Speaker 1When I got sober, I did the hardest thing in my life. Then week three, month two, this other thing shows up. Unannounced, unexpected, uninvited. Today I want to talk about anxiety. The 2 a.m. racing heart, tight chest before a phone call, dread with no evidence. Nobody really warns you that sobriety can make anxiety louder than quieter. I always say this, but the further I am away from a drink or a drug, the harder my life gets. The more loud my brain gets, the more unmanageable my problems seem to get. Because alcohol and drugs were my solution for such a long time. You take away my solution, I need to replace it with another solution. I'm gonna have fear and control issues all over the place. At the end of the day, anxiety is thinking without control and flow state, mindfulness, peace, serenity is control without thinking. You're not thinking. You're not thinking about trying to control because you are in control, because you're just present. You're in control of your body. You're in control of your movement. And you're not thinking about trying to be in control. You're not thinking about the future because you are present. And so in today's episode, we're gonna talk about why anxiety matters, the two directions anxiety go in, where it comes from essentially, why early recovery spikes it, the anxiety relapse loop, and what actually helps. Solutions on how to reframe and handle anxiety while being sober. Welcome back or welcome to Recovering Out Loud podcast. My name is Anthony. I'm an alcoholic addict in recovery. Been in recovery since 2015, had a relapse at about seven and a half years. Today, I'm about a year and a half sober again, and I'm grateful to be bringing this content to you. Look, anxiety is powerful, but it is not reality. For me, anxiety is when I am out of control. My brain wants to spin all the worst possible, the worst possible outcomes, and I'm gonna get into that, but this does not need to run your show anymore. I'm not crippled by fear and anxiety today. I am not held hostage by it. And it's because I do this work that I'm going to get into. These are the tips that helped me. I'm not a doctor, I'm not a clinician. This is just pure advice, things that worked for me. Anxiety isn't a side quest. For a lot of us, it's the main event running under the using or drinking. In residential treatment, anxiety is the most, the most common co-occurring issue. If you have an anxiety disorder, roughly a third to nearly half also have a substance use disorder in the same year. Anxiety is managed by alcohol for a lot of us. It takes the edge off. It takes, quiets the mind. It puts us at ease. It affects on, it acts on the GABA receptors and calms us down. Benzos do the same thing. And I did both of them because they helped me physically and emotionally, mentally handle my anxiety. Until they didn't. And until I chased that feeling for the rest of my life. Addiction is all about, one of my favorite definitions or explanations of addiction is we are, I am, I can't get enough of something that almost works. Every time, think about that. It almost works every time. We think it works, but it never lasts. It never has depth and weight. And that's why recovery, we need to find this power, this solution. And that alcohol never really delivered us. It felt like it was, it felt like it gave us a false, a sense of confidence. It's because we just shut our brain off. I would just avoid it by taking a drink or taking a drug. It quieted my brain until it didn't. And then it comes back tenfold. So the two directions, direction one, anxiety came first. First drink or use equals relief, not just fun. The brain. Files it as the solution. It worked until it didn't. Direction two, the substance made you more anxious. Alcohol calms in the moment. The brain rebounds over corrects, and then you're revved up when it leaves. The anxiety over time, you manufacture anxiety and treat it with the thing causing it. This is the great dichotomy of addiction. This relapse cycle, where the, we have anxiety, we use to relieve the anxiety, and then it, that substance ends up killing us and bringing more anxiety. Sobriety doesn't create anxiety. It uncovers it and it removes your numbing tool. Time to find a new one. Welcome recovery. I want you to think of it this way. You took the painkiller off the broken bone. The bone was always broken. Now you get to set it. Why? Because you're not going to get it back. You're going to get it back. You're going to get it back. You're going to get it back. You're going to get it back. You're going to get it back. You're going to get it back. You're going to get it back. You're going to get it back. You're going to get it back. You're going to get it back. You're going to get it back. You're going to get it back. You're going to get it back. You're going to get it back. 