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College Students Use Alcohol as Way 
of Coping with Social Anxiety

It's no secret that alcohol use is alive and well on college campuses across America. New research studies investigate a largely unexplored area -- the relationship between heavy drinking and social anxiety. 

According to a recent report by the National Institute of Health (NIH), anxiety is a psychological risk factor associated with heavy or problem drinking among college students. 

Along with anxiety and other psychological factors, the NIH report suggests that an impulsive personality and a family history of alcohol abuse may be additional risk factors for problem drinking.

Social anxiety is the most common type of anxiety disorder and it affects 15% of Americans. 

Social anxiety, also known as social phobia, is diagnosed as overwhelming anxiety, fear, and self-consciousness in everyday social situations.

It triggers a host of physical symptoms, anxious thoughts, and avoidance behaviors.

People that suffer from social anxiety disorder usually realize that their fears are unfounded or extreme, but still feel unable to control their fears that others are looking at or judging them. 

Ask yourself why you drink. Do you drink to relax, to relieve stress, or to help alleviate social fears and anxieties? If any of these reasons describe you, you may be using alcohol in a vain attempt to cope with the root cause -- social anxiety.

She says she has been a lifelong victim of agoraphobia. For a time, Basinger now reveals, the disorder turned her into a virtual recluse.

"I stayed in my house and literally cried every day. I didn't know what it was. I didn't know how to define it," she recalls. 

"You feel so isolated, so alone, so scared. I just kept talking to God and saying, 'Help me. I don't know where to go or what to do...'" the actress says. 

"I was taking a shower," she recalls, "And the thought came that I might win and have to go on stage and say something. I broke out in a sweat. Anytime they stuck a microphone in my face, the words would strangle me.

"I won the Oscar, but I still don't know how to talk about it. ... It can hit at any time,'' she says. "You feel like you're in an open field, and there's a tornado coming at you. And you're just consumed by it."

When the attacks continued and she feared she might lose her mind, she sought treatment from Dr. Ronald Doctor, a specialist who treated her symptoms without the use of drugs. 

"My therapy was about awareness and education. And it lessened those horrible panic attacks,'' she says.

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Between 23 and 28 million Americans (roughly 10 percent of the population) suffer from some form of anxiety or panic disorder, according to experts interviewed on the HBO documentary. But only one in four agoraphobics seeks treatment.

Basinger adds that she has learned to face her fears and has regained control of her life. "I'm not naked anymore. I'm not standing alone as a frail kid. I've had so much help, and so much guidance. 

"When I take my last breath,'' she adds with a laugh, "it's not going to be because I'm having a panic attack -- that's for darned sure.''

It is not a mere expansion of awareness; it is rather a kind of battle. A dynamic struggle goes on within a person between what he or she consciously thinks on the one hand and, on the other, some insight, some perspective that is struggling to be born. 

The insight is then born with anxiety, guilt and the joy and gratification that is inseparable from the actualizing of a new idea or vision.

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That's the exciting part of it - it's those nerves that bring you to a higher level and makes you more hyper-aware. 

It makes your performance better.

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It's hard to believe the 24-year-old actress, who had to hold her own as a disillusioned foster child against Michelle Pfeiffer in "White Oleander," had stage fright. 

But it was only after school that the introverted Lohman honed her talents, working as an actress at the McCallum Theater, a local community repertory in her hometown of Palm Desert, Calif. They put on musicals such as "Annie" and "Cinderella," in which the shy teenager played the title roles.

"It was just easier to act with people you don't know than your classmates," she says.

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Which was often, because I was a high achiever and I thought only being number one was good enough. 

So even though my symptoms and fearful thoughts were overwhelming and made me feel sick much of the time, I kept putting myself in performance situations -- singing, playing in the band, drama, doing speeches, and more.

You know what I mean -- symptoms like racing heartbeat, trembling, difficulty breathing and fatigue. 

Things like racing thoughts, negative thoughts, insomnia, numbness, feeling detached from my body, nausea, constipation, stomach upset, and chest pain.

I hated how I felt, yet didn't know how to stop. Throughout high school, college, and young adulthood, more symptoms appeared. ///

What I needed was someone to SHOW me how to feel better, step by step. 

They say necessity is the mother of invention. Since the how-to, complete anxiety reduction system I was seeking didn't exist, I decided to use my teaching and training background and create a set of how-to techniques to help myself.

I started digging into several areas such as recent medical studies, alternative medicine, cognitive-behavioral techniques, nutrition, relaxation techniques, and lots more. ...

