Alcohol is a depressant. After indulging, you get a temporary idea of what clinical depression feels like. It’s certainly more than being just “sad.” I would think that heavy drinking over a long time would put a person in a long-lasting depressive state, but that’s just a guess. Weed can do the same thing.
I completely disagree, for me it has the exact opposite effect. When I drink I find that the next day I feel horrible and my anxiety gets worse, but if I have some weed while drinking I don’t feel nearly as bad the next day. Marijuana alone has pretty much completely eliminated my anxiety, which at one point was completely debilitating.
This is true, but in my experience, the body compensates to some extent. It is not uncommon for an alcoholic to experience a period of “high” starting from about a week to around 6-8 weeks after they have stopped drinking. In AA circles this is referred to as “being on a pink cloud”.
Don’t alcoholics refer to hallucinations from withdrawal as “seeing pink elephants”? What’s up with all things pink?
I generally don’t get hungover. Just tired from drinking all night.
Shrinks and other doctors have to bash it in your head that what is proudly called “self medicating” depression by drinking just makes the depression worse.
It seems so comforting. But what you want is to numb out, disappear–a not uncommon wish among non-depressives also, of course–but definitely, for me and zillions of others, it is this and more what you want, quite consciously: a type of suicide on the cheap installment plan.
Either by the time you get totally wasted your depression is worse–crying into your beer, but pathological, if you show signs of serious depression, let alone after waking up.
Every time I go out to drink and get hungover, I can be watching a commercial about food and cry. I mostly cry at kind acts of selflessness. I sometimes cry over absolutely nothing at all and my fiancé literally won’t know what to do or how to turn it off. I’m glad to see other people have this problem and not just me.
After zombie-level binges in my twenties, I too used to have hangover days consisting of a headache combined with unusual feelings of insight and balance, almost more alive than normally (very different from the uninhibited drunkenness that preceded it). Getting really drunk was, in this way, a cleansing experience. As I got older, these enchanced lucidities gave way to simply feeling like shit for longer and longer, so I stopped drinking. Apparently it takes a hearty youngster to reap this questionable benefit.
My significant other sometimes gets depressed and cries at insignificant things. What I’ve noticed on occasion is the “giggles”. Especially if there is a group of us all sporting a hangover.
Have you heard the term “Shameover” before? Not exactly the symptoms you refer to, but possibly you do suffer from some of them.
I’ve heard the term used several times through the years.
In my case, my emotional stability is compromised, but most specifically I suffer from feelings of anxiety and unwarranted guilt or shame. Being an emotional train wreck in regards to stories of love, companionship and endearment are pretty normal for me also.
I’ve often (half) joked to my girlfriend that I wished someone would just “kick the shit out of me because I deserve it” the day after binge drinking. I never do anything bad while drinking, or make a fool out of myself, I just feel self loathing and emotionally sensitive the next day.
Shameover.
And zombie-level threads on SDMB!!
I like how I get to participate in this thread every few years.
And yes. Feelings of guilt, anxiety, sadness and depression are a real phenomenon of excessive drinking. I’ve actually noticed this as I get older. On rare occasions I drink excessively, often the next day I feel guilty and morose, like I fucked a hooker, killed her and then lost my job. It’s not a rational feeling as probably the whole reason I drank so much was I was out with my boss talking about my promotion or some shit. But excessive drinking can cause chemical imbalances in the brain.
Supposedly going outside and getting some fresh air is a good cure for this. I wouldn’t know.
My wife is particularly susceptible to this depressive effect. Plus, I get bookends sometimes - after a couple glasses of wine, it’s all tears and sadness, to followed by general moodiness, depression, and ennui. Marvelous. 
Me? I don’t really get traditional hangover symptoms, but I am usually tired and grumpy, since I was out late drinking to get that inebriated.
I usually only just feel a bit more tired than usual. Unless I went really crazy the night before, which is rare. Even tho I do drink a lot most days, I tend to spread it out over many hours. Anyway, crzy night hangovers include tiredness and off balanced. Rarely get nauseated anymore, but I won’t feel like eating for fear of being nauseated.
Side note: I usually have better interviews when I’m a bit hungover. I like to think it keeps me from over thinking the questions.
On those very rare occasions when I drink waaaaay too much, my thinking the next morning consists entirely of this :eek::eek::eek:, cringing, and what I call “terminal chagrin,” i.e., “Ohmygod I didn’t say that! Tell me I didn’t say that?! ohmygod ohmygod no nooooo”
I don’t drink very often but when I do I’m so friggin hyper and combative. I usually do something that creates shame and heavy guilt. Example: Last night I was driving a gravel road with my teenage son and ran off in the ditch - joking around, and then we got stuck. My husband and I got in a fight and started cussing at each other. All night I lay in bed wondering if I brought my stereo in from outside, the same song playing over and over in my head, wondered how to get my car out of the ditch buried in 3 feet of mud, wondered how to explain to my son that everything he saw was absolutely unacceptable. I truly am ashamed and I feel heavy guilt. I feel like everything is wrong. It’s hard to explain but I bet this is how clinically depressed people feel all the time.
Last time I had a binge I went to the local bar and started calling everyone ‘cunts.’ I’m pretty sure I’m never allowed back there. My son had to come drive me home - he’s 14.
I’m not a ‘good drunk’ especially around my husband because it’s like an excuse to let out all my anger toward him (which is a lot.)
Then there are good times with my friends and I still feel uber-emotional, and depressed the next day.
I almost always get sick, and I have a crashing headache. You’d think that would be enough to stop me.
I had experiences sort of like this but at the other end of the spectrum, everything felt hyper-real, but I felt sort of aloof and detached like I was watching a movie, like visceral and cerebral at the same time. But it was a good, pleasant feeling, maybe even better than feeling drunk and all my worries melted away, it felt like some new beginning.