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2.The Physiological Effects Of Drinking
the human body and mind is not a passive object; it is reactive, and will react to the world around it and to the food and drugs we put into it.
the more we drink, the more we build up a tolerance to the alcohol and the more we are capable of drinking.
Firstly, those parts of our brain and nervous system that are particularly vulnerable to the depressive effects of alcohol become more sensitive so that they can work even when under the influence of the anaesthetising effects of alcohol. Secondly, the body becomes more proficient at manufacturing and releasing stimulants and stress hormones to counteract the effect of the alcohol.
The more we drink, the more pronounced this feeling of nervousness and worry is when the alcohol wears off, and it is quite usual for it to cause full-blown depression.
if our depressed drinker takes a drink, the brain then gets back to being on a nearer to normal level and, surprise surprise, he or she feels much better and the negative things they have been focusing on in their alcohol-withdrawn depression suddenly cease to worry them, or at least worry them a lot less. So they genuinely believe that there are certain parts of their life that cause them misery and depression and that drinking relieves this depression. In fact it does, but what they miss is that it is the drinking that has caused the depression in the first place.
alcohol. It relieves the depression and anxiety caused by the effects of the previous drinks.
They drink because it makes them feel good, but over time the drink itself causes them to be unhappy. However, they cannot see this because it is also the drink that seems to relieve their unhappiness, so they keep drinking and exacerbate the problem.
One drink will produce a corresponding feeling of anxiety, but this will be almost imperceptible. Imperceptible to our conscious mind at least, but not to our subconscious.
4.Craving
This is why craving is so powerful. When the thought enters our mind and we start to obsess about it, we won’t know a moment’s peace until we have it.
However, if we have decided we ought not have a drink for any reason, and we do not take one such that the spiral of craving starts, when we do eventually take the drink we are not only relieving the feeling of anxiety or depression, we are also relieving the mental torture, confusion, and misery of the spiral of craving.
5.The Relaxing Effects Of Alcohol
Most people who still have alcohol in their system the morning after drinking will be physically intoxicated but will not have any corresponding feeling of alcohol-induced mental relaxation.
physical intoxication and a feeling of mental relaxation run their course at different speeds, with the intoxicating effect outlasting the relaxing effect.
7.Dehydration
The human body will jettison the reserve if it assesses that it has an unwanted excess of reserve water. Of course, when the effect of the alcohol wears off, the gauge is reset back to the correct level. The body then realises that it does not have enough reserve water and it looks to replenish this supply.
after a few drinks we start needing the toilet increasingly regularly and we do not just urinate out the exact amount of liquid that we consumed, but much more as our body also rids itself of (what it thinks is) an unwanted excess of reserve water.
The further conclusion of this is that it is absolutely pointless trying to rehydrate yourself during a drinking session or immediately after it (such as on the way home).
9.Alcohol And Fitness
the converse is also true. If we are regularly pushing our heart rate up without any related physical activity then each pump of the heart is delivering too much oxygen, so the red blood cells will space out and their life span will increase and consequently they will carry less oxygen. It is the reverse of getting fit;
10.Alcohol’S Effect On Emotions
alcohol acts to inhibit certain reactors in the brain that themselves act to put a stop on certain emotions when they take hold.
people do not become angry, introspective, unhappy, regretful, or anything else when they drink because the alcohol has brought out the true side of them, but because the alcohol has prevented their brain from acting as it ought to. It changes them into something that they aren’t
If you think that alcohol relieves anger, misery, frustration, etc., then alcoholics (who drink the most) would surely be the happiest people on the planet. Drunks would be the most calm and happy people, and those least likely to get into a fight.
12.Emotional Resilience
people who regularly accept their negative emotions experience fewer negative emotions and as a consequence experienced better psychological health. The study found that feelings of disappointment, sadness or resentment inflicted more damage upon people who avoided them. The advice was simple. When you are experiencing negative emotions you should let your feelings happen and allow yourself to experience them without trying to control or change them.
If you experience it regularly then it ceases to worry you and becomes the norm.
There is a very pronounced tendency in the western world to expect to be happy all the time. We see it as our basic right and if we are unhappy, even for a moment, we immediately look to remedy it, often by taking some kind of external drug like alcohol.
