ADHD and Alcohol: Why Drinking Can Feel Like Relief

This is one of the harder things I’ve admitted to myself.

I loved being under the influence.

Not necessarily in the party every weekend kind of way.

I loved what happened to my brain when I drank.

Things got quieter.

I stopped worrying as much. I stopped replaying things. I wasn’t thinking five steps ahead or beating myself up over something I’d said three days earlier.

For a little while, I could just be wherever I was.

And that feeling was hard to give up.

For years, I thought I drank because I was depressed. And depression probably was part of the story at different points in my life.

But eventually I started looking at my relationship with alcohol differently.

Maybe I wasn’t always chasing alcohol itself.

Maybe I was chasing what alcohol temporarily gave me: relief.

That’s where the connection between ADHD and alcohol gets complicated, and important.

Quick Answer: What Is the Connection Between ADHD and Alcohol?

ADHD is associated with an increased risk of substance-use disorders, including problems involving alcohol. But there isn’t one simple explanation for why.

Impulsivity, reward-seeking, difficulty delaying gratification, genetics, environment, co-occurring mental-health conditions, and other factors may all contribute.

Some people with ADHD also report using substances to cope with things like difficulty sleeping, changes in mood, attention problems, restlessness, or other uncomfortable experiences.

That’s often described as self-medication.

But it’s important not to turn that into a universal explanation.

Not everyone with ADHD drinks.

Not everyone who drinks is self-medicating.

And having ADHD certainly doesn’t mean you’re destined to develop an alcohol problem.

The connection is real.

The explanation is complicated.  

Key Takeaways

• Adults with ADHD have an increased risk of substance-use disorders.
• Some people describe using alcohol to cope with uncomfortable symptoms or feelings, but self-medication isn’t the only explanation.
• ADHD and alcohol cannot be reduced to a simple “dopamine deficiency” story.
• Alcohol can feel helpful in the moment while creating problems with mood, judgment, sleep, attention, or functioning afterward.
• Treating ADHD may help some of the problems a person has been trying to cope with, but an alcohol-use disorder may require treatment of its own.
• Understanding what you’re getting from alcohol can be an important part of understanding your relationship with it.

Why ADHD and Alcohol Are Connected

There is a well-established association between ADHD and substance-use disorders.

The harder question is:

Why?

And this is where the internet sometimes gets ahead of the science.

You’ll see explanations like:

ADHD brains don’t have enough dopamine, so people with ADHD drink because alcohol gives them dopamine.

That explanation is appealing because it’s simple.

Unfortunately, brains apparently didn’t get the memo that we wanted them to be simple.

ADHD involves multiple brain systems, behaviors, environmental influences, genetics, and individual differences.

Substance use is complicated too.

Impulsivity may contribute.

The pull of immediate rewards may contribute.

Other mental-health conditions may contribute.

Stress and environment matter.

And yes, some people with ADHD say they’ve used substances because of how those substances made them feel or function.

Experts have specifically noted reports of people using substances to sleep, regulate mood, or cope with attention and executive-function difficulties.

But researchers haven’t established self-medication as the explanation for why ADHD and substance-use disorders occur together.  

That’s worth saying because I don’t want to turn my experience into everybody else’s science.

What I can tell you is what drinking did for me.

Why Drinking Felt So Good to Me

Alcohol didn’t just make me feel drunk.

Sometimes it made me feel…

normal.

Or at least what I imagined normal was supposed to feel like.

My brain wasn’t running through tomorrow.

I wasn’t replaying yesterday.

I wasn’t analyzing everything happening around me.

I could sit somewhere and just…

be there.

That was unusual enough that I noticed it.

And when your normal state involves a lot of mental noise, discovering something that seems to turn the volume down can be incredibly appealing.

Alcohol affects the brain in complicated ways, including systems involved in inhibition, reward, mood, and behavior. It can also interfere with the brain’s communication pathways and make it harder to think clearly.  

But sitting there with a drink in my hand, I wasn’t thinking about neurotransmitters.

I was thinking:

Holy shit. My brain finally shut up.

That’s what mattered to me.

I Wasn’t Always Chasing Alcohol. I Was Chasing Relief.

Looking back, this distinction might be the most important thing I learned about my own drinking.

I wanted to stop overthinking.

I wanted to stop worrying.

I wanted to feel present.

I wanted a break from myself.

And alcohol could provide that quickly.

That’s a very different way of looking at the problem.

Because:

“Why do I keep drinking?”

only focuses on the behavior.

But:

“What does drinking do for me?”

starts looking at the reason I keep returning to the behavior.

For me, the answer was pretty obvious once I actually asked the question.

Relief.

The Relief Doesn’t Last

Here’s the shitty part.

Alcohol may change how you feel tonight.

Tomorrow still shows up.

Alcohol affects brain function and can change mood and behavior while making clear thinking and coordination more difficult. Heavy or repeated alcohol use can create much larger health consequences as well.  

And then there are the consequences that don’t necessarily show up on a medical chart.

You stayed up too late.

You slept like crap.

You’re exhausted.

You said something you wish you hadn’t.

