# Does alcohol help racing thoughts **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [February 2, 2012, 12:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-alcohol-help-racing-thoughts/611479 "2012-02-02T00:40:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Rachellelogram](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rachellelogram/32/8689_2.png) [@Rachellelogram](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rachellelogram)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2012, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-alcohol-help-racing-thoughts/611479/21 "2012-02-02T16:27:47Z")
**Monstro** , I didn’t start getting hangovers until a few years into heavy drinking. And it’s not going to be an issue with a drink or two. Although mixing it with benzos could still affect you strangely. > [@jjimm](#): > > **monstro** I get the same thing, not all the time, but especially when trying to sleep. It’s one of the major causes of my insomnia. Not intrusive thoughts or voices in my head, just nonsensical ‘chatter’. > > I can’t recommend anything for you, but I can say is that alcohol does help me. Don’t drink too much, just a couple of beers, and it definitely slows it all down. > > However, if I’m not drinking, having _someone else’s thoughts_ to focus on really helps to drown it out. I have talk radio on, timed to go off after about 20 minutes. I concentrate gently on other people burbling away and eventually I’m asleep. Yeah running tv shows at night is the only way I’ve been able to get to sleep for a long time. I still struggle with insomnia on occasion, but other peoples’ voices helps drown out my inner monologue. ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2012, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-alcohol-help-racing-thoughts/611479/22 "2012-02-02T20:47:12Z")
I find valerian to be very useful for calming racing thoughts, especially at bedtime. However, it’s recommended that you don’t combine it with SSRIs. ---
**Author:** ![Becky2844](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/91b2a8/32.png) [@Becky2844](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Becky2844)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2012, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-alcohol-help-racing-thoughts/611479/23 "2012-02-03T03:58:41Z")
> [@WhyNot](#): > > Don’t. Don’t worry about overcoming these negative feelings. They’re perfectly cromulent feelings. You’ve been through a hell of a time and you have every right to be pissed off at your doctors. And Wellbutrin? Fuck Wellbutrin. That stuff is evil in a pill. Any reasonable and “normal” person would have negative feelings in your position. > > Have all the negative feelings you want. While you’re phoning your gynecologist’s office, rage about how horrible the wait in the office is going to be. While you’re talking with the clerk to make the appointment date, wait and gnash your teeth that you can’t get in for medical care for 3 effing months. Bitch and moan when you realize your appointment will probably get cancelled at the last minute when someone goes into labor. Tear your hair while you’re taking the bus to the office. Shake your fist at the sky while you explain you would like to talk about The Pill or estrogen therapy. > > The best thing about negative feelings is that they’re feelings, they’re not actions. You can have negative feelings and productive actions, I promise. 🙂 Come sit by _me._ I like your way of thinking. ---
**Author:** ![madrabbitwoman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c37758/32.png) [@madrabbitwoman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madrabbitwoman)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2012, 5:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-alcohol-help-racing-thoughts/611479/24 "2012-02-03T05:53:12Z")
Disclaimer: I have Bipolar Disorder. I have experienced everything from full on psychosis to the symptoms you describe. So lots of experience with racing/intrusive/unwanted thoughts. I have had some success with what I call open eyed meditation. Anything that requires me to rattle around in my own head with my eyes closed does not work for me - and dont get me started on whale music. Anyway I go with: colouring [Coloring Therapy - How a Coloring Book and Crayons Can Help Dissolve Stress](http://ezinearticles.com/?Coloring-Therapy---How-a-Coloring-Book-and-Crayons-Can-Help-Dissolve-Stress&id=296837) . I find this works best with agitation/intrusive thoughts. Sorting. I get a whole bunch of something (beads/buttons/nails etc) and sort them into size/colour/shape whatever. Good for agitation. mindfulness exercises. [Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mindfulness-based_cognitive_therapy) [Mindfulness activities - Great Exercises For Enhancing Mindfulness](http://www.the-guided-meditation-site.com/mindfulness-activities.html) These things have worked for me. They may or may not work for you ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2012, 11:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-alcohol-help-racing-thoughts/611479/25 "2012-02-03T11:11:01Z")