14.Drinking And Obesity
Alcohol causes us to feel hunger for calories, so when we drink we tend to eat high-calorie junk food rather than choose healthier options, and because we are not eating the food containing the vitamins and minerals we actually need we are more likely to remain hungry even after we’ve eaten.
15.‘I Shall Be As Sick As A Dog In The Morning’
Alcohol anaesthetises the receptors that trigger nausea so we are less likely to feel sick if we over-imbibe.
when we feel slightly nervous we often don’t know what to do with our hands, so we are constantly trying to do something with them. If we have a drink in them, we are likely to be constantly sipping it.
the feeling doesn’t just wear off leaving us feeling exactly as we did before we took the drink; it wears off leaving a corresponding feeling of anxiety, the net result of which is that we feel less relaxed than we did before taking the drink. So the tendency is to keep drinking and, as dealt with previously, the mental relaxation dissipates before the physical intoxication, with the result that to maintain a degree of alcohol-induced mental relaxation we have to become increasingly physically intoxicated.
So now we can see why it is so easy to drink too much. The receptors telling us to stop are deadened, the feeling of tranquillity quickly disperses leaving a corresponding feeling of anxiety such that more drink is required, and the full extent of illness caused by what we are drinking is not fully apparent until some hours after we have stopped.
16.Fading Affect Bias
Everyone should be able to relate to this tendency to look at past events through rose tinted spectacles, and even mourn events that have gone by that were less positive than we remember, or even downright unpleasant at the time.
over time our memory of the drink or drugs becomes warped, and warped in such a way that it seems less and less negative to us as time passes.
17.The Slowing Down Of The Mind – Boredom Drinking
Alcohol doesn’t make things interesting; it makes your mind stupid so that things that would otherwise have bored it are suddenly enough to occupy it. This tendency is exacerbated by the general fatigue drinking causes. We have less energy and enthusiasm so can’t be bothered to fill our time with a worthwhile hobby or pastime, so we gravitate towards just sitting in a bar or sitting in front of the TV.
18.‘I’D Rather Have No Drinks Than Just One Or Two’
that it not only reacts to alcohol that has entered our system, but it reacts in expectation of alcohol that has not yet even been imbibed.
when you imbibe one drink your body will immediately expect the next nine, and will act in full expectation of all ten drinks rather than the one you have imbibed.
19.The Process For The Binge Drinker
Essentially, that is what alcoholism is. It is when we get to the stage that we instinctively or subconsciously know that the ill effects of drinking can be removed by drinking more. Rather than feeling repulsed by alcohol when we have had too much, we actually start to crave it as we know it will end all the unpleasant feelings we are suffering from.
22.Do I Have A Problem? The Stages Of Alcoholism
They may not be dependent on alcohol to get out of bed in the morning or to deal with every aspect of their lives, but they are clearly dependant on alcohol to get them through certain situations, to such an extent that what should be a very enjoyable, once-in-a-lifetime experience is missed out on because the drug they need to enjoy that situation is missing.
I think a far more accurate way to chart the drinking journey is simply to look at which situations you would be uncomfortable not drinking at, because what this really means is that in that you cannot fully cope with, or enjoy, that situation without your drug. Even if you just think that a drink might slightly enhance a certain situation then you should beware. After all, if you are happier drinking, then you must by consequence be more miserable if you are not. This will very quickly turn into not being able to enjoy the situation at all without a drink.
23.The Problem With Accepting That You Have A Problem
the more perceived problems you have, and the more unhappy and dissatisfied you are with life generally, the more the alcohol withdrawal is going to drag you down.
because of the worry about their drinking problem. This is made up of guilt that they are still drinking, shame that they are unable to control their drinking, worry about the problem and what they can do about it, etc.
when we stop and are drawn back to drinking, we look back on our drinking years with rose tinted spectacles thanks to Fading Affect Bias. However, what we also need to bear in mind is that the guilt-free drinking we experienced in our early years is simply not something you can just return to. Drinking evolves over time and cannot turn back to what it was.
There are many things in life we grow out of and discard as they cease to be of interest and/ or use to us.
if you have stopped drinking, don’t fall into the trap of thinking you can go back to how it was. Once it sours, it sours. Once you see the defects you can never unsee them; like many things in life, you cannot turn the clock back. But this isn’t a reason to be miserable; on the contrary, like any change for the better it is something to enjoy and celebrate.
