When people stick their head in the sand and refuse to look around and see what they are missing the world is passing them by. But when they are told something that to others makes sense but they cannot be persuaded against their beliefs they are said to have a closed mind. That, unfortunately, is the case with the majority of the world’s population and it continues to astound me when reality passes them by.

Latching onto what they consider is a ‘good idea’ many will stick to it to the end. That is because they cannot reason another solution and the one that came first is usually their beacon for life.

This problem arises among religious cohorts. While the New Testament promotes things that are untrue the stories therein stand in their minds as they are brain-washed into them. Many think Christians are too narrow-minded in their approach to God and that they are so-so about biblical truth. This would be my assessment also and for good reason.

With memory of reincarnation and one who has studied the bible from cover to cover and back again, the outstanding feature about the book on which they base their allegiance is that it’s a fake. One can only believe either the one God of the Old Testament or the Trinity God of the New. There can be no acceptance of both unless one is blind or has a closed mind.

It’s not only religious people who have this condition, however, because people tend to believe in what they experience themselves and in little else. Unless they have memory of a previous life they dismiss it as fanciful. There is no real way around it because either one can accept it or reject it. It would seem that there are many who do accept it in Australia, which promotes free thought.

This puts the problem at the feet of those who are from countries where freedom of expression is forbidden. It is the people of those regions where the most closed or impenetrable minds reside. That is because the leaders refuse to allow outside influences to penetrate the barrier they maintain in order to keep the status quo.

It is people from those places whose minds are the most tightly closed of all because they have never been allowed free thought. This is not a condition of their choosing but of the authority over them, and it is the same in religions where brain-washing creates the same conditions.

Have you ever popped popcorn in a pot on a stove? It starts off slow-one lonely kernel, a signal. Gradually more join in until it reaches the point where the kernels are popping almost all at once-rapid-fire.

That’s where we’re at in terms of the awakening of Consciousness on the Planet-those who are more interested in “transforming the fabric of reality for the well-being of all,” than in self-enrichment, self-aggrandizement or self-promotion are awakening and recognizing two profound truths: We are One and there’s enough-and, Our time has come.

We are One and there’s enough. There are enough resources and enough know-how to create a world that is pollution-free and providing abundantly for all its inhabitants. The sticking point is the ignorance that promotes greed. In order to change that the Hundredth Monkey effect has to kick in. And that depends on you-your active participation.

I’ve been using this particular analogy for more than a decade: Imagine humanity as a singular large body with each of us as individual cells in that body. If we want the body to be enLightened, each of us needs to focus on enLightening our own cell. The more of us who Light up our cells, the Lighter the body will be. That ‘Light’ is awakened Consciousness, and critical mass in terms of social engineering is a much smaller number than we imagine-somewhere between 10-17%.

Our time has come. We have reached the point where the process of awakening Consciousness is being supported on a mass scale-by Cosmic forces of Universal proportion-and whether you know it or not, if you’re reading these words, you are meant to participate in this glorious transformation of a civilization and a planet.

You’re not being asked to make any sacrifices, and you’re not being asked to spend money you may not have. You’re only being asked to step forward and say: “I’m in. I’m willing to take the simple steps that will enable Consciousness to more fully awaken in me. I’m willing to cultivate Love in my own being and generate that Love into my community in order to uplift humanity and ‘transform the fabric of reality for the well-being of all.’

Get on board-this is the ride of a lifetime.

A Sales Funnel is kinda like cloning your top sales person and letting them close sales for you 24/7.

The best sales person to sell your product… is you.!!

Your the best sales person on planet earth to sell your product.

There is nobody that believes in it more than you do.

There is nobody that can sell it better than you do.

So guess what?

You are the one that sells it.

All day long, every single day.

Because you are obsessed with it you love it.

Thats the key.

Instead of having 60 fulltime sales people in an office,

replace them with ONE sales funnel.

You will need a…

Landing/Offer page

a Thank you page

an Upsell page

and a Downsell page.