You spent money you didn’t mean to spend.

Something you were already procrastinating on still needs to be done.

Now you have to deal with all of that plus whatever you were originally trying to escape.

For me, the cycle could look something like:

Stress.

Drink.

Temporary relief.

Feel worse.

Stress again.

Repeat.

Eventually I had to acknowledge something.

The relief was real.

It was also temporary.

The Cycle That Hooked Me

One advantage alcohol has over almost every healthier coping strategy is that it doesn’t ask for much patience.

Exercise might help.

Getting enough sleep might help.

Treatment might help.

Therapy might help.

Changing things in your life that are making you miserable might help.

But those things take time.

Alcohol can change how you feel right now.

And sometimes right now is exactly when you desperately want something to change.

I think that’s an important part of my own story.

Sometimes I wasn’t thinking:

I want to get drunk.

What I really wanted was:

I don’t want to feel like this anymore.

Those aren’t quite the same thing.

Signs You Might Be Using Alcohol for More Than Drinking

None of these automatically means you have ADHD.

They don’t automatically mean you have an alcohol-use disorder either.

But they may be worth paying attention to.

Maybe you regularly drink because:

• you want your thoughts to quiet down
• you feel mentally exhausted
• you want to feel less self-conscious around people
• you want an “off switch” at the end of the day
• drinking feels more like relief than celebration
• you frequently tell yourself you need something to “take the edge off”
• stress dramatically increases your desire to drink
• you have difficulty stopping once you’ve started
• alcohol has become one of your main ways of dealing with uncomfortable emotions

Instead of immediately judging the behavior, ask yourself:

What am I asking alcohol to do for me?

I wish I’d asked myself that much earlier.

The Most Expensive Part Wasn’t the Alcohol

It was the shame.

I constantly asked myself things like:

Why can’t I just stop?

Why am I like this?

Why does everyone else seem to have more self-control than I do?

Every hangover became another opportunity to beat myself up.

Every bad decision became evidence that I wasn’t disciplined enough.

Every time I did something I regretted, I’d promise myself I’d do better.

And then eventually I’d end up wondering how the hell I got back to the same place.

Understanding ADHD didn’t erase my responsibility for any of that.

I think that’s important to say.

Understanding why you do something doesn’t mean pretending the consequences don’t matter.

But shame wasn’t particularly useful either.

Knowing more about what I was trying to get from alcohol gave me something shame never did:

A better question.

Instead of:

What’s wrong with me?

I could ask:

What keeps pulling me back here?

My Experience With ADHD Treatment and Drinking

Eventually, something interesting happened.

As I started addressing my ADHD differently, my desire to drink gradually became less intense.

Not overnight.

Not perfectly.

And I want to be extremely careful with this part because my experience isn’t proof that ADHD treatment reduces alcohol use for everyone.

Research on people who have both ADHD and substance-use disorders is much more complicated than that.

In fact, expert recommendations emphasize treating both conditions when they occur together rather than assuming that successfully treating ADHD will automatically fix the substance-use problem.  

But something changed for me.

Alcohol didn’t seem to have quite the same job anymore.

And that made me realize just how much I’d been asking it to do.

Stop Asking Only How to Quit. Ask What You’re Replacing.

I think this is where the usual advice can miss something.

If alcohol is doing a job for you, simply removing alcohol doesn’t necessarily remove the thing that made you want it.

So ask:

What’s the job?

If you’re drinking because you’re overwhelmed, maybe the real problem is the amount of overwhelm in your life.

If you’re drinking because social situations make you incredibly uncomfortable, that’s worth understanding.

If you’re drinking because you can’t mentally shut down at night, that’s a different problem.

If boredom or restlessness makes you miserable, maybe you need healthier stimulation.

If you’re using alcohol to escape depression, anxiety, trauma, or emotional pain, those deserve attention of their own.

If untreated ADHD is significantly interfering with your life, getting properly evaluated and treated may help.

And if alcohol itself has become difficult to control?

That deserves attention too.

Sometimes there isn’t one underlying problem waiting to be solved.

Sometimes there are two problems.

What Can Help Instead?

I originally wanted to make this section a list of “healthier dopamine sources.”

Exercise.

Music.

Hobbies.

Going outside.

Getting enough sleep.

And those things can absolutely be good for you.

But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that framing was too simplistic.

If I’m drinking because I’m overwhelmed, telling me to listen to music isn’t necessarily solving the problem.

The alternative needs to match what I’m actually trying to accomplish.

Maybe that’s exercise because I need an outlet.

Maybe it’s calling someone because I’m isolated.

Maybe it’s changing my nighttime routine because I’m drinking to wind down.

Maybe it’s ADHD treatment.

Maybe it’s therapy.

Maybe it’s treatment specifically for alcohol use.

Maybe it’s several of those things.

The goal isn’t:

Find another thing that gives you dopamine.

It’s:

Figure out what you keep asking alcohol to fix.

Then start working on that.

Treating ADHD Doesn’t Automatically Treat an Alcohol Problem

This deserves its own section because I don’t want someone reading my experience and coming away with:

“Cool. I just need ADHD medication and my drinking problem will disappear.”

