alcohol anxiety + other things that keep us sick
By DeAnn Knighton (co-founding team member)
This is the first public admittance of my substance abuse and recovery story. There is no way for me to be a voice in this space if I let my own fears of stigma rule me. All the things that may be stopping you from examining your relationship with alcohol also stopped me.
In my case, it came right after a self-imposed “Sober January” and the most recent of countless failed attempts to “moderate my drinking."
alcohol anxiety
As is often true with the most insidious, we do not realize the power something has on us until we try to control it.
During my own attempts to stop drinking I experienced physical withdrawal symptoms ranging from shaking, nausea, panic attacks, headaches, short term memory loss, depression, and insomnia. Instead of seeing this as a compelling reason to stop the cycle, I instead used it as a reason not to stop. Facing the issue meant stopping my life to reset it, and I had convinced myself that was not an option.
For those of us with anxious minds, it is a tricky dance. We can convince ourselves of all matters of impending doom to avoid our true source of pain. We must give ourselves compassion for this because it is a learned form of self-preservation. It serves us until it stops serving us.
An example from the inside of my brain:
“What if I get abandoned at sea in an unexpected deep sea fishing disaster? Surely that is more important to think about than controlling my drinking?” I think it is important to point out, I have no intention of going deep sea fishing.
a metaphor
In lieu of endless details of my tale, I will use this medieval metaphor to give you some sense of what happened next:
It was time to face this dragon. My old armor of will and white knuckling lay strewed about on the floor. My shield of avoidance and sword of distraction were rendered useless. I stood, as the most vulnerable version of myself, with no choice but to accept my reality. I made a few more feeble attempts to avoid what I knew I must do, but as you would imagine, the battle was over before it began. I did not have the tools for this fight. It was the scariest moment of my life so far.
It is worth highlighting that this experience was not scary because of what it meant—it was scary because of what my mind thought it meant.
Within this awakening, there was anything but clarity. All the frustration and pain that led me to accept this was constantly called into question by rotating waves of shame, fear, bargaining and profound grief. Every concept and understanding I had of what that meant for me was too much for my mind to process. So, I did what we do when we are alone and faced with something incomprehensible: I googled it. Google did not help me heal, but community and word of mouth did. It was there I found the path lit before me.
There are four tenets in my personal journey that formed the project that is Show Up and Stay:
Shame and stigma keep far too many people from finding rock bottom before they are willing to consider quitting.
Quitting does not have to be scary, shameful or even lonely.
There is not enough said about the correlation between substance abuse and mental health. (Anxiety, as an example, has as high as a 33% comorbidity rate with alcohol. [1])
Recovery is changing but is still driven by privilege. I would not be alive without mine. We want a platform where all humans feel seen.
Showing up is incredibly hard. Staying in the unfamiliar with your own emotion is even harder.
One thing that I do know for sure:
If you want to, you can do it.
1. Tollefson GD, Montague-Glouse J, Tollefson S (1992) Treatment of co-morbid generalized anxiety in a recently detoxified alcoholic population with a selective serotonergic drug (buspirone). J ClinPsychopharmacol 12: 19-26.
