Does Social Anxiety Prompt You To Drink More?

Welcome to another week of the podcast.

This week I'm going to talk with you about this idea of social anxiety and how it can prompt us to drink more than what we know is really good for us and the surprising after-effect and the irony of drinking to cover up social anxiety.

What I found is I used to drink to cover up my anxiety but what I didn't realize is that it was fueling it even more and that's what we're going to discuss today.

So as always sit back relax and enjoy.

Welcome to the Tranquility Talk podcast.

My name is Meg Daly.

I'm so glad you're here.

I love chatting about,

Interviewing people about,

Everything to do with cultivating more contentment in your mind,

Your body,

And your home.

That's why I created this podcast and that's why I created the 30-day reset which you can check out at MegKDaley.

Com.

So whether you are out on a walk or just hanging around the house I'm so honored that you invited me into your world so let's get started with this week's episode.

Hi there.

So I had a thought this was a couple of weeks ago I was out on a walk and I had this equation come through my mind and I don't even know if it's an equation but it's more of like a timeline and I saw this line and on the left of it were the words social anxiety and then next to it on this horizontal line was drinking and then to the right of the word drinking was anxiety.

True anxiety.

And what was percolating in my mind was this idea that so many of us want to grab on to the glass of wine or cocktail perhaps because we have social anxiety and what happens then is after we drink the next day our anxiety has increased even more.

And if you are an HSP,

Highly sensitive person,

And if you're like Meg what is an HSP I highly encourage you to google Dr.

Elaine Aaron that's A-A-R-O-N.

She wrote a book called the highly sensitive person she coined the term HSP and just look up Dr.

Elaine Aaron HSP quiz.

Take the quiz would love to hear if you're an HSP.

But the people that I serve in my live more drink less community emphatically are yes we are HSPs we are empaths and I I often say sometimes people who feel too much they drink too much because when you feel too much when you're a highly sensitive person when you when sometimes the world just feels too much when you can pick up on other people's emotions when you are thinking whose energy am I being dragged down by right now is it mine or is it someone else's oftentimes because the world becomes too much we go to things that we think will alleviate it and a lot of times it's things like overeating drinking shopping social media anything to get our minds off of the anxiety that we're feeling because sometimes the world feels too much so if you're an HSP or if you're someone who is just super empathic or you feel like you are an empath sometimes social situations can really cause a lot of anxiety and so it's normal that your default would be oh I'll just go grab a glass of wine or I remember I had a friend who would just say oh gosh yeah before the wedding or before they get together I do a little primer while I'm getting ready I have a glass or two of wine to loosen me up and you know that I'm a different person then I can talk to everyone and I'm the life of the party and that's that's pretty on par with how I was because people who know me I know a lot of people laugh and say Meg you're a total extrovert actually I'm not now all of us have the qualities of being an extrovert or the quality be excuse me the qualities of being an introvert it's just how heavily we we have those so in all of us there's a little bit of extrovert ISM and there's a there's a little bit of introvert ISM I don't know if those are words I just made them up but you know maybe maybe you're a 10% introvert but a 90% extrovert or maybe in different situations the extrovert part of you comes out or the introvert part of you comes out but what I know for certain with myself is that in social situations and large groups and parties I would drink because it was just like ah overwhelming I do much better with one-on-one conversations and so what I found is that when when you are more of an introvert and you feel overwhelmed by a lot of people and big parties that when you when you drink then typically the next day you have that anxiety hangover I remember a therapist telling me once you know Meg people that truly have anxiety which I do she said you think that you know the next day you might be a little hungover actually your anxiety there and she explained that there has been medical research done on this with people with anxiety that three days after you drink your anxiety is actually at the highest peak and a lot of times for highly sensitive people for empathic people you you know we do have anxiety and so I realize oh my gosh I'm at a perpetual peak I mean I'm never coming down from the peak because I'm drinking every night and even sometimes it was just you know just a glass of wine but it affected me differently and she said I bet you have friends that can go out and have drinks like you do and they're fine the next day and I said yeah I do have friends like that like they can go out and have two martinis and they're like working out the next day at 6 a.

M.