Then you get to do your pitch.

You get to make sure your pitch is perfect.

You can test it.

You can teak it.

and then after you have it perfect and it works.

Then

Don’t touch it again.

The nice thing about it.

When your funnel works,

when the sales process is in place,

if you wake up in a bad mood, it doesn’t matter.

You still close that exact same percentage rate.

If you are tired that day,

if you are sick,

if you want to go on vacaton,

if you want to take a year off,

it desn’t matter.

Your Sales Funnel keeps on closing every single day.

So how can people see the best sales person in the world?

Record a video on your smart phone.

Your probably asking…

What do I say..?

How do I say it..?

Right

This is the script.

– Who

– What

– Why

– How

Most of my videos today are done on my iPhone.

I have a pop socket on the back of my phone so I can old it with one hand.

Then I turn on the camera.

And know I can sell everything by answering those four questions.

Number 1… Who are you..?

Number 2… What do you have for your person who is watchng this video..?

Number 3… Why do they need it..?

Number 4… How can they get it..?

Easiest script in the world and is magic.

It works so good.

So lets say you have a book you want to sell.

So take out your phone, click record and say…

“Hey my name is [YOUR NAME]”.

“I’m here today at [PLACE]”.

“I’m just really, really excited!!”

“I’ve got really cool book I want you guys all to buy, its called [NAME OF BOOK]”.

“You need this book because if you want to [GIVE REASON 1, REASON 2, REASON 3], you need this book”.

“Fill out the form on the side, let me now where to ship your book, put your credit card in, and we’ll ship one out to you”.

BOOM.. thats it.

Thats the video.

Now you can do this with every affiliate product you want.

That’s how we do our videos.

Using who, what, why, how.

I don’t care what you are selling,

this is the script you can use over and over and over again on all your funnels.

This script will make you insane amounts of money.

It’s fast, it’s simple and doesn’t have to be highly produced.

Now, after you’ve got the videos for your Offer, Thank you, Upsell, Downsell videos to sell the thing in your funnel,

now you just plug them into your funnel.

In the past, what I used to do is take these assets and then I’d have a meeting with my team.

We’d have designers, and programmers, and webmasters, and analytics people,

and all so stuff and that was a huge pain in the butt.

I’d tell them all this stuff, I’d give them the videos,

and they’d go and spend the next two or three months building out a sales funnel.

That’s how business was for me.

It took forever.

But today I have new way, a better way, through a tool that my team and I use everyday.

So… Now that you have kick ass videos plugged into a kick butt sales funnel…

How do you get the exact same customers who are currently going to your competitors funnels..?

To get them to start coming to your funne instead.!!

This is the last step.

How do we get traffic and the leads, and the people now to come to you and go through your funnels?

Now, this is where it all becomes really, really fun.

Imagine, if you could call up your competitor and ask them where do you get all your traffic from?

What would happen?

Probably hang up on you right.

Now unfortunately your competitor won’t tell you that information…

but the internet will…

hehehehe…

There are websites that will.

They’ll tell you everysingle thing about what everybody’s doing, there is no way to hide it online.

One of my favorite sites is similarweb.com

This is a really cool website that will actually show you where people are getting their traffic from.

So I go to similarweb and I type in the URL of the competitor I am targeting.

I click on the search button and BOOM!

It show me all the data about what’s happening on at website.

If you scroll down a little you will see a report says… Top Referring websites.

Who is referring them all the traffic.

If you scroll down a little further you will see a report says… Display Advertising.

Click the big button that says, “Show the Ads”

I call it the “Show me the money” button.

Guess what it shows you..?

All the ads they are running.

If you upgrade to the paid version you can see how long the ads ran.

Short running ads… didn’t work.

Long running ads that are still live… are working right now.

So… Now you know…

1.) Exactly where they are advertising

2.) Exactly what they are saying

to get people to click n the ad to come into funnel.

