When AA Stands for Alcohol and Anxiety
One girl’s spiral and a version of recovery.
One night three years ago, I found myself sitting on a sterile paper-sheeted hospital bed in the third ER I’d been to within a two-month period.
My heart was racing, I was nauseous, my vision had condensed to two dark tunnels and I was awash in a general sense of doom and dread.
I wanted nothing more than to escape from my own body and find some peace. My lungs seemed to constrict tighter and tighter and I pressed my sweaty hands together compulsively as if I could somehow wring the fear out of me.
Finally, the doctor saw me. My vitals were good. I knew the sticky monitors the nurse had put on my chest would leave behind a thick, tacky residue when I peeled them off later.
The first ER visit, about six or seven weeks before this one, had resulted in the doctor’s vague diagnosis of a possible allergic reaction to something unknown. He’d given me an allergy shot and sent me on my way.
The second visit, the doctor couldn’t find anything wrong, she said. I assured her there was, without a doubt, something extremely wrong with me. This was certainly not my normal state. Lately I’d begun leaving work early, something I never used to do, because of the symptoms of this terrible and elusive disease.
“Your oxygen level is 98 and heart rate is good. I think you’re going to be okay but come back here anytime if you experience these symptoms again.”
Thanks, Doctor.
My good friends Coors and gem-pink liquid Benadryl weren’t helping me the way they used to. For a short while, they had been able to chase this terrifying inner phantom back into whatever hidden hell it had come from. But, no more.
Plus, the alcohol was only an option in the evenings so that left me vulnerable the entire long day everyday. The two hour daily commute. The eight hour workday of customer after customer. My incompetent boss who would “slip out to run a quick errand” every morning and show up hours later to grab the rest of his things and say goodnight.
I had taken a large swig of my beloved Benadryl once when I still had two hours to go until my shift would be over. That, as I discovered, was a mistake. My head became heavier than the rest of my body and it took every drop of energy I could summon just to focus on the tasks at hand. In the end, I had to leave early that day too.
The phantom attacker had faded but my cure pulled me towards sleep too strongly. I had to pull over to rest my eyes twice on the way home that afternoon.
The doctor greeted me and gave me the same talk I had come to expect with these visits. Heart rate looks fine. Oxygen level is good. You seem alright. Have you considered seeing a psychiatrist?
What.
Okay, that part of the talk was different than the others had been.
What do you mean I’m having an anxiety attack? Surely, this cannot be all in my head. Is this what people with anxiety deal with? No way.
Spoiler alert: it was an anxiety attack
I was very briefly angry. Was the doctor just trying to tell me something to get me out of her emergency room? Was she trying to insult me? I was embarrassed.
All this money and time spent on doctors and ER visits; could all of my physical symptoms really be symptoms of something psychological?
I asked a friend for her psychologist’s number the next day. She’d always been vocal about attending regular therapy. She seemed to be doing well and she said she was happy with the guy so I was hopeful. He would see me first thing next week.
I was immediately anxious about the appointment. I’d never been to therapy of any sort so I had no idea what to expect. Was I going to have to lie on a couch and try to talk about stuff?
I prayed that Dr. Rollins would be the one talking as I become dumb in social situations with new people. There was no way I’d be able to talk for an hour. But, I was the one paying for it. I was the patient.
If it was really bad I decided I would simply walk out and never ever return. That’s actually my game plan for a majority of different possible situations in life. Well-adjusted, that’s me.
I trembled sitting in the middle of the plushy red sofa in his office. The walls were painted in what I assumed was supposed to be a soothing shade of blue but it just wasn’t working any magic on me.
He pulled out a clipboard and went through a list of questions. Was I currently on any medication? Had I ever seen a therapist before? Was I married? Any kids? Did I collect anything? All of my answers seemed to be satisfactory. I was starting to wonder if I might actually pass this test. Until the next question, that is.
Do I drink? Well, to be honest, Doctor, I drink daily. A lot. He put down the pencil for the first time since beginning the interview. “Okay, let’s talk about that.”
When the hour was up, I rose with a sense of relief that was immediately dashed when he went to shake my hand. I’d been wringing my hands the entire session and they were soaked. How embarrassing.
He hid any disgust he might have felt very well. I was sent off with homework assignments and another appointment for the following week.
I began a therapy journal as soon as I returned home. I jotted down with bullet points the things he had told me to do.
- Eat beets (I’d mentioned I’m anemic). Check.
- Read The Four Agreements by Miguel Ruiz. Check.
- Cut back on alcohol. I popped open the second Coors of my journaling session. Check…okay. I’ll have to come back to that one.
Anyway, if I’m doing the other things correctly then maybe missing one item on the list wasn’t a big deal.
I started on Zoloft. I was also prescribed Xanax for emergencies. Prescriptions are always a bit of an issue for me. I don’t swallow pills. Yes, even the tiny ones. I know, I know. I’m a 35-year old child.
I always requested pills that were okay to crush or, if at all available, a liquid. The Zoloft I was allowed to crush so I took the pill with a half teaspoon of jam every morning. The Xanax was not supposed to be crushed. I had learned the hard way, years before, not to fuck with time release pills.
