ADHD and self-medicating with alcohol

Today’s episode is a heavy one. I’m opening up about my ongoing struggle with ADHD and OCD symptoms, and why I’m seriously considering medication to make everyday life more manageable. We also dive into a difficult but important topic: why people with ADHD are more vulnerable to alcohol misuse, and how that coping mechanism can quietly take hold. Most importantly, we talk about healthier ways to cope without alcohol.

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Transcript

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Did you know that 40% of people with ADHD will struggle with an alcohol problem? And it totally makes sense for a laundry list of reasons. A lot of people with ADHD use alcohol to self-medicate. Alcohol delivers instant dopamine. People with ADHD struggle with impulsivity, and so sometimes just immediately saying yes to a drink is what happens. People find it hard to stop after one drink. There are so many reasons why people with ADHD turn to alcohol. And in today, in today's episode, we're going to be talking about that because I have been struggling a little bit more than usual with my ADHD. And I think it is just coming to the surface a little bit more and affecting my life on a daily basis to the point where I am considering medication and other options that are out there because it's just impacting my life. And yeah, it's been just taking over my thoughts recently, of course. And in classic ADHD form, it's the only thing I can think about. I am hyper-focused on the fact that I have ADHD and that I might need to seek out resources to manage it better. Because it's yeah, just drastically affecting my life. And yeah, I'm rambling. But anyways, today's episode, we're talking about ADHD. I've talked about this in several different episodes because it is so very common for people with ADHD to struggle with alcohol. I think a lot of people listening can probably relate to the things we're gonna talk about. So let's just jump right in, shall we? I'm gonna be super filter-free in this episode. Like I said, I've been struggling and there are so many thoughts in my head, and so I'm gonna be talking about all this stuff just from my personal experience. I'm gonna be really filter-free and just talk about what's been on my mind, like as if I'm writing in my diary. So don't judge, okay? I say this all with the hope that it can help somebody else out there, so let's get into it. So I'll start with how the ADHD is just affecting me a little bit more than usual, or like coming to the surface, and this is it. So I have talked about this a lot, how I'm a messy person. I my room is a disaster. My bedroom just gets to this point, like you can't even imagine. I mean, maybe you can if you're similar to me, but like, for example, my brother wanted to come over after golf the other day, and I was like, oh my gosh, like I need to tidy it up a bit before you come up to my apartment. And he was like, Why? I mean, you're my sister. Obviously, my opinion of you is not gonna change if your apartment's a little messy. And I'm like, no, you don't understand. Like, there's no path from the bed to the bathroom. You have to literally step over clothes. I need to at least close my bedroom door. The dishes are piled to the top of the sink, and it smells a bit. I cannot believe I'm sharing this on the podcast, but I hope I hope somebody else out there can relate. The mess, I mean, there's just boxes everywhere. It's like the mess piles up so fast, and how my mind works is like there's no point in chipping away at the mess. I'm very much all or nothing. And it actually excites me to think that I could devote an entire Saturday to cleaning my apartment. That gets me excited. I'm like, oh yeah, like I'm gonna be scrubbing the dishes and then scrubbing the sink, and that'll lead me to deep cleaning the kitchen counter and all the crevices and behind the oven and like deeply, deeply cleaning. And then while I'm scrubbing that, I'll head to the bathroom and like deep clean the grout and the shower drain and head to Target to get a new shower liner, and it I'll just go deep into it. When I clean the clothes, I'm also gonna get a couple garbage bags and do a full closet clean out and then go to Plato's closet to sell the clothes, and then I'm vacuuming the inside of my closet and just like going full in. That gets me excited. What doesn't get me excited is picking up a few pieces of clothing from the ground or like doing a few dishes and at least chipping away at it. No, like I literally want to have that be an activity, have that be my full day and do it all or nothing. And that is what I struggle with the most is I like I want to put it off for as long as possible so that I can have my big day of cleaning, and I I never feel like doing it in the moment. And anyway, I realized it's it's less of an I'm messy quality, and it's more of this quality of being all or nothing, and that really is how I am. Like the the hyper focus on certain things can be really helpful in some