The model I use to think of it is that drugs steal life energy from your future and give it to you in the present.
I know this might sound naive but I don’t have firsthand experience: is that also valid for marijuana? What are the long term effects in that case?
YMMV, my 20s are lost to time, and I guess I needed to get to the stage where inhaling it was playing a panic attack russian roulette to finally get serious about quitting that awful herb. It definitely was fun the first few years.
But sure, there's someone bound to tell me there was something wrong with me, and that for them marijuana was a panacea. To be fair, I did not respect it, but neither do the stoners nowadays who think THC and CBD are a miracle cure for any problem and that it's perfectly, 100% safe.
"Whenever a participant reported having had an alcoholic drink....At various points over the following three hours, they then rated the extent to which they felt the drink had “relieved unpleasant feelings or symptoms”, and also provided updated ratings of their levels of those various negative feelings."
I also wonder if this is applicable to procrastination and self deceptive actions in general. If I'm reading some "candy" novel when I should be sleeping but know that I've got to check in 15 minutes from now about how I feel about bedtime procrastination then I'm not going to enjoy the book. The whole point is to immerse myself in something that distracts me from my depression, anxiety and shame at the very process of distraction.
From Saint-Exupery's Little Prince:
“Why are you drinking? - the little prince asked.
- In order to forget - replied the drunkard.
- To forget what? - inquired the little prince, who was already feeling sorry for him.
- To forget that I am ashamed - the drunkard confessed, hanging his head.
- Ashamed of what? - asked the little prince who wanted to help him.
- Ashamed of drinking! - concluded the drunkard, withdrawing into total silence.
the drunk isnt just ashamed of his drunkenness, he's ashamed he's not something else entirely, ashamed for all the wishes & dreams he's not. a realler life has past the drunkard by.
to borrow a random quote found a couple comments away, from a german band Die Toten Hosen, "no alcohol is no solution either".
I imagine anxiety is somewhat related when you get outside of fight or flight.
Especially if your research setup is as good as useless ("The team concedes various limitations to the study, mostly to do with factors affecting generalisability. The over-representation of women among the participants (as well as the fact that a large proportion were diagnosed with BPD) certainly means that the results are not necessarily applicable to the general population"), not to mention the methodology is self reporting questionaires.
It doesn't solve problems but stops the pain. Frees you temporarily from thinking and deciding things under the influence of pain.
I don't get modern medicine. Grief, loss, loneliness (long term), stress and more mental/emotional ailments are found to be detrimental to human health, even causing most non-cancer chronic diseases. I would really like to see a study that somehow shows people surviving long term who were about so self-medicate with tobacco or alcohol, instead of survival rate that only takes into account the substance's harm.
Alcohol and cigarettes harmed me but they also helped me survive. It's not a black and white clear cut thing.
I would consider myself a high functioning heavy drinker (but not an alcoholic). I'm also physically fit without weight issues, so I think this is probably more a personal statement.
Ha. Its Science-ish!
However, after reading up on how one of the symptoms of alcohol withdrawal is increased anxiety, and hypothesizing that the weekday drinks actually made my anxiety worse overall I stopped drinking on weekdays and limited drinking on weekdays a bit. My anxiety improved after that.
Alcohol will cause you to urinate a lot of magnesium and other electrolytes and can cause deficiencies. Magnesium deficiency is strongly associated with mental health disorders. It will also impair your sleep. This is a double whammy if you are already suffering from symptoms of depression or anxiety, alcohol will likely drive you further in the hole.
Given: They're saying they drink to deal with their symptoms. The symptoms get worse when they drink.
The study concludes: Drinking makes it worse.
But the other option is: Their symptoms would have been even worse without the drinking.
I'm not saying hypothesis is correct, just that the article didn't mention the study addressing it. Unless I missed it.
Debt is a good example of that, because of interest and potential fines that increase the longer payments get delayed.
Many years later I discover that I have a genetic clotting disorder. Blood thinners will quickly fix my severe brain fog.
I use a mix of prescription ones or even just aspirin now.
But I think a lot of my family drink to clear there heads.
My pet theory anyway.
I can’t see how this got past IRB or how they were able to ethically enroll patients. BPD has many psychological manifestations all rolled into one disorder including rage and emotional lability. It’s a mystery to me why alcohol would be a responsible choice here.
Mild/moderate alcohol consumption does often temporarily alleviate anxiety. But it also pushes the concerns to the next day - and that is the positive feedback loop for increasing daily consumption. This leads to worsening health and worsening/chronic psychological issues that are perpetually pushed back by daily consumption.
It doesn't have to be any sport. Things like cleaning your house works as well. Do something repetitive, something that your autopilot is able handle easily. It will eventually clear your mind.
Not only you won't have to deal the with bad effects of drinking but you'll get something good out of it.
Annoying hangovers turn into getting withdrawals for days after having 2 drinks. That’s when the real alcoholism starts.
Its non-opinionated, decentralized but moderated (pun unintended) discussion was a huge help when I quit drinking five years ago.
I'll just add that my path lined up with others who have commented here. Once it dawned on me that it was a crutch, and not just for fun, it felt like time to put it aside and do some work on myself.
However a series of steps or exploring a higher power wasn't what I felt worked for me. /r/StopDrinking turned out to be that sweet spot.
P.S. automatic translation of the song lyrics is quite adequate
A subset of the population will always be looking for some way to escape reality, but the top 2 (alcohol and tobacco) have relatively disastrous health effects.
Granted, anyone who's fine with reality as-is should be encouraged to stay the course.
Be wary with this headline ... this study does NOT reflect the general population, at all.
Alcohol obviously reduces anxiety short-term, because of its effect on GABA signalling.
Alcohol can excarbate anxiety in long-term.
But there is catch - there are therapeutic drugs that have similar effect, benzodiazepines. Benzodiazepines can be misused (and make recovery from anxiety harder) and can be used for therapeutic purposes to improve patient's quality of life.
Obviously, benzodiazepines are more selective (ethanol affects nearly every system in brain), but I would expect that moderate and rare drinking to cope with single stressful event can be moderately beneficial, but drinking to deal with "stressful live" would be heavily detrimental.