Live data from Hacker News

People who “drink to cope” can make their symptoms worse: study

digest.bps.org.uk

21–30 of 68 posts

Re: People who “drink to cope” can make their symptoms worse: study

#21

When I used to drink regularly (6x a week or so, light on the weekdays but binge drinking on the weekends), I'd have anxiety on the weekday nights. My habit would be to quell it with a drink because alcohol "reduces anxiety". However, after reading up on how one of the symptoms of alcohol withdrawal is increased anxiety, and hypothesizing that the weekday drinks actually made my anxiety worse overall I stopped drinki…

It's more the fact that alcohol is a depressant, so if you drink regularly enough you will feel when it's effects wear off. Benzodiazepine and GHB produce a similar kind of withdrawal.

Re: People who “drink to cope” can make their symptoms worse: study

#22
I'm not sure why the UK has been on the drink-bashing train over the last few years, but why not address the "eating junk food to cope" issue first. IMO it's much more prolific in the western world (increasingly in the developing world) & is a much much much newer ailment than drinking. "drink to cope" - yes we've been doing this for the last 4k years.

Re: People who “drink to cope” can make their symptoms worse: study

#23

Ignoring whether the actual study this article is based on is good or not, there are reasons why chronic drinking of alcohol could worsen symptoms for someone with anxiety and depression. Alcohol will cause you to urinate a lot of magnesium and other electrolytes and can cause deficiencies. Magnesium deficiency is strongly associated with mental health disorders. It will also impair your sleep. This is a double whamm…

I always enjoy my occasional sightings of the single-theory-to-explain-everything maniac.

https://imgur.com/a/47ivFZK

Re: People who “drink to cope” can make their symptoms worse: study

#24
post #10
post #2

Speak for yourself. Especially if your research setup is as good as useless ("The team concedes various limitations to the study, mostly to do with factors affecting generalisability. The over-representation of women among the participants (as well as the fact that a large proportion were diagnosed with BPD) certainly means that the results are not necessarily applicable to the general population"), not to mention th…

My only beef with drinking is it makes you so fat so fast! I wish I knew it was worse than eating bars of butter and buckets of cooking oil. It doesn't solve problems but stops the pain. Frees you temporarily from thinking and deciding things under the influence of pain. I don't get modern medicine. Grief, loss, loneliness (long term), stress and more mental/emotional ailments are found to be detrimental to human hea…

How does alcohol make you fat? I don't think I've met a fat alcoholic. Must be something else

Re: People who “drink to cope” can make their symptoms worse: study

#25
post #24
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My only beef with drinking is it makes you so fat so fast! I wish I knew it was worse than eating bars of butter and buckets of cooking oil. It doesn't solve problems but stops the pain. Frees you temporarily from thinking and deciding things under the influence of pain. I don't get modern medicine. Grief, loss, loneliness (long term), stress and more mental/emotional ailments are found to be detrimental to human hea…

How does alcohol make you fat? I don't think I've met a fat alcoholic. Must be something else

Beer alcoholics can be fat, hard liquor not gonna happen.

Re: People who “drink to cope” can make their symptoms worse: study

#26

I'm not sure why the UK has been on the drink-bashing train over the last few years, but why not address the "eating junk food to cope" issue first. IMO it's much more prolific in the western world (increasingly in the developing world) & is a much much much newer ailment than drinking. "drink to cope" - yes we've been doing this for the last 4k years.

From my personal experience in my social circle, I agree. It's a tougher problem too than drinking, because food is everywhere.

Re: People who “drink to cope” can make their symptoms worse: study

#27
post #2

Speak for yourself. Especially if your research setup is as good as useless ("The team concedes various limitations to the study, mostly to do with factors affecting generalisability. The over-representation of women among the participants (as well as the fact that a large proportion were diagnosed with BPD) certainly means that the results are not necessarily applicable to the general population"), not to mention th…

>> mostly to do with factors affecting generalisability

Ha. Its Science-ish!

Re: People who “drink to cope” can make their symptoms worse: study

#28
post #24
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My only beef with drinking is it makes you so fat so fast! I wish I knew it was worse than eating bars of butter and buckets of cooking oil. It doesn't solve problems but stops the pain. Frees you temporarily from thinking and deciding things under the influence of pain. I don't get modern medicine. Grief, loss, loneliness (long term), stress and more mental/emotional ailments are found to be detrimental to human hea…

How does alcohol make you fat? I don't think I've met a fat alcoholic. Must be something else

Each beer is like 300 to 400 calories. And then you eat bar food when you're drunk which is not known as the worlds healthiest.

Re: People who “drink to cope” can make their symptoms worse: study

#29
Really depends on how much alcohol and if it progresses. If you’re day drinking, binging, and kindling your brain you’re kinda fucked.

Annoying hangovers turn into getting withdrawals for days after having 2 drinks. That’s when the real alcoholism starts.

Re: People who “drink to cope” can make their symptoms worse: study

#30

Ignoring whether the actual study this article is based on is good or not, there are reasons why chronic drinking of alcohol could worsen symptoms for someone with anxiety and depression. Alcohol will cause you to urinate a lot of magnesium and other electrolytes and can cause deficiencies. Magnesium deficiency is strongly associated with mental health disorders. It will also impair your sleep. This is a double whamm…

I always enjoy my occasional sightings of the single-theory-to-explain-everything maniac. https://imgur.com/a/47ivFZK

I don't think there is a single theory to explain everything, for example, if I needed comics to explain everything I read or see I would probably feel extreme depression and self loathing too.
Post reply on HN