Dealing With Depression

[EbonNelumbo]

Has anyone else on here used drinking to help? To be more specific, the strongest legal stuff you can in large quantities?

Just curious.

-Oddbeani

 

[livingword26]

Has anyone else on here used drinking to help? To be more specific, the strongest legal stuff you can in large quantities?

Just curious.

-Oddbeani

Alcohol will not help. It will only cover it up temorarily. You then have the decission to make as to weather or not you are going to try to keep it covered up which takes more alcohol. Pretty soon you are 40 and you have 25 years of repressed emotion eating at your insides. Get couseling at your church. If you have to get medicated get perscription anti-depressants for short periods of time. Most of all seek the Lord. He is your healer.

 

[tonybartoli4hope]

It is so tough when you're in Depression-- it's like you want to cry out but you do not know to who or how!!
I have never really gone on a Drinking trip when I get down-right depressed.
I mean, honestly, the feeling is like an air-sucking and chest-crushing feeling. I do not know that I would have the strength to open Any drink. The hurt, loneliness and fear is enough to just want to curl up and hope that time moves along and fast.
It just that when You're going through Stuff like this...time REALLY seems to slow down.
I try, I REALLY try to write something down....think of a Funny story, Call a Friend, remember the times that I have reached out to a hurting some-one.
Then I try to remember that Today is just a Day!!! Normally stuff like that and definitely Praying for the Peace of God will keep me from a substance longing..

tony

 

[snoopy4presadent]

I have tried that. You are not alone. And because of your comment, I know that I am not alone. I hope drinking will make me forget, yet like many quick fixes, I find that it is temporary and leaves you emptier. I have been a Christian walking with God for years, but nothing prepared me for the wallop that depression packs. Nothing. God has helped me through it and still is, and I beg that he will remove this thorn from my side, but until he does, yes, I struggle to not drink or smoke or cuss or anything that can lead to hurting myself in order to convince myself that I can still feel anything other than depression. Sorry, that was kind of rambly, I don't use the computer and this is my first forum, and for the first time I feel a little hope that other people cursed with depression can understand what I am going through. God bless you

J

 

[katylees]

I've used drink too, in the end i think it just makes us worse. Last year i used to get drunk at least once a week just so i could forget everything. Then this year when i get drunk i tend to get all depressed and cry and then not stop crying for ages. So i don't get drunk that often any more. Hope you're okay

 

[DrAmA_Q33n]

I've used drink too, in the end i think it just makes us worse. Last year i used to get drunk at least once a week just so i could forget everything. Then this year when i get drunk i tend to get all depressed and cry and then not stop crying for ages. So i don't get drunk that often any more. Hope you're okay

im too young to legally get drunk

 

[DrAmA_Q33n]

i know people who have

 

[VVV]

Has anyone else on here used drinking to help? To be more specific, the strongest legal stuff you can in large quantities?

Just curious.

-Oddbeani

Yes, tried all sorts of drugs. The only things that helped was to restructure my life. Living an unbalanced life really contributed to my depression. Stress and depression go hand in hand, then we get sick from the stress and the depression and stress just gets worse and it becomes a death spiral. We can define stress as "a state that evokes effort on the part of the individual to maintain or restore equilibrium." The 2 R's are important to remember when it comes to stress management. They are Reduce stress and Relationship to stress. Reducing stress is the number one tool at our disposal. After we reduce what we can then we must work on how we relate to stress that cannot be reduced or eliminated. A life of voluntary simplicity has helped me greatly in this area of stress reduction. In terms of relating to stress, my Buddhist and Taoist practices as well as my 12 step work support me in this area. They help me accept or change the problem...then it is solved either way. Tired of being angry? Just relinquish control and anger will be diminished. Anger and control go hand in hand. I discuss this topic in an earlier post "Justified Anger"

Meditation and mindfulness helped calm my mind. A constantly busy kind cannot heal itself. Joining the simple living movement help make time for me to meditate and relax. Without time for contemplative practices and relaxation I am sunk. This is an almost top necessity for me. I tell those that say they have no time to relax to get into voluntary simplicity. If you can't keep up, scale back until you can keep up. I need to eat right and sleep right and exercise right as well. Many foods help trigger crazy thinking and can lead to depression, especially the salty and chemical rich, artificial factory foods. This is much easier to see once we clean up our diet and our thinking.

Sleep is also a problem with me as well as many health related stress produced problems. My sleep has improved, but I have to keep a watchful eye on my lifestyle as it can be back to problematic living in short order. I also found that my depression and stress sickness was greatly helped when I started to work on repairing the wreckage of the past that was constantly being fueled by my various addictions. From years of practicing these addictions I had dug a deep hole for myself and my family. The bigger mess I made, the more stress I created for myself and the more depression and hopelessness arose from my wrong lifestyle. Once I started to restructure my life in the direction of recovery, the benefits started showing up at my door. One thing was certain, I could not keep my old sick life and get better as well. Something had to go. I was now on track and the problems my earlier life were being cleaned up and I was not added new problems daily to add to the list of old problems.

