Located in Pennsylvania, our medical detox and residential services provide the comprehensive care you need to overcome addiction. If you believe you or someone you love has anxiety that gets worse with alcohol use, you or your loved one can take steps to treat their anxiety and cut down or stop drinking. It’s also possible for chronic alcohol use to contribute to existing anxiety or lead you to develop an anxiety disorder. Additionally, panic attacks can be triggered because of the effect alcohol has on GABA, another brain chemical that normally has a relaxing effect.
- Just a short drive from Burlington, Vermont airport, Sana at Stowe welcomes clients from across New England and beyond.
- At first, alcohol may reduce feelings of anxiety because it relaxes muscles and slows your heart rate.
- This is why some people can wake up feeling embarrassed about things they said or did.
- Located in Pennsylvania, our medical detox and residential services provide the comprehensive care you need to overcome addiction.
- Some medications can be an effective option for treating anxiety from drinking or anxiety that causes you to drink.
Long-term risks
Taking that first step can lead you to a better, healthier, and happier life. When a co-occurring disorder is diagnosed, the anxiety disorder and the alcohol use disorder are treated at the same time. Anxiety treatment often involves anti-anxiety medications as well as therapy. Fortunately, the types of therapy used to treat anxiety disorders and alcohol use disorders overlap and can treat both disorders simultaneously. Sana at Stowe will look at how drinking too much alcohol can change brain chemistry. It is important to have care that treats both substance use and trauma together for long-term healing.
Supported living
However, you may want to cut back completely if alcohol is impacting your mental well-being through regular panic attacks. Sometimes, no matter what I do, the only thing that abates my post-drinking anxiety is waiting it out. At the very least, I find comfort in remembering that my shaky-emotional-ground feeling, no matter how intense, will dissipate soon enough. As Dr. Greenfield puts it, “Time is on your side.” Just breathe, take care of yourself, and remember that hangxiety isn’t forever. Similarly, if you find yourself regularly experiencing the symptoms of an anxiety disorder—including panic attacks—it’s important drug addiction treatment to seek help. It does so by binding to GABA receptors in the brain—which helps your body to relax and your mind to feel calm.
Who can prescribe medication?
For example, people who struggle with social anxiety may drink solely for the purpose of relieving anxiety in social situations. If you’re in the depths of hangxiety and need fast relief, Dr. Greenfield recommends working through it with meditation, grounding activities, calming yoga poses or stretches, or deep breathing exercises. “A lot of the uncomfortable emotions we have, when we try to push can alcohol cause anxiety them away or avoid them, they just get worse,” Dr. Greenfield says. When you turn toward your feelings, they often become less unpleasant. Alcohol also becomes dangerous when prescription anxiety medication is involved.
