Avoid alcohol as its a depressant. Try one breathing exercises, or a guided relaxation session - loads on youtube. Calms are pretty rubbish imho, and there are lots of snake oil products out there too. A lot of people swear by cbd products but I haven't tried any so can't comment personally. We used to have a stressed rescue cat, and we were advised to put a pen drops in her water. It stopped her stress behaviours, and they came back quite quickly when we ran out and decided not to bother with more. Maybe 2 weeks before she had bald patches from over grooming - so we bought more a pen and again, after a few days it stopped.
ADs are not addictive in the way opiates are. Opiates are very easy to abuse as people like the sensations that occur offer it enters your body. It's not just junkies and wasters, it's also many people who have had pain relief given by their GP, without any counselling on the potential for addiction. Before you know it, Mr Smith the high school teacher, who had a bump in his car and got whiplash, is popping pills like sweeties. Opiates are rubbish for pain for some many people, but make them care about the pain a little less! Mr Smith meanwhile has discovered that he can cope with his class better if he is a little fuzzy round the edges, and is taking pills more often than prescribed. One weekend he runs out, and before 24 hours are up he is in full withdrawal, pacing, sweating, flu like symptoms, yawning uncontrollably, stretching uncontrollably, hurting all over, head pounding, eyes streaming, not able to eat or drink, sweating buckets, and not being able to think about anything else but his meds - not pretty!
AD don't have the same potential for abuse, as for most people they can't even tell they have taken it, so why take more? ADs take a while to kick in, maybe as long as a fortnight. Gradually you feel better and one day you realise that. It's often just something basic like shopping. You go in week 1, dread it, hate it find it really hard. Week two you dread and hate it a lttle less, and realise that actually it wasn't as hard as last week. You maybe find a film funny for the first time in ages etc. ADs need to be tapered off slowly, preferably with GPs help, as your body has become dependant on the chemicals, and you will have nasty symptoms of you stop abruptly - though many people do and are fine.
People often forget that depression is a potentially fatal illness... So it's probably better to put up with a chemical addiction than throw yourself off a bridge. ADs treat the symptoms, but you still have to work on the cause, usually via talking therapies.
take care of yourself hun x