Past stress and drinking 10/21/17

How stress and anxiety link to drinking

People who have some problems with regulating their emotions as adults will often have had lots of stressful experiences as children, which have caused them to become ‘dysregulated’. The button in their brain that controls anxiety, mood, and even motivation, has been pressed too much and is now worn out. They might need to drink lots of coffee to get going, or they might need to drink a lot of alcohol to calm themselves down.

Exposure to ongoing stress means that our brains produce less dopamine over time, and so we can feel flat and empty – which can cause us to seek out the ‘high’ of alcohol or drugs. Having a sip of alcohol sends excitatory projections to our nucleus accumbens, part of our reward pathway. A complex set of interactions occur which result in that ‘good’ feeling we can get from drinking, and in people who are vulnerable, it can be a really intense and rewarding experience.

Perhaps at the beginning it is about having pleasure and getting enjoyment, and later on it may become about taking away unpleasant emotions and discomfort from not having the alcohol – which is a good indicator that a problem is starting to develop, and some support is needed.

I was reading the above article and these three ideas mad me think about my life.

I had a pretty stressful and chaotic childhood - seven different elementary schools because my dad was a teacher and an alcoholic and would loose his job.  We would move to a different part of the state with the promise that everything would be different this time.  We never knew if my dad would be happy and drunk, happy and sober, depressed and sober, angry and sober, angry and drunk (fighting with my mom and sending us to bed at 6:00 only to listen to the fighting and crying), hilarious and playful and drunk, reckless and drunk (teaching us how to shoot guns and drowning kittens). We got up at 4:00 am and slept in the back of a station wagon while my  mom delivered newspapers to earn a little extra money.  My mom finally left him when I was in the 5th grade and we moved in with my grandparents - new school again.  Then we moved into a small house (new school) when I was in 6th grade. We were on food stamps and basically latch key kids so my mom could work. I was responsible for getting housework done and dinner started in 6th grade with two younger sisters that were not going to listen to "bossy pants" me. I grew up super fast, having to take care of my younger sisters and never wanting to show any emotional neediness because I knew my mom had enough to deal with. I got straight A's, never got in trouble and tried to be perfect so I wasn't creating more work for my mom. I basically felt alone and lonely my entire childhood. No close friends bc we moved so much, with an emotionally unavailable mother, a father who I loved dearly but was also unavailable to me and later was prohibited by my mother to even have contact with me (he died a few years ago when I was just beginning to get to know him again). My mother was not only emotionally unavailable bc she was trying to raise three girls on her own but because she is of that German upbringing with not a whole lot of concern for my emotional well being (kind of the  type who would "do" anything for you but has a hard time just listening and showing love, caring and compassion). Her idea of listening to any problems in my life is to talk about how her life is just as hard or pointing out that all of my difficulties could be worse and they will pass - never just really listening, trying to understand and showing empathy. Even now - she asks me how I am - I tell her it has been a really hard week with conferences, etc. She tells me how hard her week has been and that I only have one more day until the weekend.  I never really feel like she hears me and feels for me. I can tell when she asks me how I am she really doesn't want to hear about anything negative but is always willing to tell me about how difficult her day has been.  It's not really her fault. She was raised like that - but I have always needed so much more and had no one to get it from.

Then my mother got remarried to a man with three older boys who were not great influences on us.  It was great for her - new husband, new house, new income, but for me it was just one more different school (starting middle school no less) and being thrust into another situation where there was no one emotionally available for me.  My mom was busy with her new husband doing things she enjoyed which she felt was much deserved after all she had been through. I felt completely alone but didn't ever want to share any of these feelings as I had learned to not burden others with my feelings. Even now I know everyone has there own shit to deal with so I try to keep mine to myself. No one really cares about my shit. I don't think anyone really cares about anyone else's shit. Just deal with your own shit and keep it to yourself.  We all have problems - OMG!! That sounds like my mom who I am determined to not become! I am 100% emotionally available to both my my kids but maybe not to anyone else.  I should work on that.

So anyways, in high school I found a group of people that I could drink with. All of a sudden I felt accepted, wanted, liked and mattered.  And....the alcohol made me happy.  I related my weekend drinking to belonging, less stress, letting go, having fun, kind of a release and actually having friends who cared about me. They actually called me to set up plans.  This had never been the case for me before. I think I did this so for so long (10 years) that my subconscious started connecting alcohol with happiness.  

Then I had kids and drank less for a few years. But..we moved into this brand new neighborhood, met new people who also had little kids and liked to party.  I now had "adult" friends who liked me, thought I was great and wanted to hang out with me.  I belonged!  I became the party planner and hostess.  Everyone was always invited to my house for a party and I could pull off some last minute food and drinks like a pro.  It was awesome! I was popular, well liked, fun and...could drink with my fiends every weekend but still be a responsible mother because my kids were playing with their kids and no one was driving.  

This lasted until about 10 years ago - kind of "it's fun until it's not".  I had lost contact with many of my high school friends bc I had traded them in for my new neighborhood friends. Many of my neighborhood friends had either moved away or just got so busy with high school/college aged kids that we stopped hanging out so much. Plus, my drinking was becoming much less enjoyable for me so I started cutting down which meant less party planning and hosting which meant it wasn't happening as often if ever. Maybe nobody thought is was a great as I did.  It kind of happened slowly - my increasing issues with debilitating hangovers, embarrassing night befores, my isolation and self obsession with my alcohol consumption and the lack of neighborhood parties.  The more I tried to control my drinking - the more I would weekend binge drink - the worse the hangovers would be - the worse my self loathing and anger and disappointment would be. I kind of started living in my in my own little personal prison.

Now I am not drinking, feel way more in control of my feelings and actions/reactions to situations.  I feel more in control of what I do with my time. I also feel sad and stressed and a bit depressed about my pathetic past. I think I might have used alcohol to deal with all of those feelings and now they are just with me without any relief.  Gotta find a way to deal with them differently.