24.The Disease Theory Of Alcoholism
what has been learnt can never be unlearnt. The mental state of alcoholism is created when the subconscious mind instinctively knows that the one cure for the ill effects of alcohol (and by this I mean every ill effect, from the minor physical aggravation created by one drink right up to the chronic hangover or the depression caused by long-term heavy drinking) is more alcohol.
25.Alcoholics Anonymous
being based on a fallacy, it is all too easy for it to go wrong. Everyone has bad days on occasion, be they drinkers, non-drinkers, or ex-drinkers, and when those sorts of days come along, the AA convert can feel they have been abandoned by God or sense that something has gone awry, and suddenly the whole thing can collapse like a house of cards.
27.Stopping Cold Turkey – The Physical
Epilepsy is three times higher among alcohol-dependent people than among the general population.
The physical withdrawal is over in five days. Period. When anyone craves alcohol after five days, this craving is triggered by the mental instead of the physical.
29.The Mental Agony Of Stopping
He isn’t miserable because he isn’t eating trolls; he is miserable because the idea of being miserable your whole life is enough to make anyone miserable.
the joy of socialising is often mistakenly chalked up as being due to drinking, and this in itself is reinforced by the fact that our own experience has shown us that we do not get this joy if we aren’t drinking. We believe we will miss out on this joy when we stop, and this will cause us to be miserable.
if you believe that you are from hereon missing out on a genuine pleasure then that life will be ever after spoiled to some degree, and this will be a cause of melancholy, sadness and misery. Well, then we move beyond misery and into misery with no hope of reprieve, and misery with no hope of reprieve is despair: utter, utter despair.
When you are unhappy you seek change. That is just human nature. The addict has only two choices: taking the drug or not taking it. These are the only two he or she can alternate between; there is no third way. Because both choices make them miserable, they are constantly flitting between the two.
Firstly, the entire process takes place in the conscious mind; therefore, it is within our power to control and negate it if we wish to do so. Secondly, the entire phenomenon is built on one key point: a genuine belief that you cannot be happy without drinking alcohol. And the beautiful truth is that this one single point from which the entire prison of addiction is built on is a lie,
30.A Better Way Of Stopping – The Options
When the subconscious trigger kicks in, the result is not that the addict starts craving the drug; rather, they just act as a reminder of how lucky the addict is to be free. It actually turns the whole process on its head: the more triggers you get, the happier you are that you have stopped. In time the subconscious triggers themselves also tail off such that the addict ends up entirely free.
31.A Better Way Of Stopping – The Subconscious Triggers, The Spiral Of Craving, And The Mental Agony Of Stopping
Imagine the feeling of failure, of letting down those relying on you. Think of waking up in the night and lying there worrying, of getting up the next day feeling exhausted and depressed. Don’t just let the thought of having a drink float there unattended: pin it down and be realistic, see the whole picture and not just part of it.
The key to defeating addiction is not overcoming a desire for something; it is removing that desire in its entirety.
32.A Better Way Of Stopping – The Effects Of Fab
If I look through a magnifying glass at an ant I don’t jump out of my skin because I have seen a giant ant, I know how the magnifying glass works and know that the ant isn’t giant, it just appears so because of the illusion created by the glass. In the same way, when you start to think fondly of alcohol and your drinking years you will know that this is the effect of FAB and that your memory of events has become warped over time.
33.A Better Way Of Stopping – Undermining The Addiction
items are enjoyable in and of themselves. They are not reliant on alcohol to be enjoyable.
alcohol gets the credit for this perfect evening, but actually it’s contributed nothing to it at all.
Alcohol takes too much credit. It takes credit for situations that it has contributed nothing too, or has even actually detracted from.
35.The Benefits Of Stopping
One of the extraordinary things I found when I stopped drinking was that I was not the impatient, intolerant person I thought I was, and that the world simply isn’t the irritating place I thought it was.
If people are drinking a lot and getting drunk I feel pleased not to be a part of that anymore because, to put it frankly, drunk people are phenomenally irritating when you are sober. They repeat themselves, they talk too loudly, they get too close to you, they say stupid things.