ways. Like when I get a random business idea, first it's the impulsivity, it's like I will drop everything and all of my responsibilities and not check my email and not do my actual work because I have to do research on this new business idea that I have, you know, and I will literally wring the towel dry, looking up every possibility and staying up till 4 a.m. learning about this industry and everything, and then wake up the next day and be like, okay, yeah, no, I don't think I'm gonna actually explore that. Um, but anyway, so there's the impulsivity of like, I'm gonna do this right now, and then it's the hyper focus of I cannot do anything else until I have run through every thought in my mind about this business idea. So anyway, like obviously it's not good to evade all my responsibilities and dive into this thing, but if you flip that around, it's like it can actually be a good thing to dive in right away. Like, perfectionism, I do not know her. I don't I am the opposite of a perfectionist. I guess people call that type B, but like I'll do something and be like, yeah, good enough. Put it out there. Let's see how it does. I always talk about the example of this podcast. I had the idea to start a podcast, and two days later I was recording my first episode. It's like went out, got the equipment, figured out the name, got the cover art. Like I did everything and was sitting down and recording my first episode two days later. Because it became all I could think about. I was like, I have to start this podcast. It is what I am destined to do. And luckily, I've stuck with it for over a year at this point, a year and like three months, which is amazing. Um I'm glad that I was able to stick with it, but you see what I'm saying? It's like I get this intensity around my ideas, and it's all I want to do. So back to the ways that it's affecting my life negatively at the moment, it's the cleaning stuff. Okay. So that piles on. And then my apartment being messy weighs on me. I I find it to be depressing, and it prohibits me from doing anything else. It makes me feel like I can't socialize or hang out with people because I have this messy apartment back home that I really should be working on, but then I never want to work on it until I have my full day to work on it. Do you know what I'm saying? It's like I have to either devote a full day to social engagements, or devote a whole day to cleaning, or devote a whole day to editing and doing computer work, and breaking things up and separating things is undesirable for me. It's not impossible. I obviously make it work in my life, but I I love devoting whole days to things. And if I have a meeting in the middle of my day, well, forget it, I'm not gonna also tidy up my apartment. You know what I mean? It's so all or nothing. So that's just uh it's affecting me a lot, and then more just filter-free, embarrassing things, but I struggle a lot with personal hygiene as well. Okay, I'm not disgusting, but doing the personal hygiene weighs on me. It is such a chore in my mind. I was actually talking with a bunch of people at this Easter party that I went to, and well, I got talking really deeply with one person, and I just said, you know, one thing that I struggle with a lot is personal hygiene, brushing my teeth, taking a shower, and she's like, You don't like taking showers? And I was like, No, it is such a chore in my mind that I have put a phone mount in the shower so that at least that's my reward for showering, is I get to watch a show. And I say, like, I don't get to watch my show until I'm in the shower. You know, it gets me in there. It's my motivation. A lot of times with ADHD, they say that you have to have either a time restraint, like, I won't clean my apartment at all until I have somebody coming over and then I will get it done, which is so true. Um, so there has to be some sort of like time pressure, an event, a deadline, or it has to be dopamine, it has to be a reward, it has to be something that makes you really, really happy. And getting to watch my show in the shower has helped a lot. But anyway, so I'm saying, yeah, I don't consider showering to be like a relaxing, enjoyable experience. To me, it is a chore the same as doing the dishes, doing the laundry, like just another thing added to the list that I don't want to do. Same with brushing my teeth. I know that takes such a short amount of time, but for me, there's a million other things that I would rather be doing than brushing my teeth. But again, what helps is continuing to watch my show or having a toothbrush. I keep my water floss, what is it called? Water pick in the shower, because then I can just do that while I'm in there. Um, but out of the shower, it's like I'll listen to a podcast or watch a show or do something that brings me joy so that during something that I find to be agonizingly boring, at least I get to watch something or listen to something while I do it. I enjoy the gym. I really do. I I like getting stronger and I like the results that come with it. But part of the motivation