Now…

Design your own ad that is similar (NOT COPIED) and buy advertising on the exact same websites.

Now how d get your banners designed..?

Go to 20dollarBanners.com or design them for free at canva.com

Hope this helps your business…

We should all have health goals! After all, without your health you don’t have much else. Having a couple of cups of coffee to start your morning and an afternoon pick-me-up means your health goals need to include a healthy coffee creamer.

Your java can have health benefits that are anti-inflationary, anti-oxidant, and metabolism boosting beverage. When pouring your next cup, look at that ingredient list to decide if you need to switch to a healthy coffee creamer.

What Makes a Healthy Coffee Creamer?

One made from natural coconut oil, is lactose-free, sugar-free, gluten-free, cholesterol-free and has functional supplements. Other ingredients to avoid are sodium, vegetable oil, and carrageenan.

Good nutrition is not only about what goes into a product, but as much about what is kept out. Some people mistakenly think coffee creamer of any kind is unhealthy and adds nothing but unwanted calories. That is simply not true. A healthy coffee creamer can curb hunger cravings and promote weight-loss.

Functional Supplements Enhance Health Benefits

Healthy plants such as Citrus Aurantium (from oranges) and Hoodia (African cactus-like plant) are healthy supplements known to improve metabolism, increase stamina, and promote weight-loss.

Citrus Aurantium extract (also known as bitter orange) is a flavoring and acidifying agent and an essential oil. It has health giving secondary-metabolites (for metabolism), along with preventative health benefits (lung and prostate cancers, gastric disorders, etc.), and works as a mild appetite suppressant.

Hoodia (also known as Kalahari cactus) has a long history of traditional use by the indigenous San hunters in the deserts of southern Africa. They chew the pulp of the hoodia gordonii cactus to suppress thirst and hunger on long journeys. It is a succulent, fleshy plant of the Asclepiad family.

Coconut oil contains saturated fats (good fats) known to boost fat burning and provides quick energy to both your body and brain. It is easy to digest and promotes healthy functioning of the thyroid and endocrine system.

Key here is that a healthy coffee creamer can be tasty, creamy, and good for you all at the same time. It boosts your metabolism, suppresses appetite, and has other health benefits ranging from decreasing gastric disorders to resisting some cancers. You can’t say that about packaged chemicals labeled as creamers. Chemical red flag such as dipotassium phosphate and sodium sterol lactylatered are what you don’t want in your nutritional intake.

Out with the Bad and In with the Healthy

People have been drinking coffee for centuries but it comes at a price to your health with the wrong additives. It doesn’t have to be that way any longer. Excellent, healthy and transparent coffee creamer is available that will hopefully kick-start your daily diet to into a wholesome and healing one that supports a long and healthy life.

For a truly creamy, delicious, and healthy creamer go with a supplemented coconut base enhanced with natural flavors like vanilla, hazelnut, mocha, and caramel.

Small business owners in the UK often fear losing money investing in traffic generation, and don’t have the skill to master free traffic. They don’t have time to generate leads, as they are too busy running their business. If you are one of them, find out how you can get customers on demand and improve your conversion rates online.

Know Your Clients and Prospects

Targeting the right people with your offers is the most important thing you need to get right if you would like to succeed in digital marketing. It is not about shooting in the dark; you will need to find people with a specific problem you can solve who are the most likely to buy from you. If you are just starting up, you can visit blogs, forums, and Facebook groups to find out more about people who are looking for services similar to what you have to offer.

Measure Everything

It is also crucial that you put a system in place that allows you to measure everything. From full social media management that will allow you to see which of your posts are doing well on different platforms to marketing engagement measurements, there are plenty of things you will want to know exactly. How many followers and subscribers you have is just a number; people coming back and checking out your offers is what really matters.

