need a handhold - worst hangover anxiety ever

[mortifiedandupset]

Namechanged. Aware this is all my own fault and I should know better on so many levels...but if anyone could offer any reassurance here then I would appreciate it enormously.

We had a few friends over on Friday. A married friend of ours was also there - without his wife. He and I have always had a spark. I find him extremely attractive, and I've got the impression in the past that the feeling is mutual. However, I'd never want to risk my marriage, and I very much doubt he would either. Nothing, bar a bit of low level flirting, has ever happened between us and I've always just tried to be adult about it etc.

However, I'm currently feeling VERY anxious that I may have been quite inappropriate with him the other night. We were all drunk - though I think I more so than him - and my memory is very hazy to say the least. There's a whole hour or so that I don't remember and I feel utterly sick that I may have said things to him, or even done things, that I really shouldn't have.

I don't know if this is all some weird and horrible alcohol-related comedown and I am worrying about nothing. I have carefully asked my lovely DH if I seemed very drunk (obviously I didn't explain why I was asking) who said I seemed absolutely fine - believe me, he would say if I hadn't been! Another good friend there said I was okay too. But I cannot shake this sickening feeling that I was making my feelings abundantly clear to this friend, and I'm so ashamed and embarrassed.

I'm naturally an anxious person. I know I should get a handle on my drinking - having these memory lapses/blackouts from booze NEVER used to happen to me, even when I was younger and partying much harder.

I am PRAYING that all I did perhaps was flirt a bit, and I didn't try to kiss him or anything when no-one was looking! SURELY I would remember that?! I do remember quite a lot from later on in the evening (after this friend had left), but hopefully that's a good sign?

I know that whatever did or didn't happen is done now, and there's nothing I can do but move on and be more careful in the future. But if anyone could offer reassurance I'd really appreciate it. I've actually been in tears this morning, I feel so bad about this.

We call this the beer fear - the anxiety that comes as part of a hangover. It develops as we get older. If everyone says you were fine, it's just the hangover changing!

Hi OP, I completely understand this. I think its sort of a strange effect of the last year that the barrier between inner thoughts and acting them out is a bit less stable. In the nights out I've had since things lifted I've had more trouble working out what did and didn't happen and even down to things like which way did I cycle home not through being especially drunk but just something to do with how overwhelming it is being in the world again.

Also I think with this sort of thing imagine it was the 70s - a wild dinner party that everyone enjoyed, nothing more.

Anxiety over what I said and did was the main reason I stopped drinking. I was never sure whether I had thought things or I had actually done them. The anxiety was worse than the physical hangover.

I’ve got too much to lose to throw it away when my filter disappears after drinking. And the anxiety of not knowing what I had said or done was unbearable.

Fuck me, you got drunk enough to have lost an hour of your evening completely, and you're worried your boozy self might have done something to jeopardise a friendship and your marriage?

About time you realised that you have a problem with drinking and not knowing when to stop?! Binge drinking to that extent is not good for your health, you're in the thick of how it can effect you emotionally, and you have put your marriage at risk. Seek rl support op before you do any more actual damage.

If you must drink that much in future, which I strongly advise against, never ever do it on an empty stomach and avoid spirits. An empty stomach makes what you felt ten times worse.

How are you today?

The anxiety is horrible, and please ignore the posters saying you have a problem with drink. Unless you do it very regularly, one drunken night does not and has never meant someone has a problem with alcohol.

If you'd done anything awful, it'd probably have stuck in your memory. I find when I'm drunk the first thing to go is conversations, like I don't remember what I talked about with someone or said but I do remember most other things.

Thanks everyone. I am okay. Still feeling a bit shaken up and worried about things I might have said or done that night but I guess there's not a whole load I can do about it now, other than learn for the future....