Alcohol Explained

by William Porter

You need to get this straight in your mind: alcohol ruins sleep. If you are tired the next day, this is as a direct result of the previous night’s drinking. Even one drink will interrupt the natural sleeping pattern, and there is no safe amount to drink which will allow you to escape the ill effects of drinking as it impacts sleep.

This is because for people who drink regularly, their sleep pattern is regularly disrupted. If they stop on day one they may well have a very poor night’s sleep that night, indeed it is likely to be even worse than had they been drinking. Nights two, three, and even four will be increasingly better but often not perfect, but usually by day five the body has fully adjusted and something akin to normal sleep is resumed.

Alcohol in its pure form is a highly poisonous chemical. It is a toxin that kills living things, from human beings to single cells and microorganisms, which is why it is used to preserve food and sterilise. It sterilises by killing the germs it comes into contact with. It doesn’t just kill germs, it kills all living cells. In fact, for humans the toxicity is increased because in order for it to be cleared from the body it has to be metabolised to acetaldehyde, an even more toxic substance. Any food or drink contaminated with the amount of acetaldehyde that a unit of alcohol produces would be banned as having an unacceptable health risk.

The point to bear in mind is that alcohol in its pure form is repulsive and highly poisonous to living creatures, no human being is capable of ingesting it without vomiting, and if it can be kept down it is usually fatal.

In the same way, if you put a small amount of dog urine in a glass of orange juice it would be palatable,

The simple fact of the matter is that 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 by stopping their brain from working in the way it normally would. Essentially, it causes people to be overly emotional because it causes them to be unable to check their emotions.

The tiredness and accumulated poisoning of the body cause most drinkers to feel lethargic and tired, and this state of mind is much more conducive to negative emotions than positive ones.

Perhaps more important than any of these points is the fact that alcohol causes a deficiency in certain vitamins, such as thiamin (vitamin B1), vitamin B12, folic acid, and zinc, as it actually inhibits the absorption and usage of these vital nutrients. This means we end up lacking in certain vitamins and nutrients. Now, human bodies will trigger a feeling of hunger when (among other things) we are deficient in something our body needs. It is not just a lack of calories (or energy) that triggers hunger. We can have enough (or even an excess) of actual calories, but if we are not eating the food that contains the vitamins and minerals that our bodies need, we will still be hungry, which

will cause us to continue to eat even though we do not need the calories.

if you suddenly allow your body to absorb and process essential nutrients that it has been prevented from absorbing for some time, it will take several months before the full extent of the benefits becomes apparent.

When a human being drinks at a high enough level, the stimulants countering the ever-increasing depressive effects of the alcohol are at such a level that their effect is much akin to actually imbibing a strong stimulant such as amphetamines, one of the effects of which is to prevent us

from being able to eat.

The fact of the matter is we keep drinking for the effect. There are two factors at play here. Firstly, that the relaxing mental effect induced by alcohol soon wears off and needs to be replaced. Secondly, 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.

In fact, there are two reasons for this anomaly. Firstly, a human body removes alcohol from the system, metabolising it, and when it is metabolised it turns into a substance called acetaldehyde. As mentioned previously, any food or drink contaminated with the amount of acetaldehyde that a unit of alcohol produces would be banned as having an unacceptable health risk. It takes on average an hour for the body to process one unit of alcohol (a unit being approximately half a pint of beer or one small glass of wine), so it is easy to see how the acetaldehyde will build up for several hours after we stop drinking. The second reason is that alcohol anaesthetises the receptors that trigger nausea, so it is not until this anaesthetising effect

has worn off that the full extent of the nausea is felt. What we are actually doing is taking a poison that would leave us feeling extremely ill, but the anaesthetic effect of the alcohol means we can’t feel the illness. It’s not that we’re not ill during the evening; it’s just that we can’t feel it!

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. So it is really quite understandable why people tend to drink too much and can end up in quite a bad way from drinking.

This is one of the great troubles with giving anything up. The longer we do without it, the more benign or the less dreadful is our memory of being in its grip.

My position was always that I liked drinking, that I could put up with not drinking, but that having just one or two was intolerable. I would either drink or abstain. I have also heard it time and again from drinkers too numerous to mention. It is an extremely common view shared by a large proportion of drinkers the world over. But if we look at this a little closer it should give us cause for concern. What we are really saying is, ‘when I start taking this chemical substance I cannot (or at least find it difficult or problematic) to stop’. What is this if not addiction? And what is an addiction to alcohol if not alcoholism?

