RETHINK THE DRINK
How many times have you heard yourself say something along the lines of ‘Never again’? Has your Dry January gone belly up literally days into the New Year because you can’t shake off that craving to have a little tipple? Are you of the opinion that ‘Just the one won’t hurt’? You’re most definitely not alone. Alcohol is a funny one. It can appear to be our best mate, lull us into a false sense of security and have us believe it’s acting in our best interests. It fools us. Yes it can make us feel good, confident, sexy, but what we are plying into our bodies is toxic, poison, and too much can lead to a very dangerous path indeed. Plus, if we start to rely on it, we can end up in an extremely dysfunctional and abusive relationship with the booze. Many of us return to drinking time and time again. Even if it made our memories hazy, even if we were sick on the pavement or in the taxi home, even if the resulting hangover made our heads pound so hard, even if it gave us the dreaded beer fear, even if it made us send unwanted texts to exes or people we hate, even if the acid reflux in our throat was so bad because of all the fizz we’d been knocking back the night before. So yes, we often turn to it given every conceivable emotion; sadness, emptiness, pain, happiness… It appears to have an answer for everything we throw at it. It reminds us that life is so damn short so it ought to be wildly embraced, and if that involves a second pitcher of Margarita then so be it. We gradually become drawn into its bosom. It envelopes us with whatever we want or need at the time – whether it’s love, warmth or acceptance. It doesn’t care about your job, your family, your mates, your responsibilities, your bank balance, your physical body. Oh no, it wants to be selfish and keep you all to itself. Over time excessive drinking will rack up an incredible and sadly undeniable list of damaging things it can inflict on you, and I’m going to go into this right now. Some of it will shock you, and that’s a good thing. Alcohol is a poison, and you’re pouring litres of the stuff into your body over and over again. Would we willingly pick up a strange bottle labelled ‘Poison’ and start to guzzle it without a care in the world? No. Poison is bad, toxic, and doing damage to your insides. It slows down your brain and you can lose your balance, it dehydrates you, it angers your stomach lining which may result in bad acid reflux – quite possibly one of the most uncomfortable sensations ever. It lowers your blood sugar so if you’re Type 1 Diabetic, that’s not going to be fun is it, you could have a seizure. It also lowers your bodily temperature which could put you at risk of hyperthermia.
Ale disrupts your sleep cycle leaving you sluggish, lethargic and pretty knackered. While it can help you conk out initially, you’re being deprived more of the restful REM sleep a person needs. You’ll need to get up more to use the toilet so your sleep will be broken and as your muscles are more relaxed you might snore, which is a big fat no-no if you have a partner lying next to you. Regularly drinking more than you should can contribute to high blood pressure which can end up with you having a stroke or heart attack. Plus if you can’t get it back down, you’ll find yourself taking medication for potentially the rest of your life. Don’t even get me started on the number of empty calories we pile away by drinking. Alcohol is full of sugar which isn’t going to be friendly on your waistline. A pint of cider can have five teaspoons of sugar. Think about that when you’ve excitedly finished work on a Friday and you’re headed to the beer garden and fancy a few dark fruits ciders. While it might be a taste sensation, you’re drinking an awful lot of calories, more than likely hurtling over your daily sugar intake, and now it’s given you the munchies to you hit the chippy, consuming more badness and wasted calories. I have to mention the dreaded ‘C’ word because alcohol is associated with many types of it. Excessive drinking will out you in the high risk category of mouth, tongue, stomach, pancreas and throat cancers, amongst others. It also has links to liver, breast and bowel cancers too. Plus, if you’re regularly vomiting back up your booze, that can damage the throat. You don’t want to be ripping your throat and have the shock of your life when you start to vomit blood. It can have a horrible impact on your mental health too. Imagine feeling anxious and not being able to quash it. So you tun to the odd drink to ‘take the edge off.’ It might appear to help and your anxiety fades but you will build up a tolerance and need more to get the same effect. Now alcohol gives you anxiety anyway. Can you imagine having your original angst supercharged and supersized when it merges with the alcohol anxiety to create a monster of dread and fear? It can also give you depression and the suicidal thoughts or urges. Once your inhibitions are lowered you could be more inclined to act upon those devastating thoughts or urges. It might make you feel more aggressive and because your thinking and judgement is impaired, you could misinterpret someone’s actions or behaviour and want to have a go at them or even worse. In addition to the obvious risks associated with alcohol in pregnancy, there’s also the need to be mindful if we’re breastfeeding – it takes two hours for a unit of ale to leave a mother’s bloodstream. Excessive drinking can also lower chances of conceiving. Dependence on alcohol can creep up before we even realise it’s happening. We might enjoy the odd one or two which might turn into three or four and the frequency of when we are
drinking will rise without us even thinking twice about it. This is a dangerous routine to get into and once alcohol has us in its vice-like grip, can be tough to get out of. If we think that we have to control our drinking, it’s a fair indicator that we have a problem because we shouldn’t have a need to control it. If you’re worried that your intake has gone west and you know you’re caning it a lot more than you should and are feeling some physical and mental effects, you could try and write it own. Do a drinks diary for a week or a fortnight. Seeing it on the page in black and white will make you accountable, especially if you show it to someone. All these tasty and thirst- quenching drinks can add up and it’s so easy to do, it’s easy to slip into the routine of drinking. It could be familiar, make you feel safe and comfortable. But instead of reaching for the bottle it might be time to reach out for support, be it from your family, friends, GP or other health professional. Your health should always come first. It might be tough to stop or cut down but it’s potentially life-threatening and no amount of drunk ‘Cheers’ is worth that.
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