for me going to the gym is that I get to listen to a podcast episode or my audiobook or whatever. Like that's that's half of it for me. Or if I like currently I'm obsessed with this song, what's it called? Who's that calling? I think is what it's called. And um also this song by Rihanna, Talk That Talk. You know it? Talk that talk to me, yeah. You know the one. Anyway, I am obsessed with those two songs at the moment, and I will listen to them on repeat. Like for a 30-minute drive, I'll listen to those two songs back to back to back to back, the entire drive there. Which Lord knows what's going on in my head to cause that. But if I go to the gym, that means I get to listen to those songs that I'm obsessed with at the moment, and I will listen to non-stop until I can't hear them anymore because I'm so annoyed. Anyway, so that's part of the motivation, is like, ooh, I get to listen to those songs or listen to my podcast or whatever, if I do this activity, if I work out, if I shower, if I brush my teeth. So that stuff helps a lot. Oh my god, where I was going with this was at the Easter party. I'm talking to this girl who I'm very close with, family friends with, and um, you know, she's she's like just so interested, because she's like, wow, she's a teacher. She's very interested in just, you know, tendencies and our unique differences. So I'm telling her about why it's difficult for me to shower. She's finding it very interesting. We're having a deep conversation, just the two of us. Then two other people come over and join the conversation, and to make them not feel excluded from the conversation, I'm like, do you guys like showering? Um I was like, do I mean these are people that I'm very close with, but I was like, Do you guys consider showering to be a chore? Or do you consider it like a luxury, something you look forward to? And some people, or someone was like, Oh, well, that's what wakes me up in the morning, it's part of my routine. Another person was like, Oh, yes, I can't wait. That's how I decompress. I get into the shower and I just relax and enjoy the steam, and I'm like, wow. I'm like, so you guys shower every day? And they're like, oh yeah, every day, maybe sometimes twice a day if I'm like working out. I'm like, okay, yeah, so we're we're gonna be different on that one. And they just found it so interesting that on the other side of things, I find it to be a chore. I don't find it to be something that is relaxing and enjoyable. Something that I find relaxing and enjoyable is watching a TV show, like binging a good TV show for hours on end with a puzzle while I'm doing a jigsaw puzzle, or editing videos, or scrolling on my phone. Those things are enjoyable to me. Showering is not enjoyable. I'm in there just thinking of all the things I would like to be doing other than showering, and I don't even have my phone nearby to write down every shower thought that I have, because my mind will be like just going non-stop in the shower. Oh my gosh. Anyway, so I mean, I've been getting fed a lot of videos about ADHD on my social media because you know, the algorithm just knows, and you start liking a few ADHD videos, and then everything starts popping up about ADHD. But, anyways, so she's like, um, eight- I'm afraid the ADHD medication is gonna be taking away my sparkle. Like, if I get on ADHD meds, I'm gonna lose my sparkle. And then it shows the sparkle, and it's like piles of clothes in the bedroom, piles of dishes in the sink, like greasy hair, and I'm like, oh my god, that's so me. Like, I think that is the sparkle, quote unquote, that ADHD medication would actually fix. And I'm gonna segue this now into the portion of the episode where we talk about medication because it's something that I am currently considering. And I never thought that I would consider that. If you listen to my past episodes that I've done about ADHD, it's something that I'm pretty passionate about. I say, like, I'm not interested in even getting a formal ADHD diagnosis because I'm uninterested in getting medicated. But now I just I'm just starting to think that there almost can't be any hurt. But then I do research, and of course there is hurt, like it's a stimulant. So some people think that it can be hard on the heart, and your heart can give up early because it's beating more than the normal heart, uh, because you're consuming this stimulant on a daily basis. So it just freaks me out. It freaks me out. And obviously, a lot of people with ADHD used to self-medicate with alcohol, myself included, for sure. And I actually, at the height of my alcohol problem, I thought I needed alcohol just to exist in this world. I thought I needed alcohol to appear as normal, to function as normal. It's like it just brought me back down to earth. I'm I'm so high strung and hyperactive, and my brain's going at 100 miles an hour, and alcohol just used to bring me down to earth. It just used to make me feel normal and like I could socialize with people and not have my brain be running all over the place. It's it's that dopamine, it's