panic Attacks after drinking

[ccgurl01]

Hi, I am new to the site. I just wanted to know if anyone here with anxiety experienced panic the day after drinking. I always have had anxiety but never had panic after drinking until a few months after I turned 21. Once, it was so bad I had to be given xanax for a few days by my doctor. I am 23 now and was alright (panic wise the day after drinking) for a while up until recently when i had a bad attack the day after drinking. I know I have to give up alcohol for good now(don't want to play the guessing game of when it will happen) and wanted to know if anyone saw their levels of anxiety go down after cutting out alcohol. Also I was curious to see what kind of anxiety people experience after drinking. I get massively hungover and imagine tons of horrible things I did the night before(which btw, none have ever happened). I also have to check with everyone I was with to make sure no one hates me(no one ever has and actually find it humurous bc they dont know the extent of my questioning). Thanks

[rockwell8]

I had my first panic attack the night after drinking heavily (blackout). I'm 21 now and I drink a decent amount and it definitely makes my anxiety worse. I don't usually have full panic attacks, but for a few days after heavy drinking I feel very on edge, I can't fall asleep at night and I feel like I'm going crazy. When I don't drink for a week or so I feel pretty good. I'm convinced that there's a direct correlation between heavy drinking and anxiety (I didn't believe my doctor when he first brought it up, I thought it was just coincidence). I know it's easier said that done, but if you want to feel better you really have to cut back on your drinking. I have found that I can still have a few drinks and get a little drunk, but getting wasted is almost guaranteed to give me anxiety.

Also, remember that xanax and other panic medications don't mix with alcohol. If you think you need to be on medication your doc is gonna tell you that you can't drink. So my advice would be to cut back on the drinking and see how you feel. Trust me it's not easy and it's not fun but I think you'll feel so much better about yourself that you won't mind giving it up.

I'm also curious about the relationship between drinking and anxiety, so if anyone has had similar experiences let us know. It might be easier to give up the partying if we hear some success stories from people who gave up drinking and decreased their anxiety.

[ccgurl01]

Rock, thx for answering. I would never drink wth meds(too nervous of a reaction--no pun intended). I wanted to think that there wasnt a connection but I defitnitely believe it now. It IS mostly after many drinks of hard liquor, (always after a blackout), but sometimes I can have a few and panic the next day. Like I said in my previous post I just have to give it up. But with anxiety it can be never ending. I get nervous about stopping drinking becuase feel like I am giving into anxiety if I stop or that I am weak because I should be young and love to party. I defitnitely have to work on those feelings.

[Angel]

Yeah man, i had drank a whole lot on my nineteenth birthday and fell asleep for thirty minutes, only to get up for work at fvie thirty in the morning.

That was my first attack, kause i pulled a ten hour shift also.

I kept drinking, i didnt really learn my lesson, until it kept happening. But after a while i quit.

Just plain ol quit.

For about a year and three months. I started drinking again around last thanksgiving. I got a little panicky after a kouple of times of drinking, but since i took that whole year off to really fokus on techniques and tricks to kalm myself down, i use those now after i drink.

It MIGHT not be the smartest thing to tell a drinker, all this i mean, but you dont have to kompletely give up your WHOLE life style, but kalming down really helped me out, and now i think i am doing fairlydecent, i still need some work, but i feel a hell of alot better, now that i know a thing or two about anxiety.

And i drink alot.....sometimes... :twisted:

[scatmantom]

This is very common! When I hav a hang over I feel like the world is gonna end, my body is dehydrated and suffering, and anything I have to worry about feels about 100x worse. Best thing about it is a hang over can be avoided! All uve gotta do is drink less on the night, and drink lots of water before u go to bed (not always easy to remember when ur plastered I know but if definatly helps). The next day ull still feel crap, but keep drinking water and ull get over much faster. :D

[FallenAnx]

I quit drinking when I started having my panic attacks frequently and just started mild drinking. Havent really noticed a difference you just need to keep yourself from getting a hang over. I would drink like I used to but I am still iffy taking ativan and drinking alot. Dont like to mix pills with alcohol :shock: You dont need to change the drinking lifestyle just need to cut back a bit

[Deb24]

Hey im new to the site and the last time I had a few drinks which was last Saturday night, I woke up about 4am thinking my stomach was going to explode, and of course that bought on an attack. And i didn't get back to sleep. It was horrible cos i have a 5month old baby and she wakes up early, so of course I felt terrible that morning and my body was reacting to the alchol, and my mind kept thinking something dredful was going to happen. So now I just avoid drinking, especially since i've just started taking lexapro...