> [@jjimm](#): > > **monstro** I get the same thing, not all the time, but especially when trying to sleep. It’s one of the major causes of my insomnia. Not intrusive thoughts or voices in my head, just nonsensical ‘chatter’. > > I can’t recommend anything for you, but I can say is that alcohol does help me. Don’t drink too much, just a couple of beers, and it definitely slows it all down. > > However, if I’m not drinking, having _someone else’s thoughts_ to focus on really helps to drown it out. I have talk radio on, timed to go off after about 20 minutes. I concentrate gently on other people burbling away and eventually I’m asleep. Last night I laid in bed for a few seconds in complete silence. And oh my. It was like someone had suddenly turned up the volume on my brain. I reached over and turned on my fan, which acts as my white noise machine. I hadn’t realized how much relief it provides until then. > [@WhyNot](#): > > Have all the negative feelings you want. While you’re phoning your gynecologist’s office, rage about how horrible the wait in the office is going to be. While you’re talking with the clerk to make the appointment date, wait and gnash your teeth that you can’t get in for medical care for 3 effing months. Bitch and moan when you realize your appointment will probably get cancelled at the last minute when someone goes into labor. Tear your hair while you’re taking the bus to the office. Shake your fist at the sky while you explain you would like to talk about The Pill or estrogen therapy. This is all funny, but it’s sadly not motivating me. I feel like a fairly intelligent person except whenever I go to the doctor. I don’t know what happens to me, but things never work out. The doctor asks simple questions that I don’t know the answer to or I’ll answer them awashed in shame, not wanting to go deeper. I have an idea about what’s wrong with me, but I have learned that doctors do not want to hear to stuff from the “wackjob” they are treating. No doctor I have ever visited has ever considered my hypothesis–it’s almost like they have the rebuttal prepared before I even get there. And I don’t want to come across as a hypochondriac or a know-it-all, so I just clam up. When I leave with no answers or hope, everything goes black. Things don’t go back to “right” until I swallow all the pain and return to my apathetic state. Staying out of doctor’s offices is the only way I know to keep myself from being suicidal. I know that sounds so melodramatic, but that is the dilemma I’m in right now. I’m unable to find a doctor that doesn’t make me feel invisible and unworthy of attention. I have been to so many it has to be something about my personality that’s turning them off. Until I can fix myself, this is going to be a problem. **madrabbitwoman** , I have a sketch app on my Kindle. I like to draw and I used to do it all the time. I should try it out. Maybe I can visualize the cacophony and “erase” it away. ---
**Author:** ![Antigen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/848f3c/32.png) [@Antigen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Antigen)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2012, 11:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-alcohol-help-racing-thoughts/611479/26 "2012-02-03T11:47:43Z")
> [@monstro](#): > > Last night I laid in bed for a few seconds in complete silence. And oh my. It was like someone had suddenly turned up the volume on my brain. I reached over and turned on my fan, which acts as my white noise machine. I hadn’t realized how much relief it provides until then. Is it clear thoughts, with words? Or is it just buzz and chatter and a background hum? I have tinnitus and some days when it’s particularly bad, it sounds like hissing or TV static. I’m probably way off here, but is it possible the problem is your ears and not your brain? Especially since you also have balance problems… ---
**Author:** ![SeaDragonTattoo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/df705f/32.png) [@SeaDragonTattoo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SeaDragonTattoo)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2012, 12:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-alcohol-help-racing-thoughts/611479/27 "2012-02-03T12:02:15Z")
**monstro** , do you have a very close friend or family member who could advocate for you at the doctor’s appointments? If you have difficulty advocating for yourself, you really need to look into finding someone who would be willing to do it for/with you. Maybe it’s too much for you to share, but if someone were to read through the posts you’ve put up over the years, and speak to you in depth in surroundings where you’re more comfortable, maybe they could help you get your message across to a doctor that counts. Just throwing that idea out there. I would be hard pressed to find an advocate, myself, so maybe it’s too huge a suggestion, but I think if I had trouble with doctors listening to me, maybe finding someone to help would fit the bill. I wonder if there’s a local hospital advocacy program you could tap into. ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2012, 12:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-alcohol-help-racing-thoughts/611479/28 "2012-02-03T12:04:28Z")
> [@Antigen](#): > > Is it clear thoughts, with words? Or is it just buzz and chatter and a background hum? I have tinnitus and some days when it’s particularly bad, it sounds like hissing or TV static. I’m probably way off here, but is it possible the problem is your ears and not your brain? Especially since you also have balance problems… I can’t speak for **monstro** but for me it’s actual thoughts, words and images, exactly as if I’m thinking a problem through, except meaningless. They are my own thoughts but they go off on tangents of random nonsense, a bit like dreaming. There are also occasionally parallel streams of thoughts, also nonsensical. It’s annoying but not debilitating. (It’s one of the DSM-V indicators of ADD, which is one of many reasons I’ve self-diagnosed.) The reason I point this out is that I _also_ have tinnitus. Most definitely not the same thing. ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2012, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-alcohol-help-racing-thoughts/611479/29 "2012-02-03T20:35:01Z")