Have you ever tripped on Claritin D? Well, I have. No, I wouldn’t really recommend it. Another issue with Xanax is that you’re not supposed to consume alcohol near the time you take it. Dr. Rollins had drilled this point into me.
Apparently you can die from mixing benzos with alcohol. I, of course, Googled this information to see if he was lying to me to try to get me to stop drinking. It seems it’s true, though. A safe period of time between consuming alcohol and taking a benzo is 72 hours. Hilarious.
When was the last time I went 72 hours without consuming any alcohol? I really couldn’t remember. It had to have been back when I was still breastfeeding my son. Four years ago.
He wrote me out of work on short-term disability for six weeks, which then turned into three months and then into five months total. This would have been really cool if I wasn’t such a disaster. The panic attacks got further and further apart and Dr. Rollins taught me how to breathe through it when I felt one coming on.
Though the panic attacks were thankfully abating, I was far from out of the woods. I started drinking up to a 12-pack a night all by myself. I would stay up late and relish the feeling of the buzz growing stronger and then the temporary escape from myself.
I’d get up early and make breakfast and get the kids off to school. Then, I’d go back to sleep, setting my alarm for two in the afternoon to give me enough time to make a cup of coffee and, if not shower, at least put a bra on, before picking up the kids.
After our routine of snacks, play, homework, dinner, and baths it was Coors o’clock. Every night. I gained 60 pounds during my 5-month “break” from work.
Unfortunately, I was somehow unaware of my massive weight gain until it was about two hours before my first shift back after my leave. I had gone on leave in January and it was now June. I pulled on my jeans I hadn’t worn in five months and was mystified and then horrified when the zipper would not go all the way up.
I’d been living in yoga pants and pajamas the entire spring. Let me tell you, this was a rude awakening. Never in my life had I been so overweight. I hadn’t even weighed this much at nine months pregnant.
Like returning to work wasn’t anxiety-inducing enough. I waddled in and noticed the stares. The quickly hidden surprise on the face of people I hadn’t seen since 60 pounds ago. One coworker even asked if I was having another baby. Thanks a lot, Ava, you tactless oaf. That was the same day I went home and ordered an elliptical for my room.
Apparently, Zoloft, and, really, any mood-changing medication can cause you to gain weight. If I’m honest though, I’m fairly certain it was the 12-pack a night routine and not the pills that contributed to my new state of being.
That first day back at work was two and a half years ago. Since then, I’ve worked hard to decrease, if not totally stop, my drinking habit. I’ve tried Acamprosate, Naltrexone, and straight up abstinence.
Acamprosate either had no effect or it caused me to actually drink more. For a while there, I was able to drink up to 18 beers in a single day and wake up feeling normal. Not even a hangover. My body was so accustomed to the constant onslaught; it was like it had simply given up protesting.
Naltrexone worked like a dream. It literally took away my desire to drink. It was a surreal thing. It also took away my desire to do anything but lay in bed and sleep all day. I would have stuck with it but, as you know, I chewed the Naltrexone pill each morning with my spoonful of jam and, let me tell you, dear Reader… It was the foulest tasting medicine I have ever taken. And I’ve chewed a lot of different pills. Ibuprofen’s probably my favorite, flavor-wise. The bite complements the sweetness of the jam.
Anyway, I began gagging and getting sick after taking it just from the taste and nothing I found could mask it. So, it was out. And yes, me and my stupid fears are a constant source of irritation to me. Sobriety lasted four and a half days twice. One of those times I was counting down the hours to the end of each day. I’d take a couple swigs of Benadryl in the evenings to make me sleep so I wouldn’t be up craving.
Sobriety was boring a lot of the time, though. I felt like I’d never before noticed how truly long each day is. Despite all the extra hours I seemed to have everyday, I felt like doing absolutely nothing. I had no energy.
I wasn’t one of those people who go sober and simultaneously join a gym and get ripped in two months. I wasn’t feeling the kale smoothies or the celery juice that everyone seemed to be recommending. That juicer wasn’t cheap, either.
I kept attending the weekly therapy sessions. We talked and talked and talked. I hadn’t realized how much I actually had to say. This isn’t a story of magic and cure-alls.
I’ve been attending therapy for almost three years now. I still love to pop open a Coors or two or three sometimes while writing in my therapy journal. But, not every time. Not every day.
Some days I have no desire for alcohol and I don’t drink and it’s somehow not a big deal. I don’t find myself counting down the hours anymore on sober days or during sober streaks. I don’t want to say my drinking is totally under control because we all know that’s a myth; it’s always under control until it isn’t. But, it is way less important to my daily life than it used to be.
When I’m upset sometimes I sit in front of my computer and write for hours until I get it all out. Sometimes I go running. Sometimes I get lost playing in a pretend world with my kids for hours. Sometimes I reach for my tried-and-true Coors.
And, sometimes I buy a bunch of celery and set it threateningly on top of my juicer to await breakfast time.