The formula popped into place bit-by-bit over five years of research and personal trial and error. ... It worked! I felt my anxiety lessening.

I don't know. It was like a light came on inside. I finally 'got it.'

---Fight Your Fear and Win: Seven Skills for Performing Your Best Under Pressure - 
At Work, in Sports, on Stage - by Don Greene Ph.D.

A renowned sports psychologist, former Airborne Ranger and Green Beret, and "stress" coach to top executives and entertainers, Don Greene, Ph.D., has spent decades studying fear and its effect on performance. In his years of working with Olympic and professional athletes, network news anchors, classical musicians, actors, dancers, trial attorneys, brokers, and CEOs, Dr. Greene discovered that there were certain commonalities in people's responses to high-pressure situations.

Untrained, these individuals' reactions were allowing fear to take over and affect decision-making, poise, and display of skill. But Dr. Greene found that by applying methods such as the centering technique, these same people could work through their fear and perform better than ever before. His previous book, Audition Success, was the all-time #1 bestseller at the Juilliard School bookstore.[Amazon.com summary]

---Performance Success : Performing Your Best Under Pressure by Don Greene, PhD, Julie Landsman
"..taken from Dr. Greene's lectures at The Juilliard School, the New World Symphony, and the Opera Works Intensive Program... workbook format with specific exercises designed to teach performing artists how to peak for an important event."   .. summary from Don Green site

"And real heavy-duty darkness can set in. I had a little bit of a nervous breakdown, I suppose. Somebody got me a job at a hardware store and I started having terrible anxiety attacks," she recalls. 

"I actually went up to the person in charge and said, ‘I have to leave. Something's wrong.' I walked to Penn Station in a full blown [panic] attack and - I didn't know what else to do - I went home to Long Island. My mother was so great. ... Anxiety attacks have been in my family for years. We are sort of a high-strung bunch... I've been in therapy a bazillion years. 

"[An attack] is like you're driving and all of sudden you see a Mack truck crossing the divider and coming at you. And you stay like that." But with the attacks now gone, "I feel more in control of my life than I ever have." [nypost.com Sep. 9, 2002]

Most people tend to see anxiety as something bad -- as indicating something is wrong with them. 

All of us have been taught to get rid of anxiety: to take a pill or do anything we can to decrease some of the unpleasant sensations associated with it. Remember that anxiety almost always accompanies emotional growth.

I come by this disorder honestly, through every possible channel: genetic loading and the stresses of everyday life, all whipped up into a poisonous stew, a concoction floating inside of me since birth. .... 

It is now clear to me that I spent most of my life warding off anxiety, going to great lengths to make sure I wouldn't feel it. ... 

Panic Disorder is, simply put, fear of panic. Most people have experienced anxiety, and many have had a few, discrete panic attacks. But when these panic attacks begin to cluster together, and thoughts of panic - the terror of panicking again - begin to take up a great deal of conscious thought, panic disorder is the likely diagnosis.

It seems so counterintuitive - even writing this down, it doesn't really make sense to me. Fear of panicking? Surely that's a cycle that can broken.

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First of all, I thought that I would have a daily struggle with remembering my lines. And the fear of what happens when you forget them and the slow death that can take a hold of you.

It's about pushing the boundaries constantly so that you don't feel stagnant or get bored. 

And you continue to press against the fear so that you not only feel full and alive in the moment but you will have, when you look back upon it, shown yourself that you have done some scary things and therefore, when the next opportunity for fear comes up, you can look back and say, "Well, if I did THAT then maybe I can do THIS and it won't swallow me whole."

The pain is a product of the ceaseless self-doubt that sits like a demonic imp on my shoulder from the moment I begin the first sentence until long after I finish the last, informing me in a whisper - occasionally in a stentorian rant - that I am composing this story with less success than any three-legged toad might experience if it attempted to herd sheep.

This imp, which I visualize as an evil twin of exercise guru Richard Simmons - actually, a cross between the ebullient Mr. Simmons and the glowering Hannibal Lecter - is with me at dinner, muttering vicious judgments on that day's writing while intermittently offering scathing comments on my table manners.

At night, as I sleep, it sits on the headboard of my bed, happily swinging its tiny sneakered feet, urging me to forsake my career as a novelist and take work for which it believes that I am better suited - such as gutting halibut on an Alaskan fishing trawler.

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    Dean Koontz

His books are published in 38 languages, a figure that currently increases more than 17 million copies per year. Ten of his novels have risen to number one on the New York Times hardcover bestseller list...