The consumption of alcohol, is dangerous at the best of times, but as a cure for anxiety, it can be fatal.
Alcohol's definitely a wolf in sheep's clothing.
Let's say something is making you very anxious.
You're very worried about something.
Let's assume your dog rushes out into a busy road.
Naturally, you're terrified he's going to be hit.
Cars are dodging around him, horns are blowing, but by some miracle, the little monkey comes charging back, tail wagging, 'aren't I clever?' You make it very plain to him/her that you're very far from delighted at what he did.
But in the end, all's well.
So you go inside and allow your body to do the work of relaxing you.
The point here, though, is that you've been on high anxiety, probably for about 5 or 10 minutes at most.
The dog's all right, so your anxiety motor powers down quickly.
You sit down, and allow your body to totally relax for 10 to 15 minutes.
By doing this, not only will you find yourself back to normal, you should find yourself energized and feeling a great deal better But let's have a look at the type of anxiety that doesn't seem to go away.
You wake up in the morning, and you have butterflies in your tummy.
You go off to work, still with the butterflies doing their little dance, and so on throughout the day.
In other words, you never seem to be without this anxiety.
It's always with you.
Finally, you become sick and tired of it all and you decide to have a drink when you come home from work.
And--magic! No more anxiety.
Yes indeed, a drink really seems to knock it on the head.
But while you think it's doing you good, in fact you're now on the slippery slope to oblivion.
So for the next few evenings, you have a drink when you return from work and it does seem to keep the anxiety at bay, except that after a few days, you notice that you aren't quite so anxiety-free, even after your drink.
The truth is that you're living in a fools paradise.
Well, you decide to have two.
Everything's marvelous again.
But you see where I'm going with this, don't you? It goes up to three in the evening.
Then you decide to try one or two in the morning before going to work.
Then you start to buy quarter or half bottles to take around with you, so that you can have a swig whenever things start to become a bit rough.
There's no paradise about your foolishness now.
The alcohol's combined with the anxiety and they have you by the throat.
From this point, there is only one way to go and that's into the psychiatric department of a good hospital.
Turning to the bottle could kill you.