instant just relief from all these things that you're feeling and experiencing. And yeah, alcohol was my medication. And I've been fine for almost two years of sobriety without my self-medication of alcohol. But now I'm learning and growing so much, obviously, and I've I've tried really, really hard to manage my ADHD symptoms without any medication. I've tried really hard, and I've talked in past episodes, about all the amazing ways that I've reorganized my fridge and like reorganized my bedroom, and just rearranged my apartment even just to make sense in my mind. I've shared tactics uh about writing lists and to-do lists and how doing a puzzle while you watch a show can help you focus on the on the show that you're watching. I have all these tricks. I've done so much research on behavioral uh, you know, tactics for managing ADHD. And and they work to some extent, they work, but it's mostly the cleanliness and the personal hygiene that just weigh on me so much. It just it's becoming unbearable. And I I get thinking like I can't live like this forever, and I think about my future partner, like my future husband, whoever I'm gonna end up with. I don't want to be this person for them. I know that sounds horrible, but like I obviously want to be my best self and not, you know, be this weight on the stressor on the person that I end up with. Like I remember my last boyfriend who was wonderful, I mean, he he tried to help me through it, but he got a little frustrated with the dishes situation, the cleanliness situation, how I'll just leave projects unfinished around the house. Like I get excited about doing a house project or an art project or a yard work situation, and then I just leave everything there. I'll stop midway or even when I'm finished and just leave everything there. I mean, when I'm cooking, the kitchen is a disaster. I try to clean as I go while I'm cooking, but anyways, I'm single right now and I'm working on myself in a lot of different ways, and I'm not saying you have to be perfect before you start dating, because obviously that's not true. Like you can be working on yourself and meet your person. If you're on like a weight loss journey, for example, you don't have to have your dream body before you go on a date. You know what I mean? You can be working towards your goals while dating and meeting somebody. So I'm not saying that I can't go on dates until I'm perfect, because that's unattainable, obviously. Uh, but I don't want to be a burden on my future partner. And I feel like the negative ADHD symptoms that I experience are like not fair to bring into a relationship, or almost like I would be a bad partner in a relationship if I brought these symptoms in. And again, I'm not saying that I need to be medicated in order to date somebody, but I know that these qualities of mine weigh on me every single day. Like I struggle with this stuff a lot, and it brings me down, and I don't feel like I'm the best version of myself, and I don't, you know, I don't want to bring that into a relationship. And this isn't just for meeting my partner, it's also for becoming my best self for myself so that I can live my best life. Because I feel like in so many ways I've improved my life. I mean, for gosh sakes, I've gotten sober, I've lost 50 pounds, I've transformed my body through weightlifting, I've kind of grown my personal page to be this health and wellness space. I've released a fitness guide. I feel really good about myself. I feel like I am becoming the best version of myself. There are so many things I love about myself, but we're always forever growing, right? And this is an area of my life that I just haven't tackled yet. I think we can only handle so much as we go through life. It's like, that's why I always say I didn't get sober and start going to the gym and start eating healthy all at once. No. I got sober and then probably four months later I started going to the gym, and then probably two months later, I started caring a little bit about my nutrition and like trying to eat more protein. It did not happen all at once by any means. And I mean, as you as you know, because I mentioned it early in this episode, I'm very all or nothing. Like I hyperfixate on certain things, and that's all I can think about. So this might sound cuckoo bananas crazy if y you don't experience this type of thing yourself. But even with making friends, I As you know, I broke up with my boyfriend and like moved from Los Angeles to Seattle and restarted my life a a few months into my sobriety. And once I moved here, it was like, okay, get my apartment sorted. And then it's like, okay, get my career sorted. I was laid off and I now I'm self-employed. I've also been laid off, or should I say, fired, like from three different jobs relatively recently. Is that ADHD talking? Am I unemployable? Who knows? Maybe a therapist would have some better insight for me. But anyways, what was I talking about? Oh, so yeah, I have I have my focus on the apartment, then I have my focus on my career. And then it's like sports, okay? The