Biting the Hands That Feed Each Other: Stress and Alcohol

Stress and Alcohol

Your boss wants the project on their desk first thing tomorrow morning. Your rent is due and you’re short, again. You forgot about your anniversary. It’s Monday.

When you finally get home, you have a drink or two to wind down, which isn’t necessarily a problem, not yet. According to Gateway Aurora Executive Director David Woods, stress-related drinking becomes a problem when someone starts relying on alcohol as a way to self-medicate, when alcohol becomes the only form of stress-relief.

To be clear, stress and anxiety are different from stress and anxiety disorders. We all experience stress and anxiety to a degree. Stress is sometimes even healthy. It tells our body and our brain to react to a threat. It can kick-start our body to fight off an infection or help us perform better under pressure. However, unmanaged and acute or long-term stress can damage our bodies and our minds.

Stress and Alcohol: Is Alcohol a Stimulant or a Depressant?

Although alcohol in small doses acts like a stimulant, or a pick-me-up, alcohol is a depressant, meaning it lowers activity of the central nervous system; simply put, it relaxes us. If someone turns to the bottle time and time again under stress, however, they will likely develop an association between the two, a habit, and then a tolerance to its stress-alleviating properties. It will take more alcohol to feel the same level of relief, increasing vulnerability to addiction.

Despite alcohol’s ability to diminish stress, studies have shown it dually extends the negative experience of stressors and decreases alcohol’s positive effects. So the negative emotion associated with that project – still due tomorrow – may be even worse when you present it to your boss the next day.

People in recovery may need to overcome more hurdles to cope with stressors without the help of alcohol. Studies have also indicated people in recovery experience increased rates of relapse in the face of life stressors.

However, finding support and healthy coping mechanisms can reduce alcohol misuse, relapse rates and stress levels.

Alternative ways to relieve stress:

• Exercise or go for a walk
• Laugh – at a video, TV show, or meme
• Listen to music
• Journal or craft
• Take a nap
• Spend time with pets or people you love

“If you’re struggling to stop using alcohol and not getting any relief from your coping mechanisms, then you really need to get support through medically assisted treatment or counseling or both,” Woods advises, “and that’s where treatment comes in.”

How do you deal with stress? Share your healthy stress relievers with us this month @RecoverGateway on Facebook and Twitter. For help overcoming the effects of stress and alcohol, contact Gateway today at 877.505.4673 to learn more about our addiction treatment programs.

Gateway Foundation

Gateway Foundation is a recognized leader in evidence-based addiction treatment proven to get results. Our experts in Addiction Medicine—including highly educated clinical and medical professionals and expert psychiatrists and nurses—deliver care that never stops. For over 50 years, Gateway Foundation has been helping individuals and their families recover from addictions and behavioral health issues and is the only provider that covers the entire state of Illinois with 16 facilities from the Wisconsin Border to the Kentucky Border. Gateway has specific programs focusing on substance use disorders, trauma, depression, anxiety, and other co-occurring issues. We’re licensed by the state of Illinois and accredited by the Joint Commission. We are in-network with all the major commercial insurance plans. Gateway Foundation: Addiction medicine, saving lives.