Drinking to Cope With Anxiety: Why It Backfires and What Helps

Drinking to cope with anxiety works, at first. Alcohol slows the nervous system, and for an hour or two the racing thoughts go quiet. Then it wears off and the anxiety comes back stronger. Keep that up for months and regular drinking makes anxiety worse, not better. Many of the drugs people use to calm down follow the same pattern.

If you’ve started to wonder whether your anxiety is what’s making you drink or use, take that question seriously. You’re not overthinking it.

Why Alcohol and Drugs Feel Like Relief

Anxiety is your body’s alarm system stuck in the “on” position. Your heart races, your shoulders climb toward your ears, and your mind runs through every worst case. Alcohol is a depressant. It slows activity in the brain, so people feel calmer and less inhibited. Marijuana, sedatives and opioids can bring a similar calm. So yes, the relief is real. A glass of wine before a party makes small talk easier. A drink after work stops the replay of every meeting. That’s exactly why it’s so easy to keep reaching for it.

How the Anxiety and Drinking Cycle Builds

The trouble comes in the hours and days afterward. As alcohol leaves your system, your brain rebounds. Plenty of people wake at 3 a.m. with their heart pounding, or spend the next day jittery and full of dread, something people call “hangxiety.” The natural fix is another drink. Over weeks and months, a few things start to happen:

• Tolerance grows, so it takes more alcohol to get the same calm.
• Your brain’s own ways of handling stress get weaker from lack of use.
• Sleep gets worse, and poor sleep feeds anxiety.
• Drinking creates real problems, like conflict at home or trouble at work, which hand you more to be anxious about.
• If you’ve become dependent, withdrawal itself brings anxiety, shakiness and restlessness.

It turns into a loop. Anxiety leads to drinking, the drinking leads to more anxiety, and round it goes.

Is My Anxiety Making Me Drink? A Self-Check

Be honest with yourself here:

• Do I drink or use mainly to calm down, rather than because I enjoy it?
• Are there situations I can’t face without it, like social events, work stress or bedtime?
• Is my anxiety worse the morning after?
• Have I tried to cut back and felt so anxious I gave up?
• Am I using more than I used to for the same effect?
• Do the people close to me worry about how much I drink or use?

If several of these hit home, your drinking or drug use may be tied up with anxiety in a way that needs attention. Nobody’s judging you for that. It’s a common pattern, and it’s treatable.

What About Anti-Anxiety Medications?

Doctors sometimes prescribe benzodiazepines such as Xanax, Klonopin and Ativan for anxiety. In the short term they do their job. They also carry a real risk of dependence and misuse, and they’re especially dangerous combined with alcohol or opioids. If you take a benzodiazepine more often or in higher doses than prescribed, or you’ve taken one daily for a long time, don’t stop suddenly. Benzodiazepine withdrawal can cause seizures and should be managed with medical supervision. Talk to your doctor, or learn more about prescription drug addiction treatment.

What Actually Helps Anxiety

Treat both conditions together

Once anxiety and substance use are tangled together, treating just one rarely works. Quit drinking without treating the anxiety, and the anxiety pushes you back toward a drink. Treat the anxiety while you’re still drinking heavily, and the alcohol keeps undoing your progress. Integrated co-occurring disorders treatment goes after both at once.

Learn skills that calm the body

Slow breathing, regular exercise, steady sleep and less caffeine all help settle the nervous system. Cognitive behavioral therapy teaches you to spot anxious thoughts and answer them differently. None of it is instant. It does keep working long after a drink would have worn off.

Ask about non-addictive medication

A doctor or psychiatrist can talk through anxiety medications that don’t carry the same risk of dependence. Tell them the truth about your drinking or drug use so they can choose safely.

Bring your worry to God

Faith doesn’t replace treatment for an anxiety disorder. Still, many people find real comfort in prayer. “Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God” (Philippians 4:6, KJV). Naming your fears in prayer, out loud or on paper, can shrink them down to a size you can hold.

When to Get Help

If you can’t cut back on your own, if you drink every day to manage anxiety, or if you get shaky, sweaty or panicky when you stop, it’s time to talk to a professional. Anyone who’s been drinking heavily shouldn’t quit abruptly without medical advice, because alcohol withdrawal can be dangerous. For the bigger picture, read about self-medicating with alcohol and drugs or how dual diagnosis is treated.

Anxiety and Addiction Treatment at Covenant Hills

Covenant Hills in Orange County, California, treats anxiety and substance use together. Clients get psychiatric care, medication management, individual and group therapy, and practical skills for calming the body and mind, in either a Christian-based or traditional track. We want more for you than just not drinking. We want a life where you don’t feel the need to. If anxiety is driving your drinking or drug use, call 800-662-2873 for a free, confidential assessment.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does alcohol make anxiety worse?

Yes, over time. Alcohol eases anxiety for a few hours, but as it wears off the brain rebounds, and you’re often more anxious than before. Regular drinking also wrecks sleep and can lead to dependence, and both feed anxiety.

Why do I drink when I feel anxious?

Because it works quickly. Alcohol calms the nervous system for a little while, and your brain learns to reach for it whenever anxiety shows up. That learned habit can turn into dependence.

Can anxiety and addiction be treated at the same time?

Yes, and they usually should be. Integrated treatment handles both together, so progress on one doesn’t get undone by the other.