By that, I don't mean to imply that I need to be smashed to overcome anxiety, one beer is enough. When out, I'm the guy turning down drinks.

I used to have an anxiety problem,effexor was the best.
The downside to useing medication is that there is a good chance when you try a one night stand you might not be able to maintain your erection it happend to me two or three times untill i stopped taking it.Anxiety meds dont make you more confident but more careless(equal to one beer id say).

I dont use medication now because I have learned state changing tecniques and rebuilt my selfesteem.anxiety is an awesome thing to have i like it it keeps me on my toes and it does a good job.

I have watched many friends and family begin to start takening pills for various things some including anxiety and soon started to use not only the medication but the illness as a reason to blame instead of taking responsibility for there actions...I would hear " oh its the meds" or "i cant help it...i have such and such"

I see nothing wrong with medication, as long as its to be used to help propel someone forward in overcoming something such as anxeity or depression. However i also know as fact that medication is not required and the benefit of overcoming something like this is far greater without it.

I was diagnosed with severe major depression, i was suicidal in a few instances while dealing with the disease. I had no support from family and very little from friends. I was unable to afford a therapist in which i was unable to get medication. For many that dont know, severe major depression is the worst form one can achieve.

For the longest is i had done or said something stupid or hurtful i would blame the illness. Then i realized that literally it was all in my head. That this illness was not apart of me, but here because i let it be. I had become depressed because of outside stimulus from society, friends, family and just in general.

After realizing that this illness was not from me, that my issues where not of my own but of others. I started finding out who i was and how the illness fit into my life. Self Exploration if you will, and from that the will power to overcome the depression.

I had struggled with it for over 2 years, and to be honest im blessed to be alive, but it only took me a few months to overcome the major stages of depression after i started working on myself.

I say all this, because i understand what it can be like to go through something others don't understand, i also realize that it does not take medication to push you through and overcome such an illness. Willpower, hope and an open mind will propel you farther then any medication could possibly achieve.

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"The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually fearing you will make one."

That's a great post Divine. I would also add that the most desperate feelings - even the suicidal ones - can be a positive thing if you can turn them around and use the frustration you feel to do something positive. So there is also the issue that medication might stop you being in touch with your feelings and frustration, which would be a bad thing.

I share your experience of learning about your problems, knowing they are not a part of you but just the way your mind works, and learning that behind it all you are as good a person as anyone else. Glad you found a way out of it. I think that is a journey that shrink soften cannot help you to go on. It has to be something you do yourself.

Medicines are just chemical garbage which should only be taken when there is no other chance. I've lost my aunt because she started use medication for every little thing that she though was "wrong" with her. This basicly destroyed her body and made her hart stop at the age 52 (this is the conclusion 2 different doctors came up with seperately). This all happened on 10 dec 2008 exactly a month after the death of my grandmother (her mother) so I'm still trying to give it a place in my head, please excuse me if this comes over all shitty but I have become very wary of medicines after this incident.

Now I'm not trying to say that everyone is like this, but since this has happened to my family I'm trying to stop people from using medication for things that can be done by willpower/patience. Medication is meant for people that are ill and need a bit of help to fight of the disease.

And anyway, does it really help? Can you say after you used the meds for some time that you have lost your anxiety when you are not on them? I'm curious. Because from what I have seen, medicines dont fix problems that exist in the head they only suppress them and that is not really a solution in my eyes.

You said something here..."exist in the head"

I have watched and helped many people that had some medical illness go from no hope, to having the willpower to fight it, telling and believing that they are not ill...that belief is enough on its own to overcome any illness and Ive seen it happen. For the most part, that fact people get sick is only because its in there mind that they are or will get sick.

One of the hardest "illness's" to overcome is one that is within the mind, your mind controls everything in terms of how you think, so in essence you have to realize that when your mind is sick, sometimes your not making the decisions you would be if you where healthy. That is where willpower comes in. Know and believe you will get better, and you will....it wont be easy and you will have to overcome many obstacles but when you do, you know you can overcome anything...no matter how big or small.

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"The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually fearing you will make one."

Not that I have or would recommend, but does anyone use coke and does this help?

that stuff in the red and white can? i use that stuff all the time! and yes it helps me not sleep!

I know enough people that have passed on because of drugs that there is no point in even using them. If you have to use a substance that is going to kill you to relax and enjoy life...then somewhere somehow something went wrong, and the person needs to find that something and change it.

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"The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually fearing you will make one."

The biggest problem with overcoming a serious anxiety disorder naturaly is that most people start trying to beat the anxiety into submission through boosting thier egos/ avatars up or hiding from the problem by drinking or taking drugs.NLP,NAC,EFT are all great tecniques as part of getting well but a sufferer first needs to understand how anxiety comes to be rather than build above it.
Have you have ever tried to purposely make your anxiety 1000 times worse? it dosent happen because you need fear and avoidence of fear to start the fear-adrenalin-fear cycle(fear of feeling fear loop)
You need to start to encourage and thank your anxiety and appreciate it because its just trying to help you,its only when you fear and fight it that it thinks "this must be important you need a stronger message" and thus makes you more and more nervous,dizzy,sweaty,breathy etc...

I think of anxiety as a little dragon and Im the dragon slayer, except the dragon dosent want to fight me ,it wants to be friends.
The little dragon(anxiety) will always be with me and is free to come sarging if he wants, im not scared to take him and by being 100% sweet with him he stays home and sleeps or if he shows up hes usually tamer than when i used to fight him(anxiety).