Greetings.

[teej]

Thought I should introduce myself. :)

I've suffered from anxiety and depression since a car accident in 2004. Unfortunately through moving around a lot and some bad situations I ended up self-medicating with alcohol.

Three weeks ago following a serious anxiety / depressive episode, the drinking entirely got out of hand. Following a week of hell trying to detox on my own, I went and confessed everything to my GP and detoxed.

I've now been prescribed citalopram. I thought the hard times were going to be related to quitting the drinking but how wrong I was!

Hopefully there's some light at the end of the tunnel for me, but it's an utterly awful month of my life and I'm starting to run out of that original resolve that's kept me off the booze for the first two weeks in a decade.

I've been lurking for a few days but certainly could do with making some friends who understand.

I'm going to go and post in the citalopram forum now. :weep:

Thanks

T

[venusbluejeans]

Hiya and welcome to NMP:welcome:

I hope you find the as site helpful and informative as I have and that you get the help and support you need here and hope that you meet a few friends along the way :yesyes:

I am on day 20 of Citalopram, struggling at the minute BUT I do know that things get better as this is my 3rd time of taking them

[teej]

Thanks venusbluejeans! I look forward finding my way around. :D

Good to know things get better! Just need to hold myself together for the next few weeks then somehow.

[Annie0904]

Hi Welcome to NMP :)

[Seeking Freedom]

:welcome: Hopefully you can find some peace of mind from the site. I definitely think it helps to talk about the problems and realise you're not the only one.

Stick it out and good luck!!

[teej]

Thanks guys. It's great already knowing there's people to reach out to.:yesyes:

[chromegirl]

Hi teej,

My experience with alcohol may help. I quit drinking after years of abusing the stuff, and I was motivated to stop by the idea that my anxiety would go away.

Wouldn't you know it, my anxiety was WORSE (at first!). I had taken away the numbing agent, booze, which ironically makes it worse in the long run. When almost anybody quits drinking, they experience "flooding"-- a ton of emotions that had been under wraps for so long, under the booze.

It's easier said than done, but let yourself feel those feelings. I believe that some of us get in a pickle because we just can't tolerate sadness, anxiety, etc. But the truth is: a FEELING can't hurt you.

After about 3 months of sobriety, my anxiety problems did improve, so hang on and stay strong. It does get better!

[teej]

Hi chromegirl,

The adjustment has been harsh. I think you're absolutely correct in that there is a rebound effect. All those years I've been suppressing my brain and now it's been set loose there's a massive amount of over compensation going on. I'm still amazed that I'm able to go to sleep of my own volition though!

I've been trying to go with the flow of emotions a bit, my last week of drinking was so incredibly bad anyway as I effectively spent a week going in and out of serious alcohol withdrawal that sobriety has been a welcome gift - at least there has been some stability in knowing that this is as bad as it's going to get, as unpleasant as that has been. With the alcohol withdrawal I was always wondering how bad it was going to be.

Going on the citalopram has been a bit of a shock though, as many of the side effects feel remarkable similar to those I suffered early in the alcohol withdrawal - slight trembling, large doses of anxiety, and the dreaded intrusive thoughts - so it's taken a huge leap of faith to ignore those old behaviours and not grab a bottle to make the side effects go away.

It's a daily battle, I won't deny... just got to keep the hope up, each day I seem to have more glimmers of hope too. Hopefully it's not jus wishful thinking!

Thanks for your kind words... it's helping me look forwards!:)

[chromegirl]

You can do it! The sun will come out!!!! :)