So this is the blog that might scare away men I’m hoping to help. Not a popular subject. Depression and alcohol.
The bottom line? A lot of one can lead to a lot of the other. Depression can make you want to drink more. And drinking more can lead to more severe depression.
It’s not cool to lecture others or say "here’s what you need to do." Therapists and AA folks call that cross-talk. You’re supposed to say “I can relate to that because….”
So here’s how I’ll start. I can relate to the intractable problem of alcohol and depression. I drank enough beer in college to float a barge. I drank enough beer after college to drown a dragon. Only the alcohol never killed the dragon. It only made him angrier.
I kept on drinking, and drank even more when the first real tests of my life came. The loss of a loved one. The stress of owning a business. The stress of parenthood and trying to be a good husband, good career guy and good father at the same time.
The worse it got, the more I drank. The more pain I suffered, the more I tried to dull it with alcohol. I was quite clearly self-medicating, only this medicine has horrendous side effects. Hangovers. Even more anxiety. The inability to concentrate. The obsession over when the next drink can be consumed.
I once quit cold turkey once with no professional help but lapsed back into the same old patterns nearly a year later. Then my depression got worse than ever, and the abuse of alcohol became as bad as it had been in college.
Even though this is an anonymous blog, allow me a little room for rationalization here. I was never a Bloody Mary in the morning or bottle in the desk guy. But I was a prolific binge drinker. After Katy Perry-like Friday nights, I’d be hung over until Wednesday. And then I’d start again on Thursday with heavy drinking.
And it never, ever made me feel better. Only worse. My first therapist equated it to pouring gasoline on a fire. It’s simple, really. Alcohol is a depressant. Depressed people, umm, I should say people like me that I can relate to, probably don’t need more depressants.
If you want to read a great blog about depression and alcohol, which is the chicken and which is the egg, check this one out. If you want to read some scholarly articles about alcohol and depression, click on this link.
Praise God, alcohol abuse is not a problem for me right now. Not today at least. We’ll see about tomorrow.
I've really enjoyed reading your blog so far, and thanks for visiting mine.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with this post - although alcohol can give us a temporary escape for a short period of time, it just doesn't last for long and before you know it, we can become reliant on it and feel worse.
For me the answer was to limit how much was in the house and keep some control over drinking that way. If it was there it would be drunk, if it wasn't it was more of an effort and I knew I didn't really need it.
Keep up the good work.
To anyone reading this post, if alcohol is even a tiny problem for you -STOP drinking completely! I swear to you it is NOT worth trying to prove you don't really have a drinking problem and continuing to try to drink in moderation. Just stop.
ReplyDeleteMy mom, who suffers with depression, began with a few beers on the weekend with my dad about 25 years ago. When she began working 20+ years ago, the drinking slowly turned into an every day after work thing. The beer slowly turned into a few glasses of wine. Ten years ago, a few glasses of wine turned into nearly a bottle a night. It happened slowly. It happened ONLY with beer and wine. My mom became an alcoholic.
She's in recovery now. She quit drinking in March of 2010 when she was diagnosed with cirrhosis. She spent 2010 in and out of the hospital. I watched as my mom's body started decomposing before my eyes. Cirrhosis poisons you until you die. It is horrific!!!! and it is entirely preventable.
My mom came within a few weeks, if not days, of dying. She received a liver transplant. She was fortunate. She lived to see the birth of her first grand baby.
My mom is an incredibly sweet and loving person. But, when drunk, she was a monster! There are things she said to me while she was drunk that have scarred my soul. She can not take the words back. She can not tell me she did not mean it. I trust no one. If my own mom could hurt me like that and my dad stand by and allow it, anyone can hurt me.
Drinking is not worth it. It will not fix what's wrong in your life. It WILL most definitely hurt the ones you love.
I'm thankful to those who fight against the urge to drink. I'm thankful on behalf of your family and friends. I know it's hard, but I promise it's worth it.
~rl