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alcohol misuse and OCD


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This is a post from the heart and has taken me several months "to write" on the open page.

For many years (and I mean MANY) I used alcohol in some messed up way to "help" me deal with overwhelming feelings of anxiety and intrusive thoughts. Last year I nearly died because my alcohol use was so excessive I was rushed into hospital and had to have six blood transfusions and other emergency treatment. I had to accept I had a serious drink problem which had caused serious damage to my physical and mental health.

Nine months sober I can tell you with 100 per cent honesty that my OCD is more or less under "control",  I no longer have panic attacks and rarely feel overwhelmed by anxiety. The "simple" approach of making a daily commitment to not drink alcohol has had amazing and unexpected results. I also attend AA meetings regularly and have a realistic approach to "recovery" from alcoholism.

I doubt very much I'm the only person who has used alcohol to try and deal with uncomfortable feelings and thoughts and if you DO please try and restrain yourself from drinking excessively - it's not going to help believe me and I wouldn't anyone to go through what I went through last summer or put my nearest and dearest through.

I have permanent damage to my liver but this is a manageable condition IF I abstain from alcohol. I've never felt healthier, more positive and at ease with myself. I still suffer from OCD but nowhere near as badly as I did.

Best wishes, Phil

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Guest OCDhavenobrain

Good job. It is like night and day comparing a state where you any time can get triggered and get nasty and icky anxiety and a state where you just move along and feel some grounding. 

You drank because the anxiety was unbearable and instead of judging yourself, praise yourself that you didn't remove yourself from life. 
 

But most importantly please keep up the good work.

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Good job on dealing with 2 very serious issues--the alcoholism and the OCD. 

I know I will sometimes have a drink if i'm feeling anxious--no threat of over-drinking with me, but i actually do find that while the drink can help in the moment, my anxiety actually gets worse in the following days.

Thank you so much for sharing your story--it's an important one to hear!

Do you find the AA program is also helpful for approaching some of your OCD issues?--I've often wondered if 12 step programs could be applied to OCD as well.

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@PhilM - Congratulations on your recovery, both from OCD and from alcohol.  Sorry to hear about what you had to go through to get there of course!  Thank you for sharing, it probably isn't easy to talk about, and I hope others heed your wise words and learn from your experience.  Best wishes for your continued good health!

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Thank you for the replies.

I'm doing really well with my OCD but I still have the condition. I'm not recovered from alcoholism - I'm of the AA view that it's a daily reprieve. However, to hit the rock bottom I did has been amazing for me physically, mentally and spiritually.

The thing about AA is that you can "over-dose" on meetings. I'll explain. If you go to a LOT of meetings you will hear stories which can be very distressing but also funny and uplifting. It can be very emotional. Some people reckon the self-reflection involved in the AA "program" can lead to obsessive thinking - I'm not sure if that's true or not. I have to maintain a balance between meetings, "working the program", my relationship with my wife etc.

In terms of applying the 12 steps to OCD (and I know there is an organisation called OCD Anonymous) I wouldn't say yay or nay. However,  I know that when the thoughts of drinking come into my head I have to remind myself that those thoughts or "cravings" are common in relatively early sobriety and nothing to do with intent - like the intrusive thoughts OCD sufferers have. It works for OCD when in a calmer state of mind and with drinking thoughts if that makes sense?

Best wishes, Phil

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Alcohol neutralizes OCD so I can see how some would find it useful. But it also lowers serotonin & this is called Alcohol Anxiety. It’s not OCD but if one has OCD first it could get stronger.  

As for the question of AA format for treatment of OCD I don’t think it would be very effective because it was created by a church & most of the book has not been updated since 1934(?), whereas there are newer treatments for OCD. 

 

Good for Phil. 

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1 hour ago, Handy said:

Alcohol neutralizes OCD so I can see how some would find it useful. But it also lowers serotonin & this is called Alcohol Anxiety. It’s not OCD but if one has OCD first it could get stronger.  

As for the question of AA format for treatment of OCD I don’t think it would be very effective because it was created by a church & most of the book has not been updated since 1934(?), whereas there are newer treatments for OCD. 

 

Good for Phil. 

Your 'Good for Phil' comes across as patronizing at best, troll-like at worst, after your boring 'lecture' about the outdated background of AA. 

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Paradoxer thanks for having my back. If I'm being patronised I'm really not bothered and I'm certainly not getting into a debate about AA, its origins etc. on an OCD forum! :-) . 

