What about looking into some healthier and more effective ways to manage your OCD and anxiety? Alcohol is a pretty inefficient way to self medicate most things, causes more problems than it solves and drinking at that level every day will probably cause you some physical health problems sooner or later.

There are many therapies and medications designed to address these problems. Have you explored these?

If you can find a better way to address the problems you are drinking to escape from then maybe you will find it straightforward to cut down your drinking.

I really wouldnt advocate alcohol as a long term solution. It will stop working eventually and leave you with all the OCD and anxiety symptoms along with all the anxiety and depression that long term drinking can cause. I would try and find another way before it stops working.

Can I ask why you have not been prescribed medication to deal with your OCD? If you had the appropriate meds, you might find that your drinking dissipates, if it doesn't you might want to think about the fact that your excuse for it has gone. Where do you go from here? If your drinking still bothers you, then you might think about AA!

Thank you both. I am medicated for my OCD so the excuse is gone. I should be able to cope without alcohol but it has become a part of my daily life. Hate this. Don't know what to do. I guess AA is in order.

I really empathise, I had a million "I drink because....." or "I drink to deal with......." ways to justify my drinking. Truth was you could have taken away every problem I had or thought i had and given me a perfect life and i would have still got drunk every day.

When I realised that it was a huge breakthrough as it got me to thinking that instead of trying to make life perfect so that I would not drink (which i knew wasnt possible and was a delusion anyway) I should instead focus my attentions on dealing with alcohol as a problem in itself.

When i tried to do that myself and found out that I couldnt stop or control my drinking on my own was what eventually lead me to seek out the help on offer in AA.

Hope it helps to know you are not the only one who has suffered from faulty thinking on this.

One of the reasons I drank 6 - 8 beers daily was to quell my considerable anxiety. The only problem with this was that drinking increases the amount of anxiety that I feel the next day. Until I would drink it away again. And the longer I drank, the less fun it would be. I didn't even get high on it any more.
It was at that point that I got so disgusted with my drinking life, I just quit. And instead of craving it from then on, the mere thought of it would make my stomach turn. It still does.
Once I stayed sober, I started to learn better ways to live my life.

Thank you everyone for responding. I know alcohol is no way to cope with anxiety as normally it only serves to increase anxious thoughts afterwards. This used to happen with me and does not anymore. I guess I have become so tolerant that I don't experience hangover anxiety or any hangover at that. I just get up and go on with my day until 5pm rolls around and I have a beer. Maybe that is why I am not sure if I want to stop - no hangover or withdrawals as a consequence. I just don't know. But I guess it is a problem or I wouldn't be asking for help.

Why dont you try cutting down some nights not having a drink til 8pm some nights and having a few none drinking days a week and see what happens, how that feels, whether you can do it etc. This will start to give you an idea of where the control lies - with you or with the alcohol.

I am a Dual Diagnosis person, ie a Substance abude history and mental illnesses as well (my several diagnosed mental illnesses include OCD and Panic and Anxiety). I've been sober in AA for nealy 12 years and haved been a proactive and fully compliant patient with meds and therapy for years as well. I still have my struggles, not with the booze - I lost the compulsion to drink early in AA, but my mental illnesses plague me.

I began drinking at 14, I now know due to a huge genetic predisposition to alcoholism , as well as the fact that as soon as that booze went into my system I had relief from what I now know was early onset mental illness contributed to by my terrible and terrifyinfg up bringing. I drank alcoholically until I was 32 - 18 years.

What I found for myself was that I needed to get sober first, and then after a time it was clear that I also had mental illnesses that needed to be treated by mental health professionals.

But I have friends in AA who did it just as successfully the other way around, ie recieving diagnoses and treatment for mental illness and then becoming sober and/or clean.

The booze is a pancea for all that ails us - the difficulties, small and large presented by daily life and then the diagnosable mental illnesses.

But as has been said, that panacea turns around to bight us and makes us sicker, panic and anxiety overwhelm us, depressin or OCD are exascerbated, and whatever else that ails you is made worst, not better. And we make it impossible for psychiatrists to help us as our system is either full of booze or coming off of booze, or in the compulsion for booze, and full DENIAL. So the muddled mess of booze and mental illness never gets any clearer.

