Nearly ten months ago I had dinner with a forty-five-year-old male named Alexander who suffers from acute depression, has relationship difficulties, and who is dependent on alcohol and drugs. As affirmed by Alexander, it is his drug and alcohol dependency and his intense depression that had the most to do with his endless relationship issues.

I recollect hearing that a history of mental health problems, chemical dependency, and unhealthy drinking frequently occur in the same family. Additionally, I remember reading that in such situations, an individual needs to get treatment for both medical problems and that dependency and mental health problems many times occur in the same individual.

As articulated by Alexander, he is so dejected by his relationship problems and by both of his medical issues that he in essence has no motivation to achieve much of anything. What is particularly sad about this is that earlier in his life, Alexander finished one semester of grad school in business management.

Alexander’s condition makes me question if he is an example of a person who can look within and see his drug abuse and alcohol drinking problems and do something positive about these problems or if he is an individual who has to hit life’s bottom before he gets addiction counseling that results in long lasting recovery.

The Need For a Treatment Protocol He Can Believe In and a Doctor He Can Trust

If it would be beneficial I would imagine that I could advise him about numerous websites and blogs that could possibly help him locate information about drug abuse symptoms, the stages of alcoholism, chemical dependency information, and relationship difficulties. In my humble opinion, nonetheless, Alexander needs to locate a rehabilitation program he can believe in and follow over the long term and locate a doctor he can trust.

I could be mistaken but it seems to me that Alexander more likely than not needs to look within himself regarding his drug addiction signs and alcoholic symptoms and acknowledge the fact that he cannot use drugs or drink at all if he wants to get sober, stay sober, and start on the road to lasting sobriety.

It may be asked how counseling would help his drug and alcohol dependency. First of all, there are quite a few newly produced doctor-prescribed meds that can help Alexander avoid an alcohol or a drug relapse, help him through the drug and alcohol detoxification process, and help him through his withdrawal symptoms.

Second, Alexander would learn to concede the fact that there is entirely nothing useful about chemical dependency and careless and hazardous drinking and that engaging in one or both situations is the map to deteriorating health, legal problems, shattered relationships, poor work and school performance, a premature death, and financial difficulties.

Third, treatment for his depression and for his relationship problems might help him manage these medical issues more successfully and help create less of a need for him to engage in addictive behavior.

The Relevance of Recovery Groups Such as Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous

There are feasibly several friends, family members, and other individuals who would love to help Alexander with his drug addiction and his unhealthy drinking. He probably would experience greater sympathy from a support group such as Narcotics Anonymous or Alcoholics Anonymous, on the other hand, instead of getting advice from individuals who drink in moderation or who have never abused drugs.

When People Accomplish Things They Like and About Which They Are Passionate

There’s a school of thought in psychology that contends that people who accomplish things they like and something about which they are ardent arrive at a magnificent place in life. Stated more specifically, when people do what they enjoy, they almost never experience boredom or an uneventful life. If they involve themselves in something that is gratifying, furthermore, they become more complete and experience more happiness and delight in life and in their relationships.

When this is examined more closely it becomes clear that this uplifting mentality is the exact opposite of a life that is grounded in substance abuse because such a lifestyle removes the pleasure and delight that life has to offer.

Since Alexander lacks the drive to achieve much of anything in his life, it is clear that he desperately needs some hope for a more fulfilling existence. And the sad thing is that hope is virtually everywhere around Alexander if he could only get to the place in life to get the treatment he needs for his acute depression and drug addiction and alcohol dependency and adhere to his treatment protocol.

Better Relationships, A Wonderful Life, Self Esteem, and Positive Change Are a Reality

Alexander is simply too young to be defeated in life. He doesn’t realize this at the moment but if he can learn how to abstain from alcohol and drugs via drug and alcohol rehab and get the counseling he requires for his intense depression, he can redirect his life and start living with self-respect, passion, and direction.

Better relationships, affirmative change, self respect, and a wonderful life are certainly a reality for Alexander if only he could become inspired to get the medical rehab he needs, follow through with his treatment protocol, live his life in an addiction-free and healthy way, and learn how to acquire a more positive attitude about his existence.

“Anxiety hot flashes” are produced sequences of heat sensation and blood flow. Anxious hot flashes have a variety of additional small complications like sweaty hands and palms. These hot flashes are very similar in nature to the hot flashes women who are in the middle of menopausal episodes experience.

Hot flashes are characterized by a feeling of heat, often first felt in your bosom and face. Alternatively, your shoulders, top of the back, and your neck may be the initial places that you feel the warmth. From there the sensation of warmth can progress throughout the rest of your body.

A few of the symptoms of anxiety hot flashes that do occur are shortness of breath and a feeling of fainting. Dizziness and a tunneling of your vision can also occur in the midst of a hot flash. In a few circumstances this can lead to passing out, which presents a very serious danger. Noticeable sweating in the areas where the hot flash is located is a frequently reported occurrence. Hot flashes can initiate and cease very quickly in a select few individuals, but everyone feels discomfort during the experience.

