OCD anxiety about alcohol?

[Erp222]

Hi All. Ive been lurking around here for a while now months and had the normal ups and downs that everyone else had. Ive had anxiety/ocd for as long as I could think, prob from age 19-33 (im 33 now). Ive been diagnosed by the doc with GAD and OCD (pure o, with the main compulsion being googling everything all the time). I have now latched onto the fear that I am/or will become an alcoholic I was wondering if anyone else had the same fear at some point. I kinda relate it to having a mental illness fear, like the fear you are going schitzo. A little background on this one, I drank like the rest of my college buddies through school and early 20s (not any more or less than the group that involved 2-3 nights a week binging at the bar). Used to also drink 2-3 glasses of wine with dinner and gf a few nights a week for a little while in my mid 20s. About 5 years ago, I was getting married, basically thought that it was time to grow up and get some better habits. Now I drink maybe a glass or 2 of wine at a saturday night dinner with friends and I can only remember getting drunk 2-3 times in last 5 years or so (maybe drinking like 4-5 drinks).


I just wanted to put it out there if anyone else had weird mental fears like this. My anxiety seems to analyze that maybe I drank too much in college and my 20s that I broke my brain into becoming an alcoholic and i am eventually doomed to that fate. I constantly think about it everyday, feeling like there is something wrong with me. I literally notice alcohol everywhere now and tense up and get anxious anytime I see it. It drive me nuts! To be honest, I do like to go out with friends and have a drink or 2 at dinner and socialize (only 3-4 times a month), but the whole topic scares the heck out of me. Wondering if anyone else had this topic or something related. Kinda feel out on an island here. Thanks

[MyNameIsTerry]

Hi,

Have a look at these extracts off OCD Uk's website:


Intrusive Thoughts - Intrusive thoughts, in the spectrum of OCD, are where a person generally suffers with obsessional thoughts that are repetitive, disturbing and often horrific and repugnant in nature. For example, thoughts of causing violent or sexual harm to loved ones.
Because the intrusive thoughts are repetitive and not voluntarily produced, they cause the sufferer extreme distress - the very idea that they are capable of having such thoughts in the first place can be horrifying. However, what we do know is that people with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder are the least likely people to actually act on the thoughts, partly because they find them so repugnant and go to great lengths to avoid them and prevent them happening.



Intrusive thoughts can cover absolutely any subject, but the more common areas of OCD related concerns covers the following sub- categories:

Relationships.
Sexual Thoughts - Fear of:
Magical Thinking - believing that:
Religious - believing that:
Violent Thoughts - fear of:
Magical Thinking Intrusive Thoughts - is the fear is that even thinking about something bad will make it more likely to happen - sometimes also called ‘thought-action fusion’.



Sufferers are beset by intrusive bad thoughts. They try to dispel them by performing rituals - magic rituals, in effect - that are often bizarre and time-consuming and involve linking actions or events that could not possibly be related to each other. For example having the thought 'I may strangle someone' is regarded as being as reprehensible as actually strangling a person. Another example is believing that simply imagining a horrific car crash will increase the likelihood of such a crash taking place, or a person may feel that if they don’t count to ten ‘just right’ harm will come to a family member. Other examples of magical thinking, or thought-action fusion intrusive thoughts include:

A certain colour or number has good or bad luck associated with it.
Certain days have good or bad luck associated with them.
A loved one’s death can be predicted.
One’s thoughts can cause disasters to occur.
Stepping on cracks in the pavement can make bad things happen.
Whatever comes to mind can come true.
Breaking chain letters will actually bring bad luck.
Attending a funeral will bring death.
One can inadvertently cause harm to others with thoughts or carelessness.
Hearing the word ‘death’ will mean repeating the word ‘life’ to prevent death.
In each example listed above, the thoughts and events happening could not possibly ever be linked, but the person with OCD will believe that this possibility does exist, and as a result, this will cause them immense stress and anxiety. As a result, their silent internal compulsive behaviours will take hours, and often prevent them interacting with anyone else during this time.


Does any of that sound like how you are feeling? Notice the bit I've bolded in red which is very important.

It's irrational to believe that drinking from years ago could make you an alcoholic now. It's irrational to think that you could have somehow damaged yourself into being a potential alcoholic. You know this, you know it's the anxiety.

I think it's important for you to remember that these are just thoughts and thoughts don't equate to actions. If you find yourself having compulsions to drink, make sure you get some help from your GP/therapist because you don't want to make yourself an alcoholic by performing rituals that will make you one.

It sounds like you understand this and are challenging your thoughts because you do drink in moderation - an alcoholic couldn't do this. Remember that.

I've got GAD & OCD. I found CBT helped with the OCD a bit. It helped me reduce the lesser rituals & obsessions but not the worst ones. I found to work on them successfully, I had to attack the GAD to make myself less anxious overall and for this I used Mindfulness meditation. It takes time to learn but you can see at least minor benefits quickly. It helps you relax your mind and feel your sensations. It helps you to detach from them, see them as sensations only, let your mind wander but then bring it back to focus when it strays somewhere it shouldn't. One of the big parts of it is to become a calmer person, afterall it comes from Buddhism. So, I think it is useful for anxiety sufferers but I think it's something we should practice for the rest of our lives to ensure we don't slip back again.

Try it out. Their are downloads on the internet. If you want a resource for Mindfulness, I think Jon Kabat-Zinn is in the US and he's accredited with creating Mindfulness Based CBT (MBCBT) which is a combination of Mindfulness as CBT techniques. Mark Williams is one of the main ones for us in the UK.

