She Was Using Alcohol to Survive Her Anxiety… Then Found Microdosing

What happens when anxiety becomes so overwhelming that waking up feels unbearable?

In this episode, Victoria explores a powerful story of severe anxiety, depression, alcohol dependence, and the desperate search for relief through microdosing.

But this isn’t a simple “plant medicine can fix it” conversation.

It’s a deeper look at what happens when someone is suffering intensely and carrying that suffering in secret.

Inside this episode:

• severe morning anxiety and nervous system dysregulation
• the alcohol-anxiety cycle
• fear of losing control
• the emotional cost of secrecy
• why support matters before medicine

This conversation is for anyone standing at that edge—wondering if healing is possible, but terrified of making things worse.

Source Credit:
This episode is inspired by a real healing story shared publicly in an online community and retold here with care for privacy.

Original source: https://www.reddit.com/r/microdosing/comments/1686zko/please_talk_me_through_this_im_so_scared/

If you’re curious about microdosing, exploring plant medicine, or seeking deeper healing, this is a space to listen, reflect, and reconnect.

Resources mentioned:

🎁 Free replay: Trauma, the Body, and the Breath
https://www.victorialeestarr.com/freebies

Blog:
https://www.victorialeestarr.com/blog

Story submissions:
vicki@victorialeestarr.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

