What It Feels Like to Be Anxious All the Time

Notes about my experience of anxiety

Photo by Matthias Oberholzer on Unsplash

Here are some thoughts about anxiety. I don’t have any answers, or advice for dealing with it. These are just some of the things I’ve noticed about my own experience.

Alcohol and anxiety

I stopped drinking 136 days ago. I’ve done a five-year sober stretch before, so it’s not the first time I’ve quit. However, I think it’s going to be the last.

This time, it feels solid. I don’t have any cravings. I don’t have any desire to go back to drinking every day. Here’s something I wrote about it:

My life as a high-functioning alcoholic

Since I quit, however, my anxiety has been raging. It turns out I was relying pretty heavily on alcohol to self-medicate and ease my anxiety.

But the medicine is worse than the disease. And it only ever masks the symptoms. It never addresses the cause.

I don’t know how to address the cause. I’ve done years of therapy, and I still don’t know how to stop the anxiety when it kicks in.