And the kicker is that this dynamic is not going to get better, it's only going to get worse.

But not if you choose to get off the awful Ground Hog Day treadmill and do something about it. My suggestion is to get to AA as soon as your legs can get you there, listen with an open mind to what is said. Look for the similarities not the differences in comparing peoples' stories to you own. Find a sponsor, work the 12 steps to the best of your ability.

There is absolutely no need for you to keep travelling down this path which ultimately leads to the loss of all one holds dear, hurting others and ultimately the loss of your life. There is something infinitely better that the way you are living.

I hate to break it to you, but I would say that you do have a problem. I really don't want to offend you but I was in your place not so long ago. I was trying to control my BP and it just spirled out of control. I know you say its ONLY 6-8 beers a day, but think about it, is that normal? NO it's not. I was up to that many myself and then it just went up and up. I know you say you don't want to stop but perhaps an AA meeting might open your eyes. Good luck to you, I wish you all the best.

What i found real neat about not drinking and Showing up in a more constructive way to my life. It became much easier to determine which way to go in addressing things that were very, partnered up with why I was self medicating(drinking). To me, thats what the steps promised A more coherent view of my life as I had been living it :)
Billy

6-8 beers? A day? I was drinking about that but in wine, and it was an issue. You don't exactly feel bright eyed the next morning after 4+ glasses of wine. At least I didnt. I also knew it was a habit at best, and not healthy. I couldnt stop after 1. Can you? Can you have one beer, then move on?

Hey Beth Mach

I started drinking heavily when I was about 18 to feel better as I was clearly suffering from Depression. It is clear now.... but back then it turned into my self medication and continued until recently and I am now 32. Unfortunately at the time my family didn't see or want to see what was wrong and I turned to the bottle and going out to have 'fun' to deal with it. Over the last 14 years I became more depressed on and off and anxiety and small elements of OCD attached to that. The OCD got worse in a way because I would have to check everything 50 000 times before I left the house because I would think I left something on. Not overly extreme... but since I have stopped drinking the anxiety and OCD has pretty much gone away and I manage effectively what residual anxiety I might have in what I have noticed now is pretty normal level for most people.

what is clear now is that I used alcohol to manage my depression and anxiety, which was also caused or exacerbated by alcohol. After 10 years of drinking I was going mad with madness of anxiety and depression caused by drinking. Now I think back it may of been those initial drinks that did cause the depression as my body and mind immediately reacted to it.

i also had pretty full on therapy for the last 5 years but was an alcoholic for most of it. The outcome of therapy is working so much better now as I can actually apply what I learned in therapy instead of dealing with the anxiety etc.

Try stopping drinking and see how you go for a period of time. It can only be a plus given the health benefits of it all and your meds don't seem to be helping much. The support of AA will be there if you wish to go down that path.

Best of luck and take care

Adeline

Are you drinking on meds? Be careful Beth! People mix stuff and do it day in and day out and then BAM! Their body cannot process it and you get a bad bad reaction. Please do one or the other-especially if you are on benzos.

A heartfelt thank you to everyone who responded to my post. Over the past few days I have internalized what everyone has said and plan on cutting back on my drinking and attending my first AA meeting on Friday night. Hopefully I will be able to eradicate alcohol entirely from my life at some point but it will be difficult. What do you do when you have good friends who drink to get drunk socially (if this makes any sense at all) and want to maintain contact with them? This will be hard. I am not willing to give up going to hear my favorite band play with friends because they will be drinking. On the other hand this will intensify my own urges to drink. Even my husband drinks socially! What do I do with all of this?

Normal people change their behavior to meet their goals. Alcoholics change their goals to accommodate their behavior. If you think you're an alcoholic and want to stop, and be very happy not drinking while others who CAN drink actually drink in front of you, then welcome to AA. The only requirement for membership is the desire to stop drinking. You're a member when YOU say you are.

I use the meetings to put my thinking in perspective and to clear out the bullshit in my head. My brain manufactures bullshit all day. Soon, half of my brain will start to tell me it's okay to drink. And, if I don't get to a meeting quick the other half will start believing it.