That’s not what the evidence says.

When ADHD and a substance-use disorder occur together, experts recommend addressing both. Treatment may involve medication, psychotherapy, substance-use treatment, or a combination depending on the person and circumstances.  

ADHD treatment can still matter.

If ADHD symptoms are significantly interfering with your life, they deserve treatment regardless.

But alcohol-use disorder is a legitimate medical condition too.

One doesn’t cancel out the other.

A Question I Wish I’d Asked Earlier

For years, I concentrated on the alcohol.

How much I drank.

When I drank.

Whether I should drink.

Whether I could control it.

Whether I had screwed up again.

Those were important questions.

But there was another one sitting underneath all of them:

What changes inside me when I drink?

That’s the question I wish I’d asked sooner.

Does your mind become quieter?

Do you stop worrying?

Do you become less self-conscious?

Does boredom disappear?

Do you finally feel comfortable sitting still?

Does something painful become easier not to think about?

Do you feel like you can finally relax?

Maybe you don’t know.

That’s okay.

But if you keep returning to alcohol for relief, figuring out what you’re trying to get relief from seems like a much better place to start than simply deciding you’re weak because you keep returning to it.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does ADHD cause alcoholism?

No.

Having ADHD doesn’t mean someone will develop alcohol-use disorder.

However, ADHD is associated with an increased risk of substance-use disorders, and ADHD commonly co-occurs with substance-use problems.  

Why might people with ADHD drink more?

There isn’t one established explanation.

Researchers and clinicians have considered factors including impulsivity, immediate reward-seeking, co-occurring psychiatric conditions, genetics, environment, and substance use as a way of coping with symptoms or distress.

People with ADHD do report using substances for reasons such as sleep, mood regulation, attention, and executive functioning, although the evidence does not establish self-medication as the universal explanation.  

Can someone use alcohol to self-medicate ADHD?

Someone can certainly experience their drinking that way.

Some adults with ADHD report using alcohol or other substances because they believe those substances temporarily help with ADHD symptoms or related difficulties.

But that doesn’t mean all problematic drinking among people with ADHD is self-medication, mor that alcohol is an effective ADHD treatment.

It isn’t.

Can ADHD medication reduce the desire to drink?

Possibly for some individuals, but it isn’t something we should promise.

Treating ADHD can improve ADHD symptoms in people who also have substance-use disorders. However, successful ADHD treatment does not necessarily resolve the substance-use disorder, which is why expert recommendations emphasize treating both conditions.  

Does alcohol make ADHD symptoms worse?

Alcohol interferes with brain function and can impair thinking, judgment, mood, behavior, and coordination. Those effects can overlap with areas that may already be difficult for someone with ADHD.  

Individual experiences vary, but alcohol isn’t a treatment for ADHD.

How do I know if my drinking has become a problem?

It isn’t only about the number of drinks.

Pay attention to whether alcohol has become difficult to control, is interfering with work or relationships, is leading to risky situations, is causing health or emotional consequences, or has become something you regularly depend on to cope.

If you’re worried about your drinking, discussing it honestly with a qualified healthcare professional is a reasonable next step.

Final Thoughts

I don’t think ADHD explains every drink I’ve ever had.

I don’t think depression does either.

And I’m not interested in rewriting my past until ADHD conveniently explains every bad decision I’ve ever made.

Life is messier than that.

What ADHD gave me was another piece of information about myself.

It helped me notice that sometimes I wasn’t chasing being drunk.

I was chasing quiet.

I was chasing relief.

I was chasing a few hours where I wasn’t stuck inside my own head.

Understanding that didn’t magically solve everything.

But it changed the question.

Instead of only asking:

Why do I keep doing this?

I could finally ask:

What am I trying so hard not to feel?

And maybe even more importantly:

Is there a better way to deal with it?

Continue Exploring ADHDefined

If this article felt familiar, continue with:

• ADHD Motivation: Why Knowing What to Do Isn’t Enough
• Executive Dysfunction: Why Everything Feels So Hard
• ADHD Burnout: When Your Brain Finally Says “Enough”
• ADHD and Relationships
• The ADHD Tax: What It Is and How to Reduce It

Sources & Further Reading

This article combines personal experience with information from ADHD research and educational resources. If you’d like to explore the relationship between ADHD, alcohol use, impulsivity, emotional regulation, and self-medication further, these are some of the sources used while researching this article:

• National Institutes of Health / PubMed Central (PMC) — Research examining the relationship between ADHD and substance use disorders, including patterns of alcohol use and associated risks.  ⁠Read the research
• The ADHD Centre — Expert discussion of self-medication in ADHD and why some people may turn to alcohol or other substances as a way of coping with difficult symptoms or experiences.  ⁠Read the article
• Understood.org — Information about ADHD, remorse, emotional reactions, and the difficult feelings that can follow impulsive behavior.  ⁠Read the article
• Attention Deficit Disorder Association (ADDA) — Information about ADHD and impulse control, including how difficulties with inhibition can affect everyday decisions and behavior.  ⁠Read the article