entire summer I was golfing and playing volleyball, and that's all I cared about. And then over the last few months, I've said, okay, this is my season of life where I'm focusing on friends. Like I want to make some friends. So I've been going on. Is this an ADHD quality too? I've been doing the same hangout with so many people where I get a coffee from this specific coffee shop at the lake, and then we do one lap around the lake. It takes exactly 50 minutes. It's the perfect hangout time, and then it comes to an end the moment you're done with the loop, and then you know, you say goodbye and go home. It would actually be a great date spot because it does have an end to it. It's like, okay, you've done the loop, then that means the hangout is over. But anyway, I do the same thing with every friend pretty much. I say, oh yeah, let's meet for a coffee at this place, we'll go for a walk around the lake, and then that's that. And I have done that with like f six or six, seven. I've done that with like six or seven friends at this point. I have another one coming up, and it's just what I do. It's like going on these little mini coffee dates with friends to kind of see what clicks. I'm like actually devoting time into finding my friends. I wasn't ready for it before. I didn't have time for it before. I was so doing my own thing. And now I'm actually getting a bit burnt out from hanging out with people. It's driving me nuts, to be honest. But um I'm in the season of life where I'm trying to find friends. And then after this season of life, maybe I'll be ready to start dating. I don't know. But I think that might have to come after this season of life, which is addressing the ADHD. I think this is a season of life, and I think I'm ready to devote some time to it. I almost feel like I have to tackle this. I have to get my apartment in order, my bedroom in order, like my personal hygiene in order. I need some sort of schedule or like a routine to stick to, and I just struggle that, struggle with that so much. And I'm in the season of life where I want to work on my, I guess you can call it, mental health a little bit. Like I want to be better. I want to cure this part of me that I'm struggling with so much before I enter my next season of life, which might be dating, which might be starting a new business, which might be moving apartments. I'm kind of ready to try a new neighborhood. You know what I mean? Like, I have these seasons of life, and I think I'm finally at a place where I'm ready to explore the mental health season of life. And I I want to ask you guys, like, there's gotta be somebody out there who struggled with ADHD, self-medicated with alcohol, quit drinking alcohol, and then sorted out their ADHD in sobriety. And I would love to hear from you if that was your situation. You can message me on any of my social media platforms. I'm the sober scoop everywhere. If you want to message my personal page, I'm India Gance. Or you can email me. Hello at the soberscoop.com, Indiagance at gmail.com. I'll leave this all in the description of the episode, but I would love to hear from you. You could even leave a comment or a review on this episode if you're okay with it being public. I would love that. I mean, I I know it's quite common. 40% of ADHDers will struggle with alcohol. So who has come out of this on the other side? And what is the solution? I'm I'm so fearful of medication because I like this quirky person that I am. I like that I have these these hyperfixations. I I like that I'm quote unquote a little all over the place. I hate when people say that on social media, but anyways, I like that I'm type B, I like that I'm impulsive, I like these qualities about myself, and I don't really want to dumb myself down with medication. But going back to that viral video that I keep seeing, that's like, you know, the sparkle that ADHD meds take away is really just all the negative sides of ADHD. And I saw another video where this girl said she got on medication and she just felt like, how have I not been doing this this whole time? She was like, How have I been doing life without this medication? Because she just felt like she had a superpower. Like, wow, I can actually focus. I actually get things done. She's like, is this how normal people live? I'm not saying ADHD people are not normal, because I feel very normal. I really do, even though I'm making myself sound like a loony bird in this episode. But I feel very normal. This is my normal. I've lived like this my whole life. I don't know any different. But I wonder if I could experience an even better, more focused, more intentional life through ADHD medications. It's something that I'm considering. And obviously, you know, I don't think I'm gonna get addicted or anything. I'm I'm not worried about that. But of course, there is this feeling of like I'm on nothing right now. I don't even take a multivitamin, you know. I did start taking creatine, by the way, to put on some muscle. But, anyways, other than that, I'm not on anything. I do caffeine a