Know Your Limitations

As a business owner, you might not be good at everything. You can be the best plumber or financial advisor in your region, but setting up a Facebook ad or creating content and posting it might be beyond you. This is why you might want to talk to a sales funnel professional to It is crucial that you create a list of your strengths and weaknesses when it comes to creating engaging content for your sales funnels. You might be good at talking people, but not a master at copywriting. Build on your strengths and address your development areas.

Start Small

Whether you are starting a free sales funnel development or invest money in generating traffic, you should start small, so you can test the different versions of your ads and messages. You have to find the right trigger words that your audience will react to, or you will end up losing your patience or your marketing budget. Creating AB testing is a good way to find the winning combination of headlines, images, and call-to-actions.

When it comes to creating your first sales funnel, you will need to get to know your market, speak their language, create a compelling offer, and find your unique selling proposition. Measure everything, and you can turn business intelligence into effective sales funnels.

Create the Most Effective Social Media Marketing Plan

There’s a vast sea of social media information out there. Experts are everywhere and there are just so many opinions on best practices and tactics.

Not only that, but the platforms themselves are constantly changing, whether it’s adding new features, increasing character limits or otherwise changing the rules.

That’s why I’ve created this guide to help you understand how to set social media goals for 2020. This article is especially good for you if you’ve never taken stock of your marketing campaigns or created objectives.

Throughout this process, it’s really important to be honest about your successes and failures. It’s okay to admit that some of what you’ve done has been a wasted effort-that’s why we’re here.

Here’s my 3-step process to set social media goals for 2020:

1. Check Your Reports

Keeping reports is a must if you want to properly assess the efficacy and efficiency of what you spent time sharing online. There are many ways to configure a report, but if you need direction and inspiration, Smartsheet has a free social media report template to get you started.

You need to learn to look past the number of impressions and understand how your content is really performing. Are people liking it, sharing it, commenting on it?

Pay close attention to metrics like engagement-this valuable info is like your potential leads all telling you what they liked or didn’t. So take that into account when planning out 2020’s content.

For instance, I make an effort to share valuable content daily on our Twitter account.

From Twitter to Facebook, each platform offers free analytics on the profile’s performance, so use it!

This free reporting helps you see what you’ve shared that’s worked well and what’s fallen flat. Look for topics that visitors and followers have been consistently interested in, and share more of that content going forward.

If you’re up to the challenge, you can do some paid promotion for your business. Remember, you can always contact us and let us manage the heavy lifting so you can focus on running your business.

We’re constantly on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and Instagram. And, we stay on top of the latest trends and tips and love analyzing reports and stats!

2. Study Your Analytics

Yes, you want to look ahead, but it’s necessary to look back as well. You can share content left and right, but unless it’s leading visitors to your website, it’s not serving its purpose. You want to drive people to your site, where they’ll hopefully engage further and buy a product or service from you.

Google Analytics is a free tool provided by Google that is key to planning your social media in 2020. It shows you how your actions on social drive traffic to your business, broken down into lots of relevant stats.

To see these results, navigate to your Acquisition section for Social and then click on Network Referrals. You can select the previous year as the date range. Then, you should be able to see how many people have clicked on your posts and subsequently landed on your website.

Read 5 Social Media Marketing Tips for 2020

Is social media marketing not working for you anymore?

Are you wondering what you should be changing in order to get better results?

In our Tea Time Tip: Marketing for Busy Entrepreneurs, I’m sharing 5 valuable tips so you can learn what’s working, what’s not and what you need to focus on more. Read more on our website.

3. Set Your Goals

The first two steps should give you an understanding of where you are, and now it’s time to create your plan. You’ve got a great idea of what type of content worked, which platforms your target audience is hanging out on and where you should focus your efforts in the upcoming year.

Other things you need to do to reach your goals:

• Track your month-to-month follower growth. If you’re not gaining new followers throughout the year, you need to take a look at why that is.
• Keep an eye on which seasons your content is most popular on a particular platform. For example, Pinterest trends show increased usage in the summer and around Christmas, with spring and fall seeing big dips.
• Only share content that has value. You want to sell without driving people away. You also want to give people non-salesy resources like blogs, inspirational quotes, events-whatever makes sense for your brand and audience.