[ccgurl01]

I was just prescribed atavan and celexa so drinking is out of the question for me anyway.

[Chelsea]

I have just been prescribed celexa. I rarely drink, and when I do, it is only 1 or 2 drinks. Is that totally out of the question, as I am now on meds, or is 1 or 2 drinks ok? What happens when you drink while on meds?

[vaio]

Drinking helps my anxiety for a few hours, but then after a couple of hours it makes it worse.
My first bad anxiety episodes came after 2-3 days of heavy drinking.
But drinking helps a lot with relaxing sometimes.

[Kitten]

i also get panic attacks after drinking... and i know why it vcomes.. alchl messes with the chemicals in your brain... so cnsuming large amounts of alchol can make you depressed and highten anxiety.. it doesn't have to make it worst though, but it can.

man last weekeend i was REALLY drunk.. i had panick atacks for 3 days afterwards... helped to talk to some friends who where there, who can tell me that it wasn't as bad as i thought.

it helps to drink water evenly across the evening, and before you goto sleep and when you get up... and it helps to decrease the amount of alchol consumed.. or just to quit! ;)

i have decreased the amount and i have stoped drinking so often.

my problem aways seems to be that i feel like i did sosmething stupid.. or offended someone, or pissed someone of.. whcich i sometimes do.. but its rearly as bad as i make it in my head. Luckly

[JEH2004]

Yeah this is really common I guess.

I used to work a bar job and drink on the job, come home 3 or 4am drunk, pass out, wake up several times in the middle of the night shaking and feeling this horrible anxiety. I decided to cut the drinking out completely and the symptoms stopped so there is definately a correlation. I would do anything to avoid that feeling again, its one of the worst feelings UGH.

I still have a couple drinks but to avoid any hangover I drink a bottle of water between each drink. Yeah I have to pee alot but shoot its worth it.

[TWYI]

When you guys get panic attacks after drinking do you generally mean straight after, or the next morning when the hangover has kicked in?

My worst attack was after a 3 day birthday binge, an ambulance had to be called only for me to be given 1 mg of Lorazepam and sent on my way after an hour in the A and E.

I am cutting right down on the alcohol now, it just doesn't do me any good the next day whatsoever. At the time, fine, but the next days can be horrific at times, even after only a couple of beers.

Surely cutting out the booze altogether ( I am 26, moderate drinker since 18 or 19) is a bad idea, better to slowly reduce the intake? Obviously not a great idea if on benzos like me (I have cut the alcohol out totally BTW).

What did others do when deciding to stop drinking, do it slowly or just stop altogether one day?

[vaio]

I make them next morning or eventually the 2nd or 3rd morning.
When I am drunk, I have no problems.

[neverbeenright]

I'm a recovering alcoholic (14 yrs sober). I drank every day because that's the only time I felt OK. But is it a real solution? Of course not. If any of you young people are using alcohol just to feel better - to get some relief - my advice is to look to the doctors and their medications instead. They're a much better option than alcohol.

For those of you who can just have one or two - I don't know about that, it's not something I ever did. ;)

[Tat]

I get really bad panick attacks after drinking - i call if 'The fear' because im terrified of what i may have done or said when ive been drunk. I blow all things out of proportion.

I just wanted to know if any of you feel that you behave differently/badly when youve been drinkin through an anxious patch?

I feel that when im feeling o.k. about myself/therefore not too anxious, i can go out, have a few drinks & have a good time with my friends & nothing awful happens BUT when im feeling anxious if i have a drink it effects me really badly & i always get into some kind of trouble. I then feel even worse for my behaviour & off i go again into another anxiety attack.

Am i alone?!!

Tat

[guy_lafleur23]

AH good ol' drinking. Terrible mixed with anxiety. Sucks to cut it out but you absolutely have to. I read about 10 replies to this topic and most of them are 100 percent true. Personally, I cut drinking out because I was on Lorezapam and Afexer. Problem is all my buddies at work want to drink all the time and tease me a lot about not drinking, but they don't understand why i don't drink, even if i tell them i'm on meds they just say i'm a P*SSY! Anyhow aside from all that crap, i'd just tell you straight up not to drink, lately i found i've been having a couple beers after work on fridays or something, but even that can trigger heart palpatations later in the night and increase my anxiety. It sucks, i hate anxiety, if anxiety were a physical thing i'd kick it's ass and tell it to leave everyone alone.