Quit Like a Woman: The Radical Choice to Not Drink in a Culture Obsessed with Alcohol

by Holly Whitaker

Fuels anxiety. Because alcohol is primarily a depressant, we reach for it to take the edge off. Which it does, initially. However, the counteractive process (or the B process) to the depressant nature of alcohol is a release of cortisol and adrenaline into the body. If you drink one glass of wine, you might have about twenty minutes of the desired “relaxed” effect before the drug (A process) wears off, and you’re left with increased amounts of cortisol and adrenaline, which fuel anxiety. This means alcohol causes anxiety; it doesn’t manage it. It’s one of the worst drugs we can imbibe if we are prone to depressive and anxious states.

I believe that alcohol will experience its own “cigarette moment”—a reversal in public opinion and a rejection of it by mainstream culture, seen as something we used to do—once we remove our willful ignorance of its harmful effects on us personally and collectively. I imagine our grandchildren will one day be shocked by the idea that there was once a point in time when we drank ethanol at almost every occasion and boasted of hangovers and drunken antics, the same way I’m always shocked to see pictures of my aunts and uncles smoking indoors at family parties in the seventies.

We are a people constantly balancing our need to belong with our need to maintain individuality and control over our decision making.

We are supposed to consume alcohol and enjoy it, but we’re not supposed to become alcoholics.

When we drink alcohol, artificially high levels of dopamine are released into the brain—a glass of wine will release more dopamine than good sex, good chocolate, or good coffee. The above-normal level of dopamine tells our brain that alcohol is really good at keeping us alive, and so the brain sends out higher levels of glutamate to lock in the experience.

(it’s a neurotoxin, as in it attacks gray matter or the regions of the brain involved in sensory perception, memory, emotions, speech, decision making, and self-control),

So the part of our brain that is responsible for inhibiting actions (willpower), making decisions, moderating social behavior, constructing our personality, upholding our ethics, and planning our future goes offline.

Every girl must decide whether to be true to herself or true to the world. —GLENNON DOYLE

Use what feels right at the time it feels right, leave things behind when they no longer serve you. Trust the evolution of the process.