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How many times that social event is going to be this way and it's going to be long and I don't want to go and I'm going to not have conversation and no one's going to like me and I'm not going to know what to say and it's going to be awkward and uncomfortable and I don't want to go because blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then you go and it's never as bad. And then you go and you have a great time. And then you go and you learn something and you laugh that real recovery laugh to mindfulness breath work. Don't you don't need an eight week course to start. You don't need to pay someone to be your meditation teacher. If you do that, that's fine. Great. You're paying for things that are bettering your life. I have no problems for that and no judgment, but you don't need it. Breath is your direct lever. Four in, six out. Four breaths in, six breaths out. I do it for 10 minutes a day. I watch my thoughts. I watch my emotions. I let them pass like trains at a train station. Start with two minutes a day in the morning. I do it before I pick up my phone. It is magical, the effect it has. And maybe you won't notice it right away. Maybe it's not going to be this big profound thing that's going to change your life, but it will help you. It's helping me. It allows me to detach from my anxiety and to notice that it's just an emotion passing through and it's transitory. Three, movement. A walk counts. You don't need to go to the gym and deadlift 6,000 pounds every day. When I was in addiction, I went to the gym for two hours every morning at 5 a.m., hopped up on Adderall, and I thought that that was healthy. Meanwhile, my blood pressure is through the roof. My heart rate is at 140, just sitting, and I'm out of breath going upstairs. Just go for a walk. Movement. Move your body. The bonus part of this in early recovery is that structure plus feeling okay in your body again. That's what workout does. That's what fitness does. It brings structure, and then it feels like I'm comfortable in my body. I feel okay. I feel healthy. You're burning off the physical charge. Four, sleep. Protect it like a recovery task. Go to bed at the same time. Wake up at the same time. Do your best to do that. Both a symptom and an independent driver of anxiety. Plus relapse is a poor sleep schedule. Poor sleep. When you're tired, everything else is scarier. Everything else is louder. Your defenses are down. You're not yourself. It's unglamorous, but it's consistent, and it works. Five, connection. Peer peace. Anxiety shrinks your world. It whispers, let's isolate. Isolating is better. Break it. Tell one person the truth about how you're doing. Make sure one person on this earth knows everything about the goings on in your brain. One person that you trust. The whole reason peer support works is because it reminds you that you are not uniquely broken. I'm not special. I'm not uniquely, I'm not terminally unique. There are other people that are going through anxiety, and they are dealing with it. And if I ask them, they're going to give me some tips on how. And the last one is medication. If you are honest with your doctor and you're on medication to help your anxiety, more power to you, man. If you're honest with your doctor and you're on medication, more power to you, man. Just be honest about your substance use and your history. And if you're abusing it or not, just be honest. That's something I never did with my doctor. And that's what led me to a horrible relapse. Also, don't take medication advice from anyone but your doctor. Thank you. Anxiety was never the enemy. It was information, a miscalibrated alarm from a nervous system that's been through it, not a character flaw. Have some grace with yourself. The thing the substance never told you. You can feel, anxiety and be okay. It peaks, it comes down every single time. This, too, shall pass. You used to interrupt the wave. We used to interrupt the wave before it crested. Now, we're learning you can ride the wave. It doesn't vanish on a schedule. It gets quieter. The waves get further apart. That's recovery. The you who can sit through the wave sober is stronger than the you who never had to. Sometimes, you're going to have to push through in recovery. Sometimes, anxiety's not going to go away the way you want it to, on the schedule you want it to. Here's one thing that'll work every single time. Call a new alcoholic addict. Get some phone numbers. Call someone who's struggling. Ask them how their day is. Ask them to drive and buy them coffee. You'll get out of anxiety real quick. Your feelings are real. They are not reality. Your anxiety is real. It is not reality. It doesn't need to run the show anymore. It doesn't need to dictate your behaviors. It doesn't need to determine what the rest of your life is going to look like. We are like movie projectors going around projecting our version of reality onto the movie screen. We are projecting our version of the truth of the future. We are simulating outcomes. It's what we do. It's our brain's survival mechanism. Our brains were designed to escape fear. A bear, an animal, a human, a human being, a human being, a human being, a human being, animals in the woods. The problem is now your anxiety is managing a group text or the fear of not being accepted at the bar or at the meeting. The same nervous system that was designed to escape that bear, that animal, that threat is now handling rejection in your life. Handling the threat of that person not accepting you. the look on the face of that barista barista at starbucks that you think hates you or your friend not answering your text message like i said think about that for a moment give yourself some grace it's a anxiety and fear are a feature not a bug it is a feature is designed to keep us safe to keep us jump to to keep us from getting hit by a car we're just in a world now where all those things are taken care of and so there's nowhere for that energy to go that's why these tools that i listed will help you can help you cbt mindfulness breath movement sleep connection opposite of addiction is connection i can't we can find your people tell them what's going on get on it practice the principles of recovery in all your affairs your life will get better but not in your time and not the way you think it will if no one has told you this yet today i love you and remember recovery is simple not easy
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