Honesty

Welcome back everyone, I wanted to firstly start by saying thank you so so much for all the incredible support and loving messages I've gotten from people after my first post. I truly am so grateful to have many incredible friends and family in my life that I know will always support me and wish the best for me, so from the bottom of my heart, thank you, I love you all. 

Now, what I want this second post to be about. This issue is something that has genuinely affected me and gripped me for nearly four years now, I've coped with it at times, but over the past year and especially the past couple of months again, this issue has come up for me. So, here it goes. I have for the past four years highly self medicated myself on alcohol. It has turned me into a liar, and manipulated my behaviour to no ends worth. Over this past week I have really gotten brutally honest with myself and my family, have talked to a few people about this and I really want to address this issue head on. 

Now I don't want to demonise drinking at all, I think to a certain degree it can help people relax on the odd occasion and it can be fun. But with my relationship with drink, and particularly my mental health and the self hatred I have always dealt with, I have pushed my drinking way too far. It has gone hand in hand with my wellbeing physically and mentally and now I am finally at a point where I want to tackle this issue head on, to finally understand why I have been self medicating the way I have, and to become the man I know I am capable of being.

It's always a fine line with myself between been able to go to the pub, have one or two then leave it at that, or just to get myself into a terrible state with it. As upsetting and difficult as this issue can be to talk about, I know it could be so much worse. I feel I have highly misused it, and statically speaking this can really affect not only anyones mental wellbeing, but physical too. 

For someone experiencing anxiety like myself, a drink might help people feel more at ease, but this feeling is short-lived. The so-called 'relaxed' feeling somebody may say they experience after having a drink is due to the chemical changes alcohol causes in the brain. But these effects wear off fast. Relying on alcohol to mask anxiety could also lead to a greater reliance on it to relax. This is something I have personally related too and I'm going to nib this in the bud before this issue can truly be life shattering. A likely side-effect of this is the increased risk of build upping up a of tolerance to alcohol. Over time you will need to drink more alcohol to get the same feeling. And, in the medium to longer term, this pattern often leads to alcohol dependence.

Feelings of anxiety can happen with a hangover, too. As we process alcohol, we can begin to experience psychological symptoms, such as feeling depressed, anxious or agitated. For some, these feelings are barely noticeable. But if anxiety is already an issue, the hangover effect can make those symptoms worse.

My steps forward now

Due to the fact that I am incredibly lucky, my support system around me is immense. I am blessed to have such loving and understanding friends and family that I know love me and I can count on no matter what. Honestly, writing this has been extremely liberating for me. The issue is out there now, and I am going to look after myself, mentally and physically, and again as much knowledge and use as much resources as I can to become the man I know I can be. I am going to reman sober now for along as it takes for me not to let drink control my emotions, so whether that means me going sober for a week, a year or forever, I am committed to doing so.

I love you all, stay well, and you'll hear from me soon.

By David Lark