I just want to make one thing clear: I did NOT say alcohol was "useful" or "neutralises OCD" - it makes it worse in my experience. Yes, there is some temporary relief but please do not go down the road I did was my WHOLE point.

Additionally I want to make clear that I was pointing out that reducing OR stopping heavy alcohol consumption can relieve a lot of symptoms of OCD and anxiety - certainly in MY case.

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On 01/06/2019 at 10:41, Handy said:

As for the question of AA format for treatment of OCD I don’t think it would be very effective because it was created by a church & most of the book has not been updated since 1934(?), whereas there are newer treatments for OCD. 

1. AA was not "created by a church", though even if it was, so what? If it works, it works.
2. The core methodology (the 12 steps) has remained largely unchanged since its inception, but then its also remained highly effective for helping alcoholics (and to varying degrees other kinds of suffering).

Finally, the question was not "Is AA the best treatment for OCD" it was "Do you find the AA program is also helpful for approaching some of your OCD issues?--I've often wondered if 12 step programs could be applied to OCD as well."

Many of the principles of AA coincide with the treatment approaches of CBT, and much like other methodologies (such as Mindfulness) could be beneficial to a person seeking to gain control of their life back from OCD.  While addiction and OCD are not the same, they share many traits and it would be foolish to dismiss the AA methodology out of hand.  So long as it helps and does not harm, I see nothing wrong with people using the principles in their recovery.

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I posted I was six months sober before I went back to AA (I made a half-hearted) attempt to stop drinking 13 years ago.

The lessons I learn from AA are not just about not drinking but how to lead a different way of life including the way I deal with my thoughts, my responses to criticism (perceived or real) and interaction with other people.

Personally I've learnt more about myself (and continue to do so) since I went back to AA than I did in a hundred + therapy sessions.

My original post was about alcohol misuse and OCD but as a tangent I've come to believe that AA is helping me in many areas of my life. I had to nearly die as a consequence of alcoholism to realise how much I wanted to live. It doesn't have to be like that for everyone.

Edited by PhilM
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On 30/05/2019 at 23:01, PhilM said:

In terms of applying the 12 steps to OCD (and I know there is an organisation called OCD Anonymous) I wouldn't say yay or nay. However,  I know that when the thoughts of drinking come into my head I have to remind myself that those thoughts or "cravings" are common in relatively early sobriety and nothing to do with intent - like the intrusive thoughts OCD sufferers have. It works for OCD when in a calmer state of mind and with drinking thoughts if that makes sense?

 

7 hours ago, PhilM said:

The lessons I learn from AA are not just about not drinking but how to lead a different way of life including the way I deal with my thoughts, my responses to criticism (perceived or real) and interaction with other people.

Yes that makes sense. I can imagine there would be a lot of things in both therapies to approach and apply to each of the disorders. I've never heard of OCD Anonymous; i will look that up.

I often wish i could be part of a peer support group for OCD, but we have none in my area and i don't feel ready to try and start one. Lots of AA groups here though and i'm often impressed by people's sense of connection and their recovery through that.

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I'm not proud of myself (though it's nice of you to say I should be!) because it took a massive "rock bottom" for me to stop drinking. Can I say with certainty I'll never drink again? No, I can't but that doesn't mean I have to stay in a state of "red alert".

The same with the catastrophic thinking of somebody with OCD - it's all about what might happen IF you don't do things to keep yourself safe. There's no such thing as 100 per cent certainty as I did and many other OCD sufferers seek - it's never going to happen.

I've not had any treatment for OCD for several years and historically what I share with older members (and some younger members) of this forum is admissions to psychiatric hospitals, inappropriate treatment and horrible and long-term side effects from medication.

The simple fact, is that with very little force on my part, by not taking my thoughts on pretty much any subject so seriously I started to feel better within myself. Yes I still feel panicky at times and uncertain at times but to me that's just part of the human condition. I still identify myself as a "sufferer" of OCD albeit one who recognises when things are going well. It MIGHT get bad again - who knows?

To me AND JUST ME this is not as complicated a condition as I was led to believe although it can of course have a devastating impact on people's lives and also their loved ones. Claire Weekes wrote "they are only thoughts and no-one need ever be bluffed by a thought". It's the truth. Reduce the anxiety and calm the mind and the fear of the thoughts reduces.

If a person is waiting for treatment it doesn't mean they have to wait be in a state of passive despair or post multiple times on forums such as this and sit around anxiously waiting for a response. Action is the key - being pro-active slowly rebuilds confidence.

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