“You feel like a candle in a hurricane
Just like a picture with a broken frame
Alone and helpless, like you’ve lost your fight
But you’ll be all right, you’ll be all right”—Rascal Flats
When I first got sober, following the initial rush of feeling full of energy and excited about living, FEAR began to creep into my every thought. Despite my best attempts at self-soothing (those deep breathing exercises that you learn at rehab that make you dizzy) the fear built to a point where I was anxious about everything.
A few quick examples: A red light in a small South Georgia town took literally an HOUR to change. Hour-long Alcoholics Anonymous Meetings took an hour and a half I’m sure. Also, from the moment the topic was dropped and people began to share, my pulse quickened and my mouth and throat became incredibly dry, as if I was going to be attacked if I didn’t have a good share. I couldn’t watch a TV program all the way through, and if I had a remote in my hand, the television was in a constant state of rapid-fire channel changes. I was constantly worried that someone would ask me questions I didn’t know the answer to, and my brain would not focus on anything long enough for me to learn. Everything I thought or did was anxiety filled.
It was enough stress to make anyone want to drink.
And, that was exactly the point.
The Cause of Anxiety in Recovery
After years of sedating my brain and floating through life in a barely emotional state, my brain was not equipped to handle the real world that normal adults navigate effortlessly. I had put all my coping skills into one bottle, and when that bottle started killing me, I had nothing to fall back on. So, my brain decided to make every mole hill a mountain in the hopes that it and the rest of me would return to the emotional stunted float through life that was normal.
You don’t have to trust me. Science has proven the same thing. According to research studies, I decided to look up for some light nighttime reading, alcoholics and addicts do have heightened anxiety when they first stop drinking and using. That anxiety shows up in many different ways. Sometimes we are restless looking for anything to break the cycle of boredom. Other times we feel an impending sense of doom. It’s like everything is going to fall apart at any minute.
What Anxiety Felt Like for Me
If you are like me, you feel like someone is going to realize that you are a huge fraud. That this whole being sober thing is just a fad that will fade like Hammer Pants. I also had an intense distrust of anyone who wasn’t in recovery. I felt like all Earth people were out to get me. In my mind, they might slip booze in my drink. Or worse, they spent a lot of time talking about me behind my back. I was sure that Earth people wanted me to fail. In a word, I was crazy. (I’m not a fan of that word, but I was.) I was on the emotional rollercoaster that all alcoholics and addicts ride in early sobriety. No one told me it went through such dark and twisted tunnels, though.
Based on the research studies I have read, all of these feelings, even mine, are perfectly NORMAL. (Yeah, I hate that word, too.) Since alcohol is a depressant, it does a number on the mood regulating part of the brain. That means while drinking I had real bouts of depression and real bouts of anxiety with a dash of panic attacks. While drinking, alcohol controlled my mood often resulting in depression, and when I wasn’t drinking the lack of alcohol controlled my mood, often leading to anxiety. This constant state of up and down and all around, came to a screeching halt when I started getting sober. However, much like a ride on the tilt-a-whirl leaves you feeling woozy as you walk away; my emotions were still shifting long after the ride stopped.
Facing a New Normal
This effect often leads alcoholics and addicts to believe that their depression and anxiety were the reason they started drinking in the first place. This belief leads many to go back to drinking and drugging to “medicate” these feelings. According to one study I read, this myth that we are self-medicating for a psychological problem is common even in the medical community. Literally, 90 percent of the time, this is not true at all. In fact, if we give in to the urge, we prolong our suffering. Think about it, taking a drink can only set me back to where I started.
In my case, my brain wanted an addictive substance, and it played tricks to get it.
As half of my brain kept screaming louder for a drink to calm the world around me, the last logical spark I had left in the other half dimly knew that drinking was the opposite of a solution. As I stayed sober day-after-day, that dim light grew brighter and the screaming part of my brain grew hoarse and quieter. That’s when I KNEW beyond doubt that the way to get through all of the anxiety was to face it head on each day and not fall back into a drink.
Borrowing from Rascal Flats, I quit getting beat down and decided to fight back.
“On your knees, you look up
Decide you’ve had enough
You get mad, you get strong
Wipe your hands, shake it off
Then you stand, then you stand”
I’m On My Feet But Still Anxious
Once I was on my feet, I had no clue what to do. I was, as one of my home group members often reminds me, “right where I was supposed to be.” See, I decided to begin my drinking career in earnest at age 15. Right when hormones are raging, every first thought is the right thought, and logic doesn’t have a voice in any decision, I froze my emotional growth by flooding my brain with booze. That may have worked out okay if I would have cutback or moderated my drinking by my early 20s. Not this guy.
