sullyS25
Well-known member
Hey everyone I just joined the forum recently. I used to post pretty regularly on here about a year or so ago until I decided that life was hopeless and found other priorities, drugs and alcohol.
From the first time I got drunk I thought alcohol was the answer to my shyness or social phobia and it was...temporarily. This idea led me to getting drunk almost every night in college and while helped my social skills temporarily it also made things much worse. I got depressed, gained a bunch of weight and ended up isolating myself to my bedroom with a bottle of booze or a bunch of beer. After a while I decided that alcohol and hangovers weren't for me but opiates and benzos were the way to go because there was no hangover and I was very social when I was high. I started with vicoden in highschool, then went to percocet, then did oxycontin because it was a more concentrated and less diluted form of percocet. My tolerance grew pretty quickly and before I knew it all I cared about was the next high. All I ever thought about was how to get more pills and when I couldnt find Oxycontin I eventually resorted to smoking heroin. It is safe to say that drugs and alcohol ran my life and I always said I used them because they I thought they made me more social. The irony of that is that I would use alone and seclude myself to my room.
In the end I realized that alcohol and drugs were a temporary fix and made the anxiety much worse in the end. When I was sober I would have Panic Attacks and be down in a hole of depression. Eventually I felt like that even when I was high or drunk. I decided to check myself into rehab though and have been sober for almost 5 and a half months.
I bring this up because I noticed a lot of my fellow rehab friends had as much anxiety as me or more. It seemed pretty common for anxious people to self medicate and get caught in the cycle of addiction. So I wanted to hear if anyone else had a similar story or still uses drugs or alcohol to help their anxiety and how things are working out.
I am not posting this to convince people to seek help I just wanted to hear other peoples experiences. Since I have gotten sober though, I barely ever feel depressed and while the social phobia is still there, it is not as bad as it was. I have discovered old hobbies, found new ones and am not waking up every day wishing i would get hit by a truck.
I would love to hear other peoples experiences with this topic, if you have them.
From the first time I got drunk I thought alcohol was the answer to my shyness or social phobia and it was...temporarily. This idea led me to getting drunk almost every night in college and while helped my social skills temporarily it also made things much worse. I got depressed, gained a bunch of weight and ended up isolating myself to my bedroom with a bottle of booze or a bunch of beer. After a while I decided that alcohol and hangovers weren't for me but opiates and benzos were the way to go because there was no hangover and I was very social when I was high. I started with vicoden in highschool, then went to percocet, then did oxycontin because it was a more concentrated and less diluted form of percocet. My tolerance grew pretty quickly and before I knew it all I cared about was the next high. All I ever thought about was how to get more pills and when I couldnt find Oxycontin I eventually resorted to smoking heroin. It is safe to say that drugs and alcohol ran my life and I always said I used them because they I thought they made me more social. The irony of that is that I would use alone and seclude myself to my room.
In the end I realized that alcohol and drugs were a temporary fix and made the anxiety much worse in the end. When I was sober I would have Panic Attacks and be down in a hole of depression. Eventually I felt like that even when I was high or drunk. I decided to check myself into rehab though and have been sober for almost 5 and a half months.
I bring this up because I noticed a lot of my fellow rehab friends had as much anxiety as me or more. It seemed pretty common for anxious people to self medicate and get caught in the cycle of addiction. So I wanted to hear if anyone else had a similar story or still uses drugs or alcohol to help their anxiety and how things are working out.
I am not posting this to convince people to seek help I just wanted to hear other peoples experiences. Since I have gotten sober though, I barely ever feel depressed and while the social phobia is still there, it is not as bad as it was. I have discovered old hobbies, found new ones and am not waking up every day wishing i would get hit by a truck.
I would love to hear other peoples experiences with this topic, if you have them.