For example, I share articles, events and news on our company’s LinkedIn account.

The biggest mistake you can make is to allow your marketing campaigns to become a chore, rather than a positive part of your business. When you’re enjoying yourself, you’ll find you share more engaging and interactive content.

When you set your goals to conquer social media in 2020, keep in mind that you may not attain all of them. That’s not failure! As long as you’re prepared with a solid social media marketing plan and what you’re sharing is authentic and honest, then you’re doing a great job!

In America they have a saying that “it ain’t over ’til the fat lady sings”.

It seems to me that the “fat lady”, has been singing out for quite some time and might even have sung herself hoarse, but nobody heard her or they were too busy following the false leads of what Donald Trump calls fake news to pay attention.

Now I know that I have probably not been politically correct here in using the word “fat”, please forgive me, I am not up-to-date on this issue, but will defer to the term “size challenged” or “big” to mitigate the offense.

It is fast becoming apparent that the vast array of critical threats and issues hammering on the traditional and historical structures of western civilisations are so overwhelming that those who have something or someone to care about are bracing themselves for a Humpty Dumpty type scenario of biblical proportions.

Just like in the case of Humpty, when he fell off the wall and the cracks appeared, “all the king’s horses and all the king’s men couldn’t put Humpty together again”.

Sounds a bit like Brexit doesn’t it, or maybe the US democratic system?

There have been over fifty murders in London this year so far, all unsolved. We see the headlines, it seems like every day, there is another one. The police blame it on gangs and are calling for the public to help.

But doesn’t this mean that there are over fifty murderers walking around, sitting in bars, dining in restaurants and over fifty grieving families, may be plotting revenge or now living with traumatised children.

Moped muggings, acid attacks, hate crimes, enacted in record numbers and mostly unsolved.

On the other side of the pond, politically opposed factions have become so acrimonious that one faction has taken to public shaming and actual harassment of some of the figures of the current administration.

“Celebrities” have taken to publicly making such insanely hateful, malicious statements via social media, about public figures that it stresses the rationality of a sane person’s mind.

America seems to be up to its elbows in fear, hate and insecurity, much like the rest of the planet.

All of the blood that was spilled and the pain that was suffered to forge these great democracies seem to be rising up out of the ground like an invisible virus, affecting the minds of the people and their elected governance.

If the “big lady” hasn’t sung yet, what in the world is she waiting for?

If you close sales or do sales presentations over the phone, then you might be wondering what the best way to open the closing call is. Inside sales, as you may know, offers lots of advantages, one of them being that you can use a sales script that is proven and effective. Obviously, you want to memorize and internalize the script, so you don’t sound like a robot, but once you do, you’ll be able to deliver a consistent sales presentation, or closing call, over and over again.

And this brings us to today’s sales blog: what is the best-practice opening for your sales presentation or closing call? To answer this, let first look at what not to do:

Believe it or not, many sales reps open their sales presentation or closing calls with this weak opening:

“Oh hi, this is _______ _______ with _________, and we had an appointment right now to go over the presentation. Is this still a good time for you?”

Now I know that it seems polite to check in with your prospect before just launching into your presentation (which you’d never want to do anyway) but giving them an out right at the beginning isn’t the way to go. Don’t worry-once you use the opening below, if they don’t have the time, they will let you know.

Before we get to the openings, let me remind you that you’ll first want to get a feel for how they are doing, and you’ll want to build a little rapport. You can use either of the following (or use your favorite opening that works well for you now):

“How is your Wednesday going so far?” or

“How’s your morning going?”

Either of these is better than the old and tired, “How are you today?”

By the way, once you do ask how they are, make sure and listen and react accordingly! Listen for how they sound-are they in a rush? Happy or upset to hear from you? Open and willing?