lot. I do a lot of caffeine. Uh, but I don't need caffeine to wake up, by the way, which is another ADHD thing. I could have coffee right now at 9.48 p.m. and go to sleep at 10 o'clock. No problem. Absolutely no problem. Caffeine does not affect me. I drink it for the flavor and I enjoy it. It actually brings me calm, which apparently the stimulant ADHD medication kind of mimics that same thing. Anyway, what was I even talking about? Oh yes, that's what it was. I'm not on anything. I love being sober. Like I love being totally sober. Yes, I do the caffeine and I just started taking creatine, but creatine doesn't affect you mentally. It just brings more water to your muscles. But anyway, um I I don't even wear deodorant. I don't do mouthwash. Like I am I love being natural. I let my natural hair color go. I just love being in my natural state. I think sobriety brings that on. I did an episode about this really early on in the podcast, so you'd have to go way back, but it's called like uh being all natural in sobriety or something like that. It has brought this desire to just be very natural, like my natural human state, how I was designed to be. And so taking medication to alter my personality freaks me out. I don't want to alter my personality, but I also just feel that my ADHD is negatively impacting my life more than on a daily basis, multiple times per day, every single day. It's a lot. It makes me want to disappear. It makes me want to book an Airbnb in the woods or on a farm and like think about nothing, hang out with no one, not be around the mess in my apartment, not work. Like, that is what having dishes in the sink makes me want to do. Disappear from everything. How weird is that? So, kind of a bit of a brain dump today, but like I just want to be vulnerable and share with you guys that life isn't perfect in sobriety. And ADHD and mental health issues, whatever you might have, depression, anxiety, OCD, I've talked about that a little bit in the past too. Um, they don't just go away when you quit drinking. They do lessen, the symptoms lessen in my experience, because even though we self-medicate with alcohol, the alcohol in the long run is making our symptoms worse. And I can stand by that. Like, yes, my my symptoms are probably less and less extreme. It's less like, wow, oh my god, I can't take this, my mind is going insane, and then having the instant relief of alcohol. It's less of that like roller coaster, total up and down. It's more just like I'm always kind of feeling a little bit not okay, if that makes sense. So my symptoms have not gone away in sobriety by any means. And now I I really don't have anything to make my symptoms go away. I mean, I have tricks like doing a puzzle and watching a show, like going on a walk, like having a full day to myself and diving in and just getting everything done. All those things kind of help, but I don't have the alcohol to just make it go away. And yeah, that's the thing, is I don't want to look at medication like that either. I don't want to look at it as like just drinking it away, you know, just medicating it away. But I've tried to create a life that's that's, you know, doable with my ADHD. And of course I could live like this forever. But I just wonder what life could look like on ADHD meds. I'm curious. Am I gonna become like this amazing version of myself that keeps tidy and uh lives just a better life? Are are little tasks gonna be less heavy? Less like, oh my god, but brushing my teeth, I feel like, should not feel like some huge project that's that's just weighing on me and like, oh my god, it's all I can think about for two hours leading up to when I finally go frickin' brush my teeth. It shouldn't be like that, you know? Having to shower shouldn't be something that you think about for days until your hair gets so greasy you absolutely must get in the shower. That's awful. I don't want to live like that. And I keep telling myself, like, come on, stop being lazy, but I don't think it's laziness. I think it's you know, some sort of chemical imbalance in my mind. I don't know. So there's my thoughts for the day. Hope you enjoyed the episode. I would love to hear your thoughts on this topic if you have any. Cause I'm going crazy over here. I gotta figure out what to do. I think I'm gonna make an appointment with my doctor and just see what happens from there. I've never gone to the doctor for anything mental health related, I've never gone to therapy really. Um I'm confused and I don't really know where to go. And there's my thoughts. So feel free to weigh in if you have thoughts on this topic. Thank you for tuning into today's episode. Please don't judge me. And if you are a person in my life, like my family or a close friend, then just know that this is like kind of private information for my lovely sober community, and I struggle to divulge this IRL in real life. It's not something I'm super comfortable talking about. It's something that's going on internally, but I feel comfortable sharing with my sober community. With love, goodbye.