What do you do when your mind becomes the place you are most afraid to be? What do you do when every morning feels like dread before your feet even hit the floor? When your chest is tight and your stomach is turning, your thoughts are dark, and just getting into the shower feels like you're literally climbing a mountaintop. And what do you do when the one thing that seems to take the edge off is also quietly becoming its own kind of prison? Because there are people living like this every single day. They're quietly functioning. Sometimes even they feel invisible. They're holding conversations, they're staying married and getting through routines, maybe even looking for the normal from the outside world. While internally they are in survival mode from the moment they wake up. And eventually, a lot of these people they reach the same desperate question. Could something like microdosing help me? Or am I so fragile right now that it could make things worse? And that is such a tender place to be because when someone asks these questions, they're not usually asking from curiosity, they're asking from this deep internal pain, from exhaustion, from the edge of what they keep carrying. So today I want to talk about that edge. Hi, I am Victoria. I am a spiritual outlaw traveling the states in my van, and I am here to bring you real life stories and experiences in plant medicine and my personal take on the ways and the whys and the hows that go with these experiences. And today we will talk about what happens when someone is struggling with severe anxiety, depression, alcohol dependence, and starts looking at microdosing like it might be the only thing left for them to try. This is a really, really important conversation because there is so much content out there that talks about microdosing like it's simple, it's easy, it's gentle, it's no big deal. And for some people, it can be supportive, but for other people, especially when there's such intense anxiety, substance dependence, fear, secrecy, and even a fragile mental state involved, it gets a lot more nuanced. So before we talk about mushrooms, I want to talk about the human being underneath this question. So here's the situation. Because this is not mild unease. This is not occasional stress. This is waking up every single morning, feeling this deep dread, feeling this impending doom, literally panic in the body, dark thoughts in the mind, and feeling trapped inside her own head before the day has even really started. She says, Mornings are the worst, that she feels like a terrified version of herself around till about lunchtime. And then later in the day, she starts to feel a little more like herself again. By evening, she's a different person. But those mornings, those mornings, they are the most brutal. And because that level of anxiety has been going on for so long, alcohol has become her way of taking the edge off. And it's not to black out, she says. It's not to go wild crazy, she says. It's just to soften the intensity long enough so that she can function just to get some relief, just to be able to breathe inside her own life. She's also carrying grief. There's family pain, a history of mental health, struggles that surround her, hormonal changes at midlife that may have intensified everything, a marriage that still sounds like it has some love in it, but also secrecy. And underneath all of this is a very, very real fear that if something doesn't change, she doesn't know how much longer she can keep living like this. So now she's looking towards microdosing plant medicine. And it's not from this place that is trendy. It's not from a curious place, an experimental place. It's from a deep place of desperation, from a maybe this is my last chance place. It sounds like she's very, very terrified. Terrified of taking too much, terrified of losing control, terrified of making her mind worse. She's terrified of doing something illegal, something that she may be found out about, terrified that she is somehow already going mad and that this could maybe potentially push her over the edge. And I really want to pause here because I think this is where we need to be deeply honest and deeply compassionate at the same time. So the woman in this story, and to anyone else who sees themselves in this story, I want to say this first. You are not weak for wanting relief. You are not ridiculous for feeling scared. And you are not broken because you have been using the tools you have had to survive. When someone is living in that much internal pain, they do not usually turn to alcohol or substances because they are careless. They turn to them because for the moment something softens. For the moment, just a moment, the panic loosens just a little. For a moment, they can get out from under the weight of the world of all the things that they have been carrying. So I'm not hearing moral failure here. I'm hearing suffering. I'm hearing a deep need for survival. I'm hearing someone who is completely exhausted and trying to find one small opening towards peace. But I also need to say this with a lot of love and a lot of compassion. This is not a place where I would treat microdosing plant medicine like a casual self-help experiment. Not with this much fear, not with this much alcohol in the picture, not with this much despair, and definitely not without support. Because when a person is this dysregulated, this scared, and alone in it, any medicine can start carrying way too much weight. It stops being, could this support me? And starts becoming that this has to save me. And that is way, way, way too much pressure to put on any plant medicine. Even beautiful sacred earth medicine, because the truth is plant medicine does not only soothe, it can also open. It can also subtly amplify, it can increase sensitivity, it can bring material to the surface that's been hidden for so long. And if a person is already in a state of fear and hypervigilance, even subtle internal shifts can feel very, very big and enormous. So if I were answering this woman directly, I would say, I hear how desperate you are. I hear how much you want to live differently. And because of that, I want you to choose support over secrecy. I invite you to stop treating your suffering like something you have to privately outrun. Because this is bigger than the question of whether you can tolerate a microdose of plant medicine. This is about whether your system has enough internal support around it to safely navigate all the shifts that will happen, that will open. And right now, from the way this story sounds, what you need most is not a hidden leap into plant medicine. What you need most is this safer ground to stand on. So let's unpack why this situation needs more care than a typical microdosing conversation. When someone describes severe morning anxiety, chronic depression, heavy daily alcohol use, hormonal changes, unresolved grief, and family mental health history, we are not looking at one challenge, we are looking at multiple, multiple overlapping layers. There may be trauma patterns here. There may be nervous system dysregulation. There may be hormonal shifts. There may be alcohol dependence. There may be sleep dysregulation. There may be blood sugar instability. There may be unprocessed grief. And there may be a body that has not felt truly safe for a very, very, very long time. So the first thing I want to say is this the morning terror she is describing may not be just psychological. It most probably is deeply emotional. A lot of people who drink heavily to manage anxiety, they don't realize that alcohol numbs the distress for a short time while worsening the baseline anxiety that is deeply within them in the long term. It disrupts their sleep, it affects their cortisol rhythms, it destabilizes their mood, it increases their anxiety, and it can make mornings feel especially, especially low. So a person wakes up already in a stress-depleted, chemically vulnerable state and then believes the drink is the only thing helping. Because in that moment, it truly does bring relief. But the relief and the worsening can both be true at the same time. That's why this kind of suffering can be such a trap. And then when you add menopause or postmenopause changes to the mix, wow, things can really intensify even more, right? Hormonal shifts can absolutely affect your mood. They affect your anxiety, they affect your sleep, the sensitivity, and your emotional resilience. So again, this is why a person in this kind of state deserves a real support structure, a system. It's not just a whispered internet mythology that microdosing plant medicine fixes everything. Because the question, can microdosing be supportive for some people with depression or anxiety? Yes, sometimes. But that's not the same as saying it is the right first move for someone who is actively drinking heavily every day. They're terrified of losing control, carrying so much deep despair, and trying to do all of this in secret. That, that distinction matters a lot. The other piece here is mindset and the container. So microdosing is often described as subtle, but subtle does not mean it's neutral. If someone is already hyper-focused, intense and tight, like a s like a chord on a piano, on all these sensations that they're feeling, they're already afraid that if they let go, they're that they're going to lose control. They're already scanning for danger and they're already carrying an enormous anticipation for fear. Then even mild changes in perception and energy or emotional sensitivity can feel vastly, vastly destabilizing. So the medicine itself is only part, part of the equation. The inner environment matters, support matters, safety matters, honesty with yourself matters, and the timing matters. And for someone in this kind of desperation, I think the deeper question is not what dough should I start with? Honestly, I think the deeper question is, what would it look like if I stopped trying to survive this completely alone? Because that, that's really what I hear underneath this story. I hear someone who has been carrying an unbearable amount internally while trying to appear okay externally. I hear someone who is trying to solve a life-threatening level of suffering and isolation because of the shame, because of the fear, because of the judgment. But secrecy. Secrecy is exhausting. And secrecy around mental health, alcohol dependence, and plant medicine experimentation can create a very unstable inner container. Not just logistically unstable, it's emotionally unstable, spiritually unstable. Your system never gets to relax because part of it is always hiding in fear. And a hidden nervous system is not a rested nervous system, is not a safe nervous system. So if this were my client or someone sitting across from me and a in deep sincerity, I would not say, no, never. Plant medicine is not for you. And I would also not say, yes, go ahead, this sounds like your answer. I would say, not like this. Not alone. Not in secrecy. Not while the alcohol piece is this active. Not while fear is already this high, even before you've begun. Because before opening the psyche, before opening the heart, before opening into the deeper levels and layers, we need to strengthen this container of safety. And that may look like finally being honest with a therapist, a doctor, a person who can support you, or a partner about the true extent of what's actually happening. It may look like getting real help for the alcohol use because that may be one of the biggest drivers of this cycle. It may look like exploring hormonal and medical support. And I want to say something really tender here, too. The fact that someone in their 60s is still suffering like this does not mean that they have failed. It does not mean they missed their chance in life. It does not mean that healing has passed them by. It means that they have survived a long time in pain. Their body, their nervous system has done an incredible job of keeping them safe. And the survival patterns that they're carrying are getting very, very old. But old is not the same as permanent. That's what is important here. The fact that this woman is still searching for relief, still asking for questions, still reaching for another possibility, still trying to imagine a different life, that tells me. That tells me right there that she is still searching for something that is alive within her that wants to be healed. That part deserves backup. That part deserves the care. That part deserves more than a desperate experiment done in fear and isolation. So my real question to this answer is before microdosing, choose stabilization, choose truth, please choose support. Honestly and openly, please choose safety, choose a wider net than one secret medicine plan. Because the medicine may become part of the path later. It truly might. But when a person is this overwhelmed, the first sacred move is not expansion and isolation. It's mental, it's spiritual, and it's safety. It's helping the body and the mind feel held enough that healing does not have to arrive as another terrifying leap into the unknown. And sometimes that is the beginning of everything. So thank you for joining me inside of the Sacred Mycelium podcast. I am so glad that you are here and joining me for a talk about microdosing plant medicine, earth medicines, and the experiences of real live people. I will see you in the next episode. Like, share, subscribe to this podcast. Send me any questions that you have inside of my DMs. They are always open at Victoria Lee Star 2E's, two Rs. And until next time, I will see you on the next show.