Social Anxiety Disorder and Alcohol Abuse

We have all experienced some form of social or general unnamed anxiety -and alcohol abuse will take your anxiety to new levels.

In people who have excessive social anxiety sometimes referred to as social phobia, the current statistics indicate that roughly 20% of patients with extreme social anxiety also suffer from alcohol abuse, the reason being the alcohol alleviates the symptoms of social anxiety and drinking becomes a form of self medicating. Many alcoholics start out self medicating by drinking to alleviate symptoms of not only social anxiety, but depression, stress, and general problem/life overwhelm to name a few.

A general definition of social anxiety disorder is “excessive fear in social situations, wherein the person suffers symptoms of anxiety that they feel they are in a situation where their response will be humiliating in some way”.

Some Signs of Social Anxiety Disorder Include:

You will avoid the situations that cause the anxiety, or if you are forced into an anxiety situation, in anticipation you feel extreme distress that interferes with your daily life, social activities and possibly relationships.

You know the fear is excessive.

The situation that causes the anxiety can lead to a panic attack.

Your social fears may be specific or more general and will sometimes come on unexpectedly.

The current general trend of thought on social anxiety is that in most cases, the phobias start in the teenage years, and there may be genetic or environmental factors involved.

The problem with using alcohol to alleviate these symptoms is obvious. Since alcohol does relieve the tension and unpleasantness of the anxiety, this will tend to reinforce using alcohol over and over again to achieve the same results.

The irony of using alcohol to relieve anxiety and stress is drinking too much is the physical and emotional condition it leaves you in will actually increase the stress and anxiety factors. And using alcohol as a coping strategy over time significantly increases the chances that this pattern may result in actual alcoholism.

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