> [@Antigen](#): > > Is it clear thoughts, with words? Or is it just buzz and chatter and a background hum? I have tinnitus and some days when it’s particularly bad, it sounds like hissing or TV static. I’m probably way off here, but is it possible the problem is your ears and not your brain? Especially since you also have balance problems… Like **jimm** said, it’s definitely a thought thing going on. I had a burst of tinnitus once, and that was an entirely different experience. A worse one, I think. I don’t know what other people’s tinnitus sounds like, but mine sounded like cicadas! It’s kind of hard to explain. It certainly feels like an ADD experience because it is distracting, and then there’s the restlessness aspect of it. The best comparison that I can think of is a thumping baseline constantly going on in the back of my brain. But instead of an audible noise, it’s a bunch of nonsensical thoughts (repeated words and phrases). It exerts “pressure”, for lack of a better word, and depending on how tired I am, it’s vacillates between being semi-relaxing to being hellish. **SeaDragonTattoo** , I am actually very fortunate. I do have someone who has been advocating for me–my psychotherapist. She has talked to all the doctors I have gone to, talking to them before and after my appointments and motivating me to do things that I don’t want to do. She is great. But she has been severely ill for the past several weeks. I have not seen her in awhile. ---
**Author:** ![madrabbitwoman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c37758/32.png) [@madrabbitwoman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madrabbitwoman)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2012, 7:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-alcohol-help-racing-thoughts/611479/30 "2012-02-04T07:34:48Z")
still thinking here. I have the internal “noise” increase at night which can adversely affect my sleep. My solution is to never go to sleep in silence. I listen to audio-books, pod casts, YouTube - whatever. My aim is not to necessarily hear the end of what I am listening to. My aim is to go to sleep while the noise continues. So I don’t have to listen to the crap inside my own head. ---
**Author:** ![Mosier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ea924/32.png) [@Mosier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mosier)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2012, 9:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-alcohol-help-racing-thoughts/611479/31 "2012-02-04T09:58:10Z")
> [@rachelellogram](#): > > Sort of. I experience fairly regular [intrusive thoughts](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intrusive_thoughts) (is this like the racing thoughts you describe?) and alcohol makes them more bearable. I just read that article, and I’m wondering whether the nervous “urge to jump” feeling some people get when standing in a high place is really just the same kind of intrusive thoughts everyone occasionally gets. I have no desire to hurt myself, but I occasionally end up in very high places, and have a hard time getting the image of me gleefully leaping to my death out of my head. The thought is horrifying, and I don’t get an actual urge or desire to jump, just the idea about what it would be like if I did. ---
**Author:** ![madrabbitwoman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c37758/32.png) [@madrabbitwoman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madrabbitwoman)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2012, 10:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-alcohol-help-racing-thoughts/611479/32 "2012-02-04T10:32:58Z")
Sort of similar. Only with various people talking to me over my left shoulder telling me 'you know you want to it, it wont hurt, everything will be better, it will make everyone happy…and on and on and on. Ignoring them can cause escalation until they are screaming at me And I cant Make Them Stop! Then I feel I have to something like smash my head into a wall etc… These days I have the good sense to divert myself/deal before we get to the shouting phase. So sort of similar and sort of not at least for me anyway. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2012, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-alcohol-help-racing-thoughts/611479/33 "2012-02-04T19:08:30Z")
No, getting drunk will only quiet the one voice in your head that says “I wouldn’t do that shit!” ---
**Author:** ![DCnDC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dcndc/32/2842_2.png) [@DCnDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DCnDC)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2012, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-alcohol-help-racing-thoughts/611479/34 "2012-02-04T19:22:46Z")
> [@monstro](#): > > I guess that’s why alcohol seems so tempting. It doesn’t require a doctor’s visit and I can experiment with the dosage all I want. This is a terrible idea. I’m sure you don’t need someone else to tell you this, but there’s a very good reason actual medication requires that you see a doctor, get a prescription, and receive that medication from a licensed pharmacist. Alcohol is not medicine. Self-medicating with alcohol is one of the worst ideas ever. Nothing good can come of this. I’ve seen what happens, to a person in a similar circumstance, and it is not pretty. Do you really not see where that road leads? ---
**Author:** ![heavyarms553](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/779978/32.png) [@heavyarms553](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/heavyarms553)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2012, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-alcohol-help-racing-thoughts/611479/35 "2012-02-06T16:12:34Z")
Seriously. Anticholinergics. Benedryl. Also strenuous exercise, mindful relaxation (must be done a lot and properly), and stress avoidance. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-alcohol-help-racing-thoughts/611479.md?page=1)