At 43, I asked for help to quit drinking. I had 28 years of growing up to do immediately. Being an emotional teenager with adult responsibilities, when I first heard about this phenomenon, I responded, “Bullsh!t, that ain’t me.” But, I was wrong.
In what has to be the most meticulous study I have read, researchers studied twins, more specifically, twins in which one had a substance use disorder and the other didn’t despite both being raised in the exact same environment. What they found through their seven-year study is that the alcoholic twin spent their adult lives acting like teenagers. Those twins made impulsive decisions that led to troubles maintaining a career or staying out of jail. They had financial problems and a myriad of other issues because they made most of their decisions based only on emotions. The other twins? They passed into adulthood and lived relatively normal lives.
Finding a Better Solution
While I so much wanted to be different, I was not in the slightest. If you want to see how crazy I was in early sobriety check out my post about being “Chemical Free,” or read “It’s Not About the Money.” I was a 43-year-old child to put it nicely. I had no patience and no reasoning skills to fend off my impulsive nature. I also didn’t know what to do about it, at first. Then, I learned one more reason that it is important for me to be around people in recovery. They could help me mature.
Instead of acting on impulse, I began to take action by asking other people in A.A. how they handled certain feelings in sobriety. I quickly discovered that I couldn’t trust my feelings on anything. After all, feelings are not facts. Instead of acting on what I felt, A.A. members encouraged to find out if there was evidence to support my feeling. A simple example. If I walked into a room and everyone stopped talking, I felt they were talking about me. Forget, that they quit talking for a myriad of reasons. I knew my presence caused the hush.
Once it happened at work. It was time for a faculty meeting to start, and I charged into the room a few seconds before being late. I was sure that everyone had been talking about me. I felt that I was the butt of every joke. Not a one of those feelings was based in reality.
Recognizing my Anxiety Before It Gets Me
Once I began to see the actions of others without my feelings involved, I realized, shockingly, no one thought about me that often. I’m not sure like the feeling of not being that important. However, I did begin to grow emotionally from that experience. I am still growing, a little each day.
So many times, my feelings get in the way of what is really happening. For example, if my wife, Nina, comes home from work and is not overly excited to see me, I feel like I must have done something wrong and she is upset with me. At least that’s what my 15-year-old brain tells me.
The truth, when I take my feelings out of it, is that Nina, like anyone coming home from work may be worn out or may have had an emotional day. Instead of guessing about the situation, I could always ask, and be a supportive husband. If there is something wrong involving me, I should discuss it like an adult instead of hoping, that the problem will magically go away. In either case, I have to stand up to my fear and take action.
Practice Makes Better Not Perfect
Since I know I misinterpret most situations when I am trapped in my 15-year-old, emotionally stunted, everything-is-about-me brain, I put my gut reaction aside and examine each situation. I can’t expect the changes in my perceptions and feelings to change overnight. It took 28 years to create this problem; it’s going to take at least a few years to fix it. Each time I face my fear, no matter the outcome, I count it as a win.
The good news is that the worst of the anxiety and depression normally hits the road in a few months after we stop drinking. Our moods becomes a little more normal. From that point, it is just practice at remembering to act on facts and not feelings. Do I still have fears and anxious moments? Sure, everyone does. I just don’t let those fears dictate the decisions I make. And, I remember there is no problem so big a drink won’t make worse.
“Cause when push comes to shove
You taste what you’re made of
You might bend till you break
‘Cause it’s all you can take
On your knees, you look up
Decide you’ve had enough
You get mad, you get strong
Wipe your hands, shake it off
Then you stand, then you stand“–Rascal Flats
What a story! Nothing that I haven’t heard before but yours came directly from the heart. I’m not alcoholic but was married 52 years to my husband that was. He passed away in 2022 with 39 years of sobriety which meant I lived with him through 13 years of drinking. Without AA meetings, good sponsors, and others helping in his road to recovery he wouldn’t have made it. He answered every call when someone asked for help with sobriety.
Keep trudging along!
Thanks so much! It is so important to hear from people who understand our work and what we are trying to do. You are an amazing person! I would love to hear your story! Thanks again for reading and offering words of encouragement to me and others!
Stan, A Grateful Nut