Recovery Elevator | Stop Drinking, Start Recovering. | Alcohol, Addiction & Life In Sobriety

Episode 429 – The Connection Between Alcohol and Anxiety   Today we have Dale, he is 55, from Roanoke, VA and he has been alcohol free since March 23, 2019   Exact Nature: https://exactnature.com/RE20   [02:34] Paul’s thoughts:   Paul knows now that there is a connection between his drinking and his anxiety but while actively drinking, he could not. We are told that alcohol relaxes us – which it does by shutting down important parts of our brain.   According to Dr. Sheila Shilati,"Alcohol ultimately replaces those important chemicals like dopamine and serotonin in the brain, which mitigate anxiety, therefore, in episodes where you are not drinking, then your brain is searching for those all-important 'feel-good' connections, which become diminished because the supply has been mitigated,"   We hear a lot about “self-medicating” in recovery. Which isn’t a bad thing, but when we rely too much on this strategy, it stops working. This becomes an even bigger problem because we don’t realize it so we just