And she said it's just it's just your body makeup it's just like anything else any other you know whether you have diabetes or you know anxiety it's it's the same kind of thing it's the way your body is made up is what she explained and so it really stopped me in my tracks and I started to realize like I never come down from that anxiety peak and when I when I stopped drinking alcohol for that really extended period of time I was shocked at how much my anxiety decreased now I will say this was during kovat and so it was easy for me because I didn't have the triggers of social anxiety with parties and get-togethers and happy hours and those can be tough so but when you can really understand in your if this is resonating with you if you can understand in your mind oh I get it I have a little social anxiety the social anxiety is the trigger for me to drink but guess what the next day and the next day the next day I notice my anxiety peaks so I invite you to if you are if you are someone with with social anxiety and you find yourself drinking I'd love for you to pay attention to how you feel in the few days after drinking at that event or the party or the happy hour and pay attention to your anxiety and then play with it don't have some drinks for a few days and see how your anxiety diminishes it's a really interesting experiment you can also check out my 30-day reset which will hold your hand along the whole way but I was shocked at how my anxiety decreased so then I had a decision to make well all right do I want to you know live in a cave and not be social anymore and that way I'm not I don't have the trigger to drink and I won't have that residual anxiety the next day or the following days and it was really it was I don't want to say difficult but there were situations then that did pop up after I did my extended reset I didn't drink for over a hundred days and I felt amazing and I released a bunch of weight and my skin looked better and my eyes look better and I felt so good and then there was an event and for whatever reason it really triggered triggered my social anxiety like none of the others had and I had a couple glasses of wine and I woke up the next day and I really noticed it my heart rate I was just I was just kind of fidgety I just felt off and so you know nothing in life is ever a straight line and what I have found is that when you have information when you play around with this when you experiment like I've done over the past gosh year and a half now that you're presented with information to make a wise choice for yourself I think so often people say okay I'm gonna do the Meg's 30-day reset and I'm never gonna drink again and then the 30-day reset is over and they're back in social situations and then you know they start drinking and then they beat themselves up and it's just like this vicious cycle that's not what this is about and that's not what my community is about my community is called live more drink less for a reason it's putting the focus on living more and coming to terms with things like yeah I've got social anxiety so how can I come up with some strategies to manage that and it's about understanding your body more I've learned so much more about myself the past year and a half and I've had an awareness come over me this past year and a half that now I know okay if I go to an event and I give in to the social anxiety and I have the couple glasses of wine I'm not gonna beat myself up however do I really want to feel out of sorts the next day and the following day no because it's stealing my joy it's stealing my ability to live more and so that's where I'm at today it's just not really worth it anymore but everyone's journey is different I have people in the community that go through the 30-day reset and they're like I don't really want to drink anymore I feel so good I have other people that say wow I finally got into the place of freedom where I can moderate and truth be told where I'm at now is I had a conversation with someone just yesterday about this and I just I no longer have a glass of wine by myself at home which I did all the time before you know over a year and a half ago I just don't do that anymore if I'm out for dinner maybe I'll have a glass of wine maybe I won't it's much more that I don't because I know I want to get up early the next day I have things to do in this life and alcohol it is a little bit of a roadblock to that and so again it's really a personal journey in figuring out what works best for you and that's why I always love to say just have a little experiment with yourself just reevaluate your relationship with alcohol because you are the guru of you and you know you best so I just wanted to share that because again on this walk the other day I was like it all became clear to me it's like isn't it interesting for those of us who have social anxiety and we think the cure for the social anxiety is alcohol but really it's just a band-aid and that alcohol makes the anxiety so much worse the next day and the next day so while it's a momentary escape mechanism for a couple of hours during a party or during a happy hour what you're really doing to yourself is you're setting yourself up for not so great of the next two days so and that's I think that's the point where I got to it is it really worth it because I can tell you without a doubt the social situations that I've gone to where I brought my own mocktails or I've just had seltzer water which isn't really that fun so it's more fun so much more fun to ask the bartender to make you a you know a mocktail that's a Cosmo mocktail and frankly they taste the same way at least to me and you just feel good you feel more grounded you feel more in charge of yourself you when you leave you're hydrated and you wake up and you feel like wow I had a good time last night and you know I was able to have my mocktails and have fun with everyone else and I'm feeling really great today now for those of you who have social anxiety you're probably thinking yeah but like I really have social anxiety Meg and it's hard for me then you need to come up with some strategies for self-care meaning make sure you take your own car or you you know have plans for an uber or someone to pick you up so you can leave when you want don't go with like three or four other people where you're held hostage make sure you look at the menu to see if they have mocktails make sure you come maybe with some recipes for the bartender to try out I have asked at several restaurants and they're like oh yeah we have lots of mocktails because people are requesting them now it's kind of like the new cool and bartenders are always open to concocting different you know mocktails that you that you want to drink so you know and just setting a time frame on it setting expectations with your friends like yeah I'm gonna show up guys but I'll probably just stay for the happy hour part with you guys and I'm gonna head home and have dinner with myself or something like that you don't have to commit to the whole kit and caboodle you can just pop in and that's the cool thing and what it boils down to is when you have social anxiety it's imperative that you practice self-care and that is setting expectations setting boundaries and taking care of yourself so there you go I hope this resonates with you and isn't life interesting it's just such a journey and I think that the more that we pay attention to how we feel in different situations again we then have the information to make those choices to keep feeling good because again it's all about living more and drinking less it's about living more and worrying less it's about living more and quit and in stepping away from oh I'm broken or I've got to fix this part of myself no you're not broken you're a human being actually you're a spiritual being having a human experience so lighten up on yourself and have a little fun with life and don't let anyone steal your joy buzz or anything all right I'll see you next week bye bye if you'd like today's episode feel free to share with a friend and as always you can check out my free three-day challenge if you're interested in taking a break from the habit of alcohol you can check out the details at megkdaily.

Com as well as my 30-day reset and as always you can join my private group over on Facebook called tranquility talk I'd love to see you there so until next time have a wonderful day