A much fuller understanding comes when we factor in that the feeling of mental relaxation induced by alcohol doesn’t just dissipate leaving us feeling as we did before, it dissipates leaving a corresponding feeling of anxiety and distress. So when we start we want to just carry on, we want to relieve the anxious feeling not suffer it, and if we cannot relieve it we would rather not suffer it at all. So our options are drink with impunity, in which case we don’t have to worry about the craving, the subconscious triggers, or the withdrawal (at least we don’t have to worry about them until we eventually go to bed and wake up the following day); not drink at all, in which case we only suffer the subconscious triggers and possibly the craving; or have one or two, in which case we suffer the withdrawal from the one or two drinks we imbibe and the craving and subconscious triggers (which are much more formidable when they are triggered by the physical withdrawal). So completely logically and understandably, our options in order of preference are: drink, abstain, have one or two. Indeed, this final option is one many people simply will not even attempt.

As the body becomes more proficient at countering the alcohol, it will be capable of doing so more and more efficiently. The amount of stimulant the body is able to create and release will increase, and the speed at which it does so in reaction to alcohol entering the body will also increase. So as we become more and more used to alcohol we need more alcohol to feel normal, and the relaxing effect of a drink will wear off correspondingly quickly and will just as quickly be replaced with the feeling of worry and anxiety. Indeed, the process actually goes beyond this. Eventually the body becomes so proficient at countering the alcohol and so used to alcohol being imbibed at a certain level, 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. To explain this fully, by way of an example, if every time you drink you average, say, ten drinks, your body and brain will get used to this. Therefore, 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.

When the drinker reaches this stage, one drink will have virtually no beneficial effect at all and will leave the drinker feeling more uptight and insecure than had they not drunk at all. This is because their bodies are so used to alcohol being imbibed to a fairly high level whenever it is imbibed, that the first drink will simply send the signal that an onslaught of booze is incoming, and the reaction to that one drink will be a high flow of the stimulant designed to counteract far more than the one drink they have actually consumed, leaving the drinker feeling worse off than had they had nothing. So it is not just the case that one drink causes a feeling of relaxation that disperses, leaving a corresponding feeling of anxiety that needs continual topping up, but that for many people that one drink does nothing at all other than cause them to want several more. You start to need several drinks to obtain the feeling of relaxation and calmness that used to be obtained from one drink. This is why, as our drinking progresses, we tend to drink stronger drinks, larger measures, more quickly, or most usually a combination of all three.

It is also important to note that this reaction will take place in any human being who consumes alcohol. It is not the exclusive reserve of the ‘alcoholic’. Indeed, an ‘alcoholic’ is simply someone whose body reacts in a certain, highly efficient way to alcohol and whose subconscious correctly associates the relieving of the unpleasant effects caused by the previous drinking with more drinking. This reaction is caused, not by a genetic condition or flaw in the alcoholic in question, but simply by drinking over time. The heavier and more irresponsible the drinking, the quicker the process is.

In this way, and over time, alcoholism will develop in the binge drinker. The process is accelerated because the binge drinker’s body and brain will get used to large amounts of alcohol being imbibed at every session, so (as dealt with previously) whenever a drink is taken the brain will release an amount of stimulant far in excess of the first drink or two, and this is turn makes it even harder for the binge drinker to stop drinking midway through a binge; when they start they will carry on to the bitter end.

The other bad news is that as time passes FAB takes effect, so on the one hand the craving can continue and on the other hand the fear of drinking that triggered the attempt to stop in the first place is diminishing. Were my drinking years really that bad? Was I an alcoholic or just a lovable rogue who tended to drink too much? Surely this time I can control my intake? The combination of these factors is why, for many people, the longer they stop for the more likely they are to start drinking again.

These periods, no matter how brief and rare, will happen, and when they do, by very small increments, we start to build up confidence in our ability to cope without a drink.

Let us turn again to the analogy of alcohol as a loan shark, a particularly spiteful and greedy one. This loan shark doesn’t deal in money, however; it deals in feelings. It advances you good feelings, and you pay it back with bad feelings or unhappiness. And like any good loan shark, it will always, always take very much more than it gives.

So when the thought of a drink enters your head, don’t leave it to fester, counteract it. Make an effort to see it realistically. Don’t just think of how nice it would be to drink one drink, think of the whole picture. Think of the unpleasant feeling as the drink wears off (if you are intending to have only one drink) or the start of the whole miserable cycle. If you are realistic you will see that if you start again you will very quickly spiral back to your old drinking habits and even beyond. 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.

A drinker suffers continually from sleep deprivation and an anxious, worried feeling. How easy do you think it would be to deal with, or live with, someone who is constantly anxious and tired? Such people are snappy and unpleasant. The person can’t see it themselves, they just find everything annoying and are constantly getting into arguments and bickering. They think it is because the people they are dealing with are irritating, and they simply cannot see that it is they and not the other parties that are causing the problem.