Worrying about what it is others may think about your hot flash can promote further anxiety. Additional anxious feelings can intensify the hot flash, promoting a self-reinforcing pattern of anxiety leading to a more intense hot flash which leads to further anxiety.  Another great resource for getting a grip on how exactly the physical anxiety symptoms ensue.

Quick light respiration and a sense that the air has been compressed out of your chest often accompanies a hot flash. Although anxiety drives the hot flash, but being in an overheated room can dramatically worsen the situation.

While the following will not resolve the issue, there are several simple steps that anyone can take to reduce the severity and frequency of hot flashes from anxiety:

• Avoid spicy meals

Heavily spiced and spicy meals stimulate responses similar to hot flashes. This can actually set off an anxiety hot flash. The familiar hot flash sensations can also make you anxious, of course leading to a genuine hot flash from anxiety.

• Avoid alcohol

The alcohol-avoidance tip is about making a reduction in your total level of anxiety, not about hot flashes themselves. Drinking alcohol as a way to reduce anxious feelings is actually working against you and only generates more of the underlying anxiety. Of course more anxiety leads to more anxiety hot flashes.

• Take a cool shower

Anxiety hot flashes include a surge of the hormone adrenaline and increased blood flow to the extremities. Reducing your body’s temp also constricts the veins and arteries up by your skin, returning the blood into fuller coverage down through the remainder of the body.

Ultimately the key to utterly abolishing these hot flashes that you experience is the removal of the underlying anxious feelings. You can discover a bit more about full-fledged techniques for removing anxiety from your life completely by reading the in-depth panic away review here.

The hot flashes could be your most problematic symptom plaguing you, but it is actually just a component and a result, rather than consequence of the greater anxiety issue; anxiety.

The cause of anxiety is well established. When enough stress is presented to the physical-mental-emotional body, nervous behaviors are likely to surface. Worry and excessive thought can interfere with preparation of rest and sleep. Internal organs deficient of energy will present with a long list of imbalancing symptoms such as high blood pressure, spasms, palpitations, restless leg and insomnia, etc. due to depleted energy. Take care of yourself, remove distractions from rest, exercise, be around caring people until you can master the challenges you are confronted with. Eat nutritious food and take natural herbs that don’t add to the imbalance but rather help in re-establishing your center. Consider working with a counselor/pychotherapist to find alternatives to your current anxiety management strategies. 

Here is one piece of the puzzle. Food preferences known to minimize the internal environment of anxiety. 

ANXIETY FREE DIET 

Foods to Counter Anxiety: Apricot, Cherry, Date, Fig, Grape, Grapefruit, Olive, Papaya, Peach, Strawberry, Tomato, Beet, Button mushroom, Cabbage, Carrot, Celery, Chard, Cucumber, Eggplant, Kuzu, Lettuce, Potato, Shitake mushroom, Spearmint, Squash, Sweet Potato, Yam, Almond, Chestnut, Coconut, Sesame seed/oil, Sunflower seed, Amasake, stevia, Agave nectar, Ganoderm, Dill, Basil, Mulberry, Lemons, Brown rice, Oats, Ghee, Green tea

Foods to Avoid: Beef, Tofu, Tempeh, Soy milk, Spinach, Miso, Asparagus, , Millet, Salt, Seaweed, Tangerine, Pinenut, Persimmon, Pear, Honey, Sugar, Oyster, Clam, Mussel, Pork, Peanut

Processed Foods to Avoid: Artificial Sweeteners, Coffee, Wine (beyond 1 oz. per day), Baked Beans (sugar), Baked Goods (doughnuts, cakes contain excess trans fats, sugars), Breakfast Cereals (sugar, processed grain, low nutrition), Campbell’s Condensed Soups (hi sodium), pot pies (hi calory/fat), Genetically Modified Organism (GMO) foods, Hotdogs (unknown ingredients, sodium nitrate), Luncheon Meats (too many additives, sodium nitrate), Margarine (highly toxic), Ramen Noodles (no nutrients, excess sodium), Refined Vegetable Oils (corn, cottonseed, soybeans, safflower seeds and canola), Saltines (excess carb & sodium), Sausages & cured meats (too many additives, sodium nitrate), White & Wheat bread (no nutrition), White Pasta (extremely hi carb & sodium), White Potatoes (solanine-calcium depletion & arthritic pain), Chips & French fries, Cocktails (excess sugar/liver toxicity), Fruit Juice (loaded w/ sugar), Fruit Smoothie (loaded w/ syrup, make your own), Dairy products except goat’s milk (pure mucous), Sodas (removes rust from metal, excess carbon dioxide, imbalances digestive system), Excessive Protein (loss of calcium, damages kidneys)

 

When I had an anxiety attack, I didn’t know about nutrition and herbology and at that time, I could not imagine that traditional Chinese herbs would have been effective with other modalities of treatment. With prolonged stressed, it is essential that people get access to effective and powerful aids. But in the long run, healthy foods and natural approaches to health are very useful in reaching balance.