Besides nutrition and getting the proper vitamins I have to work in spiritual areas as well. I need a balanced way to live right - not 100% spiritual and not 100% physical, but need to blend the two seamlessly for proper recovery. 12 step work as well as personal religious and spiritual studies helped me in this area. We are spiritual beings in a physical body living in a physical world so we are governed by both spiritual as well as physical or natural laws. So, we must never forget to work in both areas. In short, we have to live right and not work against the natural laws as well as spiritual laws that govern us if we want hopes for a new life. I am lucky to be able to recover in these areas using natural methods. Other persons suffering from depression might have a chemical imbalance in the brain and need medical advice and special medications. If this is the case, it is a matter of doing the footwork in all these medical areas to find out what can be done. Depression can stem from many areas but once thing is for sure, If we dedicate ourselves to work on getting better and making a better life for us we can almost always improve our life in a positive direction and make progress...but it takes work on our part to make these changes happen.









V (Male)

A xxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxx living a life of Voluntary Simplicity and grateful recovering Debtor, Drug, Alcohol and Substance Abuser, Compulsive Overeater, Clutterer, Hoarder, Rageaholic, Speculative Gambler, Compulsive Spender, Sex and Sensation Addict.

 

[Frangible]

Alcohol will take the depression away for a while, but you'll pay for it the next day. Exercise has a stronger effect in reducing depression and is much healthier.

And if you're really hardcore, a night of total sleep deprivation has been shown in numerous medical studies to be a very fast-acting depression relief. Supposedly effects serotonin receptor sensitivity or something. It's not easy staying up that long though.

 

[EbonNelumbo]

Wow, I did not expect such response. Thank you all very much.
Tony--> I have tried many things to laugh and only one has proven successful, though the series which I can laugh at is not exactly wholesome (Mind of Mencia.) I do thank you and pertaining to the strength of opening bottles, I think the Everclear company took that into account, though for drunkeness and thus made a screw top.
Frangible--> I thank you for your comment. I do have this 'problem' in that besides long term health problems I have zero results besides being completely wasted (ie, no hangovers.) I am an insomniac and thus for me staying up does the opposite from whichever studies you have read. It is indeed the serotonin receptors which are effected, as well as norepinephrine. Considering I am on large quantities of antidepressants skipping sleep messes up the effects of those medications, as it would with ANYONE on medications. For normal people it can indeed have a positive effect, though continuous sleep deprivation can lead to depression from a maladjustment of the serotonin reuptake neurotransmitters. ( http://sleepdisorders.about.com/cs/depress/a/depression.htm) Though that is not the most reliable site, it has proven info.

VVV--> I thank you for such a well-thought response and so many wonderful ideas. I wish you well.

Drama Queen--> I am glad you are too young to drink! Though technically, I am as well, thus being only 20 until November.

Katylees--> *hug* I thank you so much for your words.

Snoopy4Presadent--> You are very much not alone, trust me. You can probably PM me with whichever issues you have and you will find I have been diagnosed with them as well. It's really quite disconcerting.

Living Word26--> I have no doubt you know what you are talking about. I agree with you completely that I will indeed reap the sins of this field I have sown, less I stop now and repent. Though frankly, I am drinking to avoiding make an attempt such as I did last year, as I vowed never to be in that position again, failure is not an option. It is easier to be a closet alcoholic, and not have people talking behind your back because you are too depressed to function. It' a downhill spiral and I seem to have nothing to be a brake. I have been praying and I have no clue where to go from here...

 

[FallingWaters]

Has anyone else on here used drinking to help? To be more specific, the strongest legal stuff you can in large quantities?

Just curious.

-Oddbeani

Dear OddBeani,

When I get extremely stressed out over a long period of time or I experience extreme anger, I feel tempted to numb myself with alcohol. And sometimes I do it. I did so a few times last year. My problem is that I have to wait until my children are in bed (around 10 PM) and I feel ashamed of myself when I'm buying it in the grocery store, so those are strong deterrents.

Normally, I carry stress and anger around without knowing it because I am out of touch with my feelings until someone asks, and gives me a minute to think about it.

My father was/is an alcoholic and it runs in my family, so it is something I fear becoming addicted to.

But yes. For me, it is more of a relaxant. And I stop at one or two servings because I don't want the headache or to get sick.

 

[bumblebee62331]

I have used alcohol once and it scared me. I came home from a stressful day, I was upset and depressed, I went straight to the fridge and got out a can of alcohol and drank the lot in two gulps. It normally takes me about an hour to get through one. It was very scary.

The only reason I didn't drink more was because there was no more in the fridge.

 

[Arkanin]

Has anyone else on here used drinking to help? To be more specific, the strongest legal stuff you can in large quantities?

Just curious.

-Oddbeani

The problem with drinking is that it doesn't solve problems; it simply delays them. In turn, your un-dealt with problems get worse, making you more depressed, and causing you to want you to drink more.

I don't think it's absolutely awful if once in a blue moon someone gets smashed because they had a terrible day and they don't want to think about it. But more than once a year is probably a problem; drinking every night to push back the same problem is a simply self-destructive cycle.