Why does alcohol seem to help my anxiety?

Yea I feel the same. When I drink, it relieves my anxiety and makes me talkative, more tolerant or less uptight and outgoing. But I realize this is not the right way to treat anxiety and I am minimizing my use of alcohol.

Because alcohol lowers your inhibitions. I was shy around women when I was younger. I was very shy, I found a few drinks loosened me up, much as you allude to. At first it was 2 or 3, then it was 4 or 6, then it was however many it took. A lot of people drink without any problem, but for me, it was hard to turn off. In the end, I had to change friends, trading the drinking buddies for non-drinking buddies and change the way I lived my life.

As a recovering alcoholic, I will remind you that booze is a depressant, and it depresses bodily symptoms, for a while.

It does nothing toward solving any of the real issues that are making you spiral out. It’s a lot like getting shot in the heart and putting a bandaid on your thumb.

And that eventually, you will avoid people because they might smell alcohol on you. You will freak out if a police car is behind you on the highway. Because you know it’s only a matter of time before the officer knows why they want to stop you, because they’ve seen signs of what you knew all along. You’re drunk. By legal measurement, not your own.

It’s a temporary fix, interacting with your body’s brain chemistry to produce calming and sedative effects. But long term it will likely make anxiety and other mental health conditions worse.

Alcohol enhances a chemical that's naturally found in your brain. It's called GABA and it calms you.

Gamma-Aminobutyric Acid (GABA)

Definition:
GABA is a neurotransmitter, a chemical messenger in the brain and nervous system. It plays a crucial role in calming and relaxing the body.

Alcohol dampens the amygdala and lowers inhibition. It makes anxiety decrease and makes you feel more sexual confident and other things too .

Yep, just a real pricey mental bandaid that you have to clean and switch out every day.

it's a nervous system depressant

It'sa GABBA antagonist. Things that excite the gabba system have calming and inhibition effects. It also effects the glutamate receptorsnin your brain which decreases excitabilty