Use this feedback to adjust the pacing of your presentation. Also, make sure and respond and interact with them here. If they ask you how you’re doing, make sure and acknowledge this and thank them for asking you. And don’t be so quick here to jump into your pitch. Take a minute or two and connect.

After you do this, use an opening that is assumptive and shows that you’re excited to meet with them today. Try either of these sales opening lines:

“_________, I’ve been looking forward to speaking with you today because I have some updates that you’ll be interested in. I’m sure you’re in front of a computer, so do me a favor and go to… “

OR

“I’ve been looking forward to speaking with you today. I’m sure you’ve gone through the (email/website/information) I sent you and you probably have a few questions. What did you want to ask me before we get started?”

This last presentation opening is powerful because it immediately gets your prospect to reveal what questions they have, how interested they are (you’ll know by the quality of their questions), and it gives them a chance to interact with you. This is much better than having you just pitch at them and do a features and benefits dump.

If you think these closes or presentation opening statements are too basic or won’t work, then think again. Compare them with what you’re using now and commit to trying them for week. You’ll be surprised how much easier your closing calls and sales presentations will go.

As you’ll see, the more prepared you are for your sales presentations and closes you are, the more confident and successful you’ll be.

In a previous article “Market Research: Qualitative, Quantitative and Everything In-Between” we explained the differences between quantitative and qualitative market research studies. We also promised to provide an example of a two-phase research approach, in order to highlight the differences between qualitative and quantitative research approaches. Here’s our example:

QuickStop Convenience Stores

Once upon a time there was a very successful convenience store, we’ll call it “QuickStop”. At some point the management team began to worry that QuickStop wasn’t being patronized by as many women as men – and that QuickStop was losing a valuable part of the market.

Research Objective

A research project was designed to understand how women felt about shopping at QuickStop stores and why. It was decided that this research should be qualitative and the specific methodology would be In-depth-Interviews. The belief was that these women might be less likely to talk about their feelings about convenience stores in a group, so one-on-one interviews made the most sense.

Qualitative Research

About two dozen current or potential female customers were paid to come into a central facility to discuss the use of convenience stores in general, and specifically QuickStop convenience stores. The results were very surprising to the management team. The major qualitative findings included the following:

1. Women viewed convenience stores to be primarily designed for men, with little or no consideration for women,
2. The bathrooms at convenience stores were believed to be the dirtiest that could be found in a city – “gross” was the most common description – and that perception permeated everything that women felt about convenience stores in general
3. QuickStop was seen as one of the worst of convenience stores “kind of the place for a man to buy gas, get a six-pack of cheap beer and cigarettes, but not the kind of place I want to go”.

Quantitative Research

Once the management team had an understanding of what issues they faced with female customers, they felt that they needed to understand how broadly these beliefs were held. Now they needed to get some hard numbers, and that meant that they needed to conduct quantitative market research. The research objective for this phase of research were:

• Understand how female customers of QuickStop differ from those that don’t regularly visit these stores.
• Understand whether or not a renovation of QuickStop could entice each group to visit more frequently (or at all depending on whether the respondent currently avoided QuickStop entirely).

For the quantitative phase of research they decided to conduct 250 telephone interviews with a combination of female respondents. The requirements to participate in this phase of research were that: half of the respondents stated that they had used QuickStop at least five times in the last year, and the other half admitted to intentionally avoiding QuickStop altogether, although they did use other brands of convenience stores. The major results from the quantitative phase indicated that:

1. Over 76% of all female QuickStop customers were women under 30 years old, without children, while women with children and with higher incomes were 5 times less likely to shop at QuickStop
2. The good news was that of the women who didn’t currently use QuickStop, 64% said that if these stores were to update their color schemes, clean up their bathrooms and update their health and feminine products that they would be willing to try QuickStop again.

The two phases of research gave the QuickStop management team a very good understanding of where they currently stood with female customers and why. Their quantitative research also indicated that those women who were not currently using their stores would “forgive” them if the changed their ways. Their decision now was to decide if gaining more middle-aged women as customers was worth the cost of updating their stores and spending more money to keep them clean and neat.

