Alcohol & Anxiety-Breaking the Vicious Cycle

If you’ve ever thought

“Why do I feel MORE anxious the day after I drink?”

…you’re not broken.

You’re experiencing brain chemistry.

Alcohol doesn’t actually cure anxiety — it borrows calm from your nervous system.

Here’s what happens:

When you drink, alcohol boosts GABA — your brain’s calming neurotransmitter.

You feel relaxed.

Social.

Less worried.

Like you can finally breathe.

That’s the temporary relief.

But your brain is always trying to stay balanced…

So it responds by turning DOWN its own natural GABA production.

And then…

6–12 hours later…

• Your heart races

• Your thoughts spiral

• Your nervous system feels wired

• Anxiety hits harder than before

That’s what people call “hangxiety.”

Not because you drank too much…

But because your brain is now in withdrawal from calm.

So what do we do?

We drink again…

To get relief from the anxiety…

That the drinking created.

And just like that, a vicious cycle is born.

Over time:

• Your baseline anxiety rises

• Your nervous system forgets how to self-soothe

• You need alcohol just to feel “normal”

But here’s the good news —

Your brain can heal.

When you pause or reduce drinking:

• The first week can feel harder

• Weeks 2–3 your natural GABA begins to recover

• By week 4+, baseline anxiety drops significantly

And when you add:

breathwork

movement

journaling

emotional processing

…your nervous system finally learns how to feel safe without numbing.

That’s why we write.

That’s why we pause.

That’s why we reflect.

Because healing doesn’t happen when you escape —

It happens when you listen.

The New Beginnings 30-Day Mindset Journal gives you a safe, private space to process anxiety, habits, emotional patterns, and the stories you’ve been telling yourself — so you can finally break cycles instead of repeating them.

You don’t need another coping mechanism.

You need clarity.

Learn more here.