sized bottles of beer a night, but maybe twice a week up to four or five bottles.

I also was taking Citalopram until a few months ago.

I'm noticing I'm anxious, or more aware of my anxiety than usual. I am trying to do yoga to help. Now that I'm not drinking I feel like I should keep on not drinking except maybe twice a week. I didn't even realize that I was basically a low-level alcoholic for the last year, likely to mask my feelings. I started drinking this much when my dad's dr's told me he had 6 mo to live. He's still alive, though not really functioning very well.

It seems like all the issues I was trying to shove into the background with my drinking are still here and I still have to accept them or think about them in a new way. I try to meditate but it's really hard for me!

[Altered Moment]

Well alcohol is one of the best for anxiety. But like you said it just masks and buries the situational issues. In the long run even drinking won't keep them at bay forever. Trust me I have a lot of experience is this area years ago. I don't think I would be so quick to label yourself an alcoholic.

Do you have a therapist. Therapy, yoga, meditation, exercise can all be very effective for anxiety. Therapy can resolve the issues that are bothering you like your Dad. Maybe not resolve but help you deal with it and grieve. I am sorry about your Dad, that has to be really hard. Yoga and meditation can be healing without saying a word. Meditation is simple but very difficult. You have to practice a lot. It keeps getting easier. If at first you notice how much "monkey mind" you have then you are making progress. Don't judge or fight the thoughts just watch them float by and gently bring your attention back to the breath. Every time you notice you mind has wandered just gently bring your attention back to the breath. over and over and over and over.

[RamblinClementine]

I do have a therapist! But... I feel like health insurance doesn't advocate for mental health. I had a poll of friends help me decide which insurance to choose from my new employer, and most said Kaiser was the best. Before that I didn't have insurance for 8 years. As it stands I have 11 more sessions with my therapist before I'm supposed to be 'cured'!

I think we have group therapy at Kaiser but I haven't looked into it.

I would like a long-term therapist but that's $$$$$.

[Weownthesky]

I'm on citalopram and I have been for years. If you recently stopped taking it, that might be why you're more anxious.
I would advise to keep not drinking. It will really help your health in the long run. I personally find that although drinking calms me down at the time, it makes me way anxious and moody and weak in the long run.
Keep working on meditating!

[Daniel87]

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!

[Perna]

After a lifetime of anxiety and drinking, sometimes drinking to excess (but have never considered myself an alcoholic though my eldest brother was/is) I have decided it is hard to know what to think? It is like just about any other issue in one's life. Yes, you may be drinking to blunt the anxiety but then you also may be focusing on the drinking to keep from focusing on the anxiety and/or both of those instead of focusing on the actual problem/fear and doing something with it.

Take your father's final illness and impending death. . . are you working with yourself and what scares you about that for yourself and how you can meet that difficulty?

Running or blunting or being anxious, drinking, etc. don't really help anything and tend to increase the anxiety/problem over time? I know when I learned I was most afraid of being afraid, anxious about being anxious :-) thinking about and working with that helped me a lot. You cannot do anything about your father's illness but you can do something about you and taking care of yourself.

[ManOfConstantSorrow]

I have found citalopram to pretty much suppress excess anxiety, but if you can cope without this or alcohol so much the better, but then again which is the lesser evil. Alcohol is potentially very harmful and citalopram, well it seems unclear how harmful it is. Perhaps you should consult your physician.

[RamblinClementine]

Thanks. I think my dad's illness is one anxiety and since I have GAD I can go from that anxiety to the next, and my mind is a slough of complaints and fears. Ultimately I know anxiety is a problem of the mind and how it's used, and yet it's so hard to tame these thoughts! And be in the moment.

I joined a yoga class and have a therpaist. I am trying to drink less coffee. I have a journal at my dispense. I have friends who will support me.

This year I am working on being happy and less harsh on myself, because I do believe anxiety stems much from self-criticism.

it sounds like you've got a lot of stuff in place to support you.

that's great..

good luck to you