Alcohol doesn't help social anxiety except by social convention.

Society believes alcohol changes personality, and that drunk people are less themselves. Thus, they judge drunk people less harshly (including themselves).

But alcohol doesn't actually change personality. It only makes your brain work slower. It doesn't make it go anywhere it otherwise wouldn't, you just get there later.

What we've developed is a way to split up when we're accountable. I promise you that split is zero-sum: the more leniently they judge your social behaviour when drunk, the more harshly they judge it when you're sober.

Alcohol absolutely does help social anxiety by improving mood and lowering inhibitions on a brain chemistry level. There are plenty of factual and scientific reasons to dislike and discourage alcohol, the "it's all in your head dummy" angle isn't one of them.

If it was simply on a brain chemistry level, why does it work so differently in other times and places?

It's an example of bad high-status science suppressing good low-status science. Neurochemists asking, "Why does alcohol make us do this?" without checking with cultural anthropologists if it actually does make us do this, or if it just makes "WEIRD" people do it.

I did not say it was all in your head, by the way. The lower reaction times and slower thinking is obviously real (and present everywhere).

I understand your point and would have to read more deeply about it, but these things exist on a spectrum. Anxiety reduction, talkativeness, etc. might very well be socially induced with alcohol making you significantly more susceptible to the social cues. That isn't any more placebo than any mood altering substance.

Alcohol suppresses anxiety. Up until the hangover, when it exacerbates it.

The cross cultural evidence suggests anxiety reduction, and indeed all psychological/personality effects, is just placebo.

The solution existential dread is managing it, it won't go away because we don't have the tools to answer the questions that induce it

I suggest studying epistemology

AA was my solution vs the slow suicidal death by alcohol.

I should join AA if I have social anxiety or existential dread? Considering GP's comment, this is a worthless response. Also it wouldn't even apply to people that don't drink, such as myself. I'm glad AA helped you but you chose the wrong comment to reply to.

Well, I've never done AA, but what does AA provide that would be beneficial more broadly? Community? Acceptance of high power? Repentance? Peer-commitments? Shared-experiences?

So maybe organized, community-oriented religion is the right suggestion? Or some secular organization devoted to community betterment?

Yes. The 12 steps are a self directed self paced investigation of self and/in society. The community is welcoming, with diverse backgrounds and experiences. Humility, sharing of suffering and joy, laughter. YMMV

I'm somewhat familiar with the 12 steps. As far as I can tell the core premise is to give in to a "higher power." This feels very similar to a cult to me, in the sense that it's learned helplessness and that the only way you can ever have value is by giving in to the group/god/whatever. I am not saying 12 steps is a cult because it exists to help/cure addiction and it does so with mixed results. But the history of the program is very obviously centered around religion.

If you aren't already in such dire straits as to require this kind of help, it really seems like a form of self-harm to me. I've met many people who've gone through 12 steps. Some advocate for it, some protest it. I'm genuinely happy for people to get the help they need wherever they can find it. But I absolutely would not recommend it to someone that isn't already so desperate that they're willing to give up their autonomy because they don't know what else to do.

Better drugs.