Distinct anxiety and alcohol use as a coping mechanism

I stopped drinking alcohol over a year ago, but I just realized something about my alcohol use that might be the exact thing some of you need to hear...so, here it is.

I genuinely didn't realize I was drinking as a coping mechanism. 

I thought I was drinking to relax. Not to cope. 

That's not what I just realized though (I've known this for a while). This is the thing I just realized...

All I had EVER heard about alcoholism until that point was that people end up in addiction because they use it to cope with anxiety and depression. Right or wrong, that's what was in my head about alcohol addiction.

But because my anxiety was not (and still isn't!!) recognized as anxiety by the medical field... I had no. idea. that's what I was experiencing. 

I mean, I kind of had a hint of a feeling, but definitely not a concrete understanding that I was using alcohol to cope with my anxiety.

To explain this a bit more...

The anxiety I was dealing with was the result of my autistic needs not being met (aka, distinct anxiety... sensory anxiety is one example of distinct anxiety). 

And I was ABSOLUTELY using alcohol to cope with my distinct anxiety. 

But I legitimately had no idea. Because distinct anxiety isn't a "thing" (not in the DSM, not on intake forms, not in how professionals screen for distress) and because of my vague and incorrect understanding of alcohol addiction.

So it did not AT ALL click to me that I was drinking to cope.  

This may sound absurd to some of you, but that's why for 5 years I legitimately didn't realize I was doing this.

And I am also convinced that the vast majority of autistic people who use substances to cope are doing so because of distinct anxiety (that most of them probably don't know they have).