Alcohol and Anxiety

Hello,
I've been up because of my usual heart "flutters" and have been reading the forum. I have been sober for the better part of a month (from alcohol). I used to drink, like many do, to relieve stress. The problem is it usually caused me more stress the next day then it had relieved the night before. I didn't drink all the time, mostly on Saturday night. The thing about it though is often I would indulge too much, common for my age. The weird thing is I would have a disturbing amount of black outs, usually the reports were I was a happy drunk during them, but on occasion I went very dark (emotionally). Even threatening physical harm to my friends. After that event and after a particularly bad episode (likely a panic attack), I stopped drinking. As of today I've only had a glass of wine two weeks ago and a couple if pints at a bar around the same time. Anyway I guess the tangent I'm making is the question of whether others have experienced blackouts while drinking and if there could be a way it is linked to anxiety. I say this because I've had other nights of heavy drinking where I could recall them perfectly.
Just interested, really has nothing to do with how I'm feeling at the moment.
-Rxclusion