Alcohol temporarily helps but you pay it back with interest over time.
It sounds trite but exercise and sleeping/eating better is really the only thing we have proof that works. (zoloft can help kickstart the changes but it won't reduce anxiety long term)
I think I have more of an acute issue with anxiety, at the moment mostly driven by financial insecurity combined with unexpected medical expenses. Like what I really need right now is a few thousand dollars in travel expenses and for this precertification to go through, but failing that I just need to make it from one day to the next.
Weed's healthier. Alcohol can help with a lot of the same things, but the side-effects of terrible sleep and hangovers can make the problem worse the next day. I understand weed is also supposed to harm sleep quality, but IME it's not even close to as bad as even a light-buzz amount of alcohol, and weed's never given me a hangover. And it doesn't make you gain weight (directly—munchies, LOL, but then again I get those on alcohol, too, personally).
Alcohol has maybe given me a hangover once. I also don't typically have more than two drinks in a day, and if I am having a bad enough day to want to use alcohol then that's going to be closer to 2pm than bedtime. Cannabis use is pretty continual these days, being locally legal, but I don't find it very effective for anxiety. But actually one of the main things I'm using for mood regulation these days is programming. It's hard to think about code simultaneously with anything else, and learning coding was among other things a process of learning emotional regulation with regards to coding, because it's not like the computer cares if you find a bug challenging.
It doesn't exacerbate it, though it doesn't cure it either per-say. For example you still feel your skin crawling while high, but it transforms the interpretation of the sensation from super-annoying to mildly amusing and completely ignore-able.
I don't have any problems sleeping with low-to-moderate amounts of alcohol and I certainly don't get hangovers unless I'm really getting drunk. Then again, we all handle different substances differently. For me, weed usually causes anxiety, sometimes acute, severe anxiety. And paranoia. Indica strains seem to do this much less, but also make me incredibly sleepy. High CBD strains seem to be best but are not easy to find.
Alcohol works so well for me that I'm sort of scared of it. Often even after just one or two drinks I become the happiest and most sociable person on the planet.
Alcohol is borrowing happiness today from tomorrow. If you self-medicate with alcohol it will be worse in the longterm. Don't fall down that rabbit hole.
It sounds trite but exercise and sleeping/eating better is really the only thing we have proof that works. (zoloft can help kickstart the changes but it won't reduce anxiety long term)