Individual Constitution will affect outcomes from all foods. For instance, a person that has a cold constitution should not eat foods that make the body colder. Continued ingestion of cold food will make it hard to ignore the painful cold spots. Body organs will slow in function, etc. But in general the above selection benefits most people. If you want to get customized then I would suggest contacting, specifically, an Asian Medicine Herbalist. Understand, I am not selecting accupuncturists. It is very important to find someone who specializes in Chinese herbs or herbology  and food therapy regarding customized food and herb strategies.   

Anxiety relief can be found naturally with food therapy & traditional Chinese herbs.
  

Any person who has suffered with depression or who is currently suffering with depression will fully appreciate just how badly it can affect our lives. It is something that kind of creeps us on when we are least expecting it and then hits us for six. It can leave us feeling unable to complete the most simplest of tasks. The only way people can think is in the negative and the words of wisdom of people trying to help us only ever fall on deaf ears.

I suffered from a long bout of depression when I was in my teens. This was mainly due to the fact that I had a speech impediment, a stutter. This was something that virtually destroyed my self-esteem and despite my best efforts to increase confidence the stutter would always come back to bite me and ruin what ever progress I had made.

I did not want to continue living in this way, with a constant fear of stuttering, being down and depressed. The main problem however was the fact that the people who were meant to be helping me, the speech and language therapists, were forever telling me that there was not a known cure for stuttering. OK, thanks - this is exactly what I needed to hear! How was I ever supposed to break free from the cycle of depression and how was I ever supposed to start thinking positively when I had people like this destroying whatever hope that I had?

I was very lucky to have an extremely supportive family who worked very hard to help me to get back to reality. They gave me the conviction to battle through and to start thinking in a more upbeat way. There was only one way to think and that was in a positive manner. I had to ignore what the speech therapists had said and had to keep believing that I could one day achieve fluency. I also had to start working hard to enable this day to become a reality.

My dad once stated:

“There is no time for depression; you have too much work to do – to eradicate the stutter and to learn how to increase your overall confidence levels”.

I worked very hard and had some major battles with my inner demons but was eventually able to overcome the depression and the stuttering problem.

Steve Hill, The How To Stop Stuttering Centre

Larry decided to go and see his family doctor about his unhealthy drinking.  At first, Larry thought he would be able to essentially go on the Internet, look for some essential alcohol info, and establish whether or not he was addicted to alcohol.  Not surprisingly, he found a number of websites that outlined some of the commonplace alcoholism symptoms.  That’s the encouraging news.  The less than positive news, regrettably, was that Larry exhibited numerous of these alcoholism symptoms.

Symptoms of Alcohol Addiction: Some Examples

For example, Larry was drinking a lot more than customary and he was beginning to have more intense quarrels with his girlfriend.  What is more, for the first time in his life he was having sleeping difficulties.  In a similar way, Larry regularly felt depressed and on an increasing basis he had been exhibiting limited attention to detail at work.

In addition, he felt stressed out and more jumpy on a regular basis and for the past few months he exhibited questionable thinking at his place of employment. Seeing as Larry displayed all of these symptoms, he was excusably nervous about his irresponsible drinking.

So Larry finally decided to place a phone call to his family healthcare practitioner and make an appointment.  In reality, this was hard for Larry because his doctor was also his parents’ physician.  The basis for his uneasiness was this: at the risk of embarrassing his family, he had to go and divulge his careless and hazardous drinking behavior to his healthcare professional.

When Larry arrived at the healthcare practitioner’s office, he plainly informed the healthcare professional about the anxiety he felt about his hazardous drinking behavior. When the family healthcare practitioner asked what was triggering this trepidation, Larry declared that he had gone on the Internet and read about alcoholism and especially about alcoholism symptoms.  He then articulated all of the alcoholism symptoms that he clearly thought he had.

An Inclusive Physical Assessment and Outpatient Alcohol Rehabilitation

The doctor informed Larry that it was wise of him to address his problem drinking, he gave Larry a thorough physical examination, and recommended that he go into an out-patient alcohol rehabilitation center that was managed by one of his doctor accomplices.

In the same way, when Larry articulated that he had been feeling gloom to an increasing degree, the physician informed Larry that alcoholism and depression often happen in the same person.  For that reason, the healthcare practitioner also recommended that Larry obtain therapy to attend to his gloom.

The Significance of Coping With Your Drinking Difficulties

The healthcare practitioner made it a point to inform Larry that he might not necessarily be alcohol dependent, but that he was obviously drinking in a hazardous manner.  The family physician then notified Larry that the reason he suggested alcohol rehab in the first place was because he wanted him to confront his drinking problems, make sure that he stopped them from escalating, and start to live in a more healthy manner, even if it meant that he had to totally abstain from drinking.

Everything considered, by effectively treating his problem drinking, Larry would be able to get his drinking issues under control and refrain from the negative sequence of events that could doubtless result in alcohol addiction.

Obviously, Larry did not want to face the thought of getting registered into an alcohol rehabilitation program. Nor was he elated about going to a therapist about his gloom.  In spite of these trepidations, to the contrary, Larry as a matter of fact experienced some emotional relief for the first time in several months because he ultimately gave up making excuses for himself and at long last finally determined that he needed to do something constructive about his drinking behavior.