I might also be useful to try Exposure & Response Prevention (ERP) therapy where the aim is to confront it, endure it as long as possible (in a structured manner) so that you habituate to it and the anxiety loses it's power. This seems to be useful with OCD types where it's something you think you could become, so you expose yourself to it to prove it's not who you are. Since it's alcohol, maybe this would be achieved by drinking in moderation but it may need monitoring so you can refer back to it and see it's caused nothing. You would be best seeking some advice on this though as my knowledge of ERP is limited and doesn't cover things like what you are describing, it's just a possibility worth mentioning.

[Erp222]

Thanks for the long reply. I appreciate it. I've actually just started mindfulness exercises. I know its gonna take a lot of practice :)

his theme has waxed an waned for a couple years now and the fact that it doesnt go away scares me. I know its probably because I want it to go away, but never the less. Its also focused on the anxiety I get from the subject now, my mind saying "what it you want to drink to self medicate" because a lot of alcoholics drink to self medicate. Then I will monitor my mood all day thinking looking for signs to self medicate. Its a viscous cycle. Its really annoying because when I go out for dinner with friends on the weekend, i can have a glass or 2 of wine, feel relaxed and not want another one. Then my OCD mind says "see you had a glass of wine and it made you feel good. See you are really an alcoholic". ha. I hope its my mind playing tricks on me

[MyNameIsTerry]

It is playing tricks on you or you would have had that extra drink and the next one and the next one.

Ruminating on thoughts makes them stronger and thats half the battle with all this. We are trying to get better and all along it's strengthening itself by ruminating!

I hope Mindfulness meditation works out for you. It is helping a lot of people. I found it hard at first, well it's bound to be when your mind is not calming down, but even though you can't feel it - something is happening. Then it starts to get easier to practice.

Monitoring is something to break free of but it is hard. It's just there all the time and it starts to feel like it's a normal process that should be there. Some people find monitoring via a diary is helpful as they can look back and see that nothing bad seems to happen.

I always think "well, you never see an anxious buddhist monk!".

[saffron32]

Hi!!

I'm so happy I found this thread! This was written a while ago so I don't know if you're around, but I am so happy I found someone who has the SAME anxiety as me - I have tried to find others to no avail, and I was thinking I was the only one and had trouble explaining it to people!

So I have had OCD since I was 24 - it started with intrusive thoughts about what if I hurt someone and I didn't remember it, and then I had intrusive thoughts about if someone had hurt me and I repressed the memory, and then I had intrusive thoughts about being gay!

Now, for the past 6 years, I've had this awful intrusive thought (that comes and goes) about becoming an alcoholic. Sometimes after I get drunk (maybe once a week or every two weeks?), I have awful, massive anxiety that I'm an alcoholic. It's all I can think about. Sometimes I get it after having only a couple glasses of wine the next day. To me, having to label myself as an alcoholic is probably the worst thing that could ever happen to me - and I don't know why I feel that way. But I do, and it terrifies me that will happen to me. Unlike my OCD fears from before (having been hurt, being gay, etc), becoming an alcoholic has been the hardest to cure and the longest lasting - only because it's the one fear that I actually engage in on some level.

Is this still something you deal with? I'd love to talk to you as I have not been able to find anyone who has this fear also!!

[Benjammin69]

Hi!!



I'm so happy I found this thread! This was written a while ago so I don't know if you're around, but I am so happy I found someone who has the SAME anxiety as me - I have tried to find others to no avail, and I was thinking I was the only one and had trouble explaining it to people!



So I have had OCD since I was 24 - it started with intrusive thoughts about what if I hurt someone and I didn't remember it, and then I had intrusive thoughts about if someone had hurt me and I repressed the memory, and then I had intrusive thoughts about being gay!



Now, for the past 6 years, I've had this awful intrusive thought (that comes and goes) about becoming an alcoholic. Sometimes after I get drunk (maybe once a week or every two weeks?), I have awful, massive anxiety that I'm an alcoholic. It's all I can think about. Sometimes I get it after having only a couple glasses of wine the next day. To me, having to label myself as an alcoholic is probably the worst thing that could ever happen to me - and I don't know why I feel that way. But I do, and it terrifies me that will happen to me. Unlike my OCD fears from before (having been hurt, being gay, etc), becoming an alcoholic has been the hardest to cure and the longest lasting - only because it's the one fear that I actually engage in on some level.



Is this still something you deal with? I'd love to talk to you as I have not been able to find anyone who has this fear also!!



Hi

I've had this fear as well, it's horrible to have. I had never worried about my drinking until my most recent episode of anxiety and depression...

But it is one of my main worries and concerns nowAdays... it's a horrible thing to think and to worry about as what ever you look up it quickly labels you 'alcoholic'.

I have been working with my therapist on this and basically these thoughts and feelings are a method of escapism and not alcoholism.

It's about escaping the thoughts and knowing that a few glasses of alcohol helps but makes things 10x worse after. So we start worrying about having one drink, or what if we drink earlier etc etc it's all part of anxiety and depression and as mynameisterry says it's mainly down to intrusive thoughts.

I know it's easy to say but try to think logically about the thoughts as you learn in therapy - thoughts don't have to lead to actions, they are just thoughts after all.


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[aleksandra1]

I am so happy I found this thread. I have been struggling with OCD but I couldn't find anything about alcohol related intrusive thoughts. They feel so real, I get those thoughts that I want to have a glass of wine and then there will be another and I get drunk and will never be able to stop drinking. The thoughts and anxiety it brings is similar to the one that I have about hurting someone else of myself. The only difference is that I never hurt anyone but I sometimes drink wine, once, twice a week.