I hope that this example has helped to clarify the different uses and benefits of both qualitative and quantitative market research.

Alcohol use and anxiety tend to go hand in hand. The presence of anxiety symptoms is often seen in tandem with a person’s alcohol use disorder (AUD). This form of comorbidity is a common dual diagnosis condition. As the most easily and openly available substance, alcohol is used for multifarious purposes, such as celebration, relaxation, defusing stress and anxiety, etc. Although alcohol can temporarily wash away one’s worries and sorrows, it has severe implications, especially when consumed excessively.

Similarly, anxiety disorders are the most common mental illnesses in the United States that contribute to the phenomenon of using alcohol to self-medicate its symptoms. Due to the interdependence of alcoholism and anxiety, the existence of any one of these problems is likely to trigger AUD or anxiety disorders. The coexistence of anxiety disorders and AUD leads to comparatively severer symptoms than those triggered by any of these conditions alone. This comorbidity also leads to the higher rates of disability and an increased disease burden.

When anxiety disorders co-occur with AUD, it is associated with the higher rates of relapse if the individual were only to be treated for any one of the conditions. Unfortunately, the stigma around mental disorders and addiction prevent many individuals who experience co-occurring disorders from seeking help or even acknowledging their symptoms openly. In addition, only one-third of the individuals with anxiety disorders receive treatment even though these are quite treatable. There is less awareness on the optimal approaches available for treating such coexisting disorders.

Relation between anxiety and AUD

Anxiety is an indispensable part of life that a person witnesses during a stressful situation or problem. Though being anxious is a normal thing, some individuals feel it to a greater degree and for a longer period of time compared to others. These people are closer to the development of anxiety disorders, especially when their anxiety begins to dictate all aspects of their lives. They have an increasingly harder time in maintaining healthy relationships and accomplishing daily tasks. Moreover, they are more prone to misuse substances to ease the intensity of anxiety.

Alcohol is a central nervous system (CNS) depressant that causes a sedative effect when consumed. For some individuals suffering from chronic anxiety, alcohol becomes a means of taking the edge off the pain and temporarily grants a safe haven from the deafening thoughts of worries.

When these individuals consume alcohol, their blood alcohol content (BAC) rises that triggers a relaxing but intoxicating effect. This pattern of unwinding or self-medicating is extremely dangerous because it creates dependency on alcohol. Consuming too much alcohol leads to blackouts, loss of memory and a decline in cognitive behavioral functions. It also leads to health complications, such as liver damage and the onset of some forms of cancer. In the long run, these factors can become a major source of stress and anxiety that worsen the symptoms of co-occurring disorders.

Although the onset of a psychiatric illness generally precludes the onset of AUD, the opposite is also true. Despite tall claims on the safe amount of alcohol for drinking, it has been found that even the moderate amount of it may trigger the underlying symptoms of anxiety. In fact, alcohol also has the innate tendency to worsen the condition of the individuals already coping with another form of anxiety disorders. Moreover, the chances of substance-induced anxiety increases in people already suffering from an anxiety disorder, thereby exacerbating the symptoms of the existing disorder.

The prolonged consumption of alcohol also has the potential to rewire the brain. The development of an addiction is associated with the changes in the brain that prioritize rewarding oneself with substance use. This not only makes a person more susceptible to experiencing anxiety-related problems, but also increases his or her risk of experiencing traumatic events that could become a potential cause for anxiety in the future.

Furthermore, alcohol changes the level of serotonin and other neurotransmitters in the brain that can worsen anxiety. Secondly, alcohol-induced anxiety lasts for several hours or for a complete day after drinking. Thirdly, the physical symptoms of withdrawal from alcohol entail trembling, nausea, sweating and an elevated heart rate that could contribute to the development of long-term chronic anxiety.