Alcohol can cause depression or make it worse.
Alcohol may make you feel less anxious and improve your mood while you are drinking. But when the effects of the alcohol wear off, you can feel worse than you did before.
Using alcohol to cope with depression
If you feel depressed, alcohol can make you feel better for a few hours.
It can make you feel temporarily relaxed and change your mood. It can numb difficult feelings for a time and may help you to fall asleep.
But this is poor quality sleep and the difficult feelings are likely to come back.
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Alcohol is a depressant
The enjoyable effect of alcohol is temporary.
You may feel worse after drinking. This is because alcohol changes your brain chemistry. This is why you often feel down or anxious the morning after a night's drinking.
If you drink a lot you are more likely to struggle with depressed feelings. These feelings may encourage you to drink more to cope. This can then become a cycle.
Self-medicating
Self-medicating is using alcohol as a way to cope with depression.
If you do this, you may be at risk of deepening the feelings of depression. You may also rely on alcohol more.
If this becomes your way of coping, it can lead to a dependence on alcohol.
Changing your drinking
While stopping drinking will not remove all the causes of low mood, it will remove a very important one. This will allow you to have a chance at dealing with the others.
Even cutting down should improve your symptoms. The more you drink, the worse the symptoms get.
If you stop drinking and it does not improve your symptoms within a few weeks, there may be other causes.
Talk to your GP or local health professional if you think that you will find it hard to stop drinking.
If you are worried about your alcohol use, take our alcohol test to find out what type of drinker you are.
How to cope with a family member's drinking problem
Tackle depression and lift your mood
Taking little steps to boost your mental health can help you to feel better.
Tell someone you trust how you feel. It can be a great relief to share your feelings. If you feel more comfortable talking in private, there are helplines you can call.
Contact the Samaritans on freephone 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.ie
A GP can give you information about support services or counselling. Sometimes a short course of medicine can be helpful.