I would never have said that I was depressed when I was drinking alcohol.

 Sure, I had my up and downs but doesn’t everyone? That is how I was looking at life.  

I always said I was drinking alcohol because I needed to go out and have fun. Those first two drinks were awesome! I was happy, I was having a good time, and I was still functional. I wasn’t sloppy drunk, blacking out, or passing out… yet.

So I spent the better part of my 20’s chasing that “Two-Drink High”.

I wasn’t REALLY drinking alcohol to have fun. I was drinking alcohol because I was dealing with subtle bouts of depression. And I was completely clueless this was even happening! I associated drinking with fun. Which is a lot of people! Almost everyone who is drinking alcohol is using it to have fun. That is why I am POSITIVE you can relate to this!

 Depression is a big buzz word being thrown around a lot lately and since it is a mental health issue this can be hard to see sometimes. In my 20’s I wasn’t even concerned with what depression meant… I just wanted to party and forget about my troubles.

But I would have moments after the party was said and done, and I was back home in my bed - waking up the next day and not wanting to be around anyone else. This is when the full weight of my depression would hit. I thought it was just part of the horrible hangover period, but it was something more. Much more.

What I didn’t realize was this was me living with depression, for years! The thing with depression too is… you don’t realize you’re in it until you get OUT of living like that.

The depression manifested for me outside of the bars as: not having a vision for my life. I had no hobbies besides drinking alcohol, and I never thought about where my life was going. I just worked and partied. That was my life.

The depression was why I kept saying I wanted to ‘go out and have fun’ with alcohol! I needed that release. I needed that fun time and dopamine’s in my brain because I wasn’t getting that in ‘normal life’. The alcohol was for a very short period of time, taking away that subtle depression.

I was stuck in this cycle, and I had zero idea this was happening at a deeper level. I was young. I was just hanging out with my friends. I was having a good time! This is what I ‘thought’ I was doing. I was never looking for a way out. A way out of what? I thought this was normal for people to live like this. I was normal!

And it IS normal. But normal doesn’t mean it’s healthy.

I couldn’t go to any social function be it dinner and a movie, going out to eat at a restaurant for dinner, a Sunday family BBQ, a fun summer day at the lake, a pool party, a holiday, celebration, vacation, or birthday… all these events required alcohol for me. They didn’t feel like I would have a good time unless alcohol was there.

That was my red flag that I was depressed when drinking alcohol! I didn’t find that out until years later though. When I started to learn what depression was then it all became SO clear.

Depression from the ‘Heal Candida Now’ Cleanse from HMIWELLNESS:

Depression feels like a lack of interest in life, nothing is exciting, nothing is important to you. You experience negative thoughts, and you are always irritated. Everything bothers you.

Depression tends to sneak up gradually, so you really can’t pinpoint when it started or what the cause of it was. Depression is very common today and in most cases the person has no idea what the real reason for the depression is -  they just live like this and think it’s normal.

I did! I lived like this and thought that was normal.

That is where the alcohol came in clutch for me! I had a good time with alcohol. I wanted to go drink and hang out.

What I wasn’t realizing, was the alcohol was making my depression WORSE. It wasn’t healing me at all. Not that I thought alcohol was healing me in anyway, but I thought alcohol was needed to have a good time! And we can start associating that fun as something that is healing us because it makes us ‘feel good’.

Alcohol = fun. When my brain kept telling me that, I was not seeing the bigger picture here. That alcohol was keeping me in a constant state of depression. I would have these amazing dopamine releases; those were always the first two drinks of the night, I felt amazing! I felt happy again after going a couple of days of feeling like nothing was fun. Then I would be in that chasing the first ‘two-drink high’ all night.

It never compared and by the next morning I was feeling the title wave of depression hitting me. I was on the couch all day in despair.

What is so crazy with alcohol is that it is relieving the depression (so we think) but also creating it at the same time! Alcohol is physically causing depression. So, you don’t have to worry about if you are going through this or not, it is happening on the physical level.

Alcohol is producing high amounts of dopamine releases in a very small amount of time. This high is what makes alcohol so fun. But it’s damaging our brain! We are not producing dopamine in a healthy way. This ‘fast and furious’ release of them is preventing our brain from releasing it naturally, when we are sober.

So, the more we are sober the more we feel depression. We feel like life isn’t fun and alcohol is the cure for happiness! We get stuck in this vicious cycle of what came first, the chicken or the egg? The depression or the alcohol drinking?

It’s a given, the more depressed you are, the more you are going to drink alcohol. They go hand in hand.

It’s not the fun you are REALLY desiring when you are reaching for the alcohol. It is that happy feeling.

That is why it doesn’t matter if you are a woman drinking one or two glasses a night at the house or drinking heavily on the weekends out at the bars. Both scenarios are trying to reach the same destination: to release dopamine’s in the brain because of the depression you are suffering with.  

The most loving honest thing you can do for yourself right now is realize the alcohol is never for fun. There is plenty of fun to be had when sober. It’s REALLY for the underlying depression that you are living with. This awareness is HUGE for anyone still stuck in thinking alcohol is fun and okay for them. It’s only making the depression worse which is what you need to know TODAY. Once you see it in this light, it makes the nightly wine drinking or weekend outing seem different. You won’t be thinking this is for your well-being.. you can see that it is hindering you and your ACTUAL HAPPINESS!

It's always good to get honest with ourselves that way we can let go of what is holding us back. With this message it is the saying that alcohol is for having fun. It’s not. You now see alcohol is something we use when we are DEPRESSED, not having fun.

I am sending you all the very best energy right now! I know where you are at, I was there too. There is nowhere to go but up from here! If you are curious about the sober lifestyle I live now and want to start experiencing that freedom for yourself, try my ‘Sober For An Hour’ 7-day plan to get you moving in the right direction! This is designed to start healthy, sobriety habits in a gentle way.

Have a great day everyone,

<3 Mahina