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Areas › Low mood and hard feelings › When you use something to cope
Researchers take the relief seriously enough to study the same receptor systems as possible medicines, which tells you it was never imaginary. So ask what it actually delivers: calm before a room full of people, an hour of focus, a gap in the noise. Once the job has a name you can start looking for something else that might do it, and that is a very different task from simply stopping.
If you are using something to cope and it has become hard to stop, please speak to a doctor before changing anything.
There is great sin in both, and some benefit for people: the sin is greater than the benefit (Quran 2:219). The benefit is not denied there, it is weighed, and weighing is the honest place to start.
البقرة
۞يَسۡـَٔلُونَكَ عَنِ ٱلۡخَمۡرِ وَٱلۡمَيۡسِرِۖ قُلۡ فِيهِمَآ إِثۡمࣱ كَبِيرࣱ وَمَنَٰفِعُ لِلنَّاسِ وَإِثۡمُهُمَآ أَكۡبَرُ مِن نَّفۡعِهِمَاۗ وَيَسۡـَٔلُونَكَ مَاذَا يُنفِقُونَۖ قُلِ ٱلۡعَفۡوَۗ كَذَٰلِكَ يُبَيِّنُ ٱللَّهُ لَكُمُ ٱلۡأٓيَٰتِ لَعَلَّكُمۡ تَتَفَكَّرُونَ
They ask you [Prophet] about intoxicants and gambling: say, ‘There is great sin in both, and some benefit for people: the sin is greater than the benefit.’ They ask you what they should give: say, ‘Give what you can spare.’ In this way, God makes His messages clear to you, so that you may reflect
Qur’an 2:219read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
A review of the overlap between post-traumatic stress and substance use weighs the self-medication account, that people use in order to manage symptoms, against alternatives such as a shared vulnerability that makes both more likely. So self-medication is well supported as one route rather than proved as the whole story. It remains a fair question to put to your own use.
Kathleen T. Brady; Sudie E. Back; Scott F. Coffey (2004). Substance Abuse and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder. Current Directions in Psychological Science doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
You cannot replace something until you know what it was giving you.
Not feeling sleepy is not the same as not being affected. Younger drinkers often stay awake through a great deal more than their body is actually handling.
When someone keeps doing the risky thing after every explanation, the missing piece is usually not information. The pull is simply louder than the knowledge.
If stopping has been harder for you than it seems to be for other people, that is worth taking seriously rather than reading as a flaw in your character.