Stress

If you tell a lie long enough and hard enough, even the person telling the lie will end up believing it. This is exactly what has happened with the conviction that alcohol relieves stress. Alcohol might block your mind to some of your stress, but genuinely relieve it? Never! When the drug has worn off you still have the stress to deal with. It doesn’t just go away because you blot it out. We, as intelligent human beings, tend to laugh at the ostrich putting its head in the sand, thinking that the danger has gone because it can no longer see it. By thinking that alcohol relieves stress we are doing exactly that.

Every time you wake up after drinking, you are physically , mentally, emotionally, socially and financially worse off than if you had not taken the drug in the first place. That will make you more stressed. The genuine stresses you had the day before seem much worse and now you are convinced that your life is very stressful. You never really put it down to the drink but if you are always trying to get over the physical and mental effects of a poisonous drug like alcohol, then you will always have an additional stress. Just the physical effects of alcohol take at least three days to get over. Alcohol addicts think that if they have had a ‘skinful’ on a Saturday night and a couple on the Sunday then they are fine by Monday morning. However, this is simply a level that they are used to. This is their normality.

There is only one stress that an alcoholic drink is even partially capable of relieving and that is the stress caused by the last drink. Even then it doesn’t do that. Some drinkers near the bottom of the quicksand think ‘at least it ends the stress of my need for a drink.’ Does it? Or did it create that stress as well? I can recall numerous occasions when I was going to have just one drink and ended up having two, three, four or however many it took until there was no more or until I collapsed, whichever came sooner. Was I happy in this state? Was I calm? Was I stress-free? I don’t know because I wasn’t there to enjoy it. My senses were numb; I was stupefied and ‘out of it.’ While you are in this state, you remain vulnerable, unprotected and have your head in the sand, yet people take the drug because they believe it makes them more courageous, confident, calmer, relaxed, happier and stress-free. Alcohol never relieves stress, it does precisely the opposite.

Alcohol never relieves stress, it does precisely the opposite.

Have you ever felt stressed when you are having a drink? Have you ever been uptight or argumentative while ‘under the influence’? Ever got aggressive, obnoxious or loud when inebriated? Have you taken things out of all proportion or just been plain rude, spiteful or hurtful when you’ve been drinking? I really don’t need to ask these questions as I know you have and you

know you have. Everyone who has drunk alcohol has experienced some, if not all, of these emotions when inebriated. If we have been stressed at the same time as drinking alcohol why do we believe that it relieves stress? It is because, just like the heroin addict, we feel better when we first get our fix. Also we have ended the ‘wanting’ a drink feeling created by the belief that it will help the situation, while at the same time partially suppressing the physical low created by the drug itself. However, this is just one of the many excuses we use to justify our intake.

Either the offender or the victim (or both) has been drinking alcohol in 65 per cent of murders and 75 per cent of stabbings in the UK. Do you think these people were stress-free? Do you think ‘It’s a good job they had alcohol in their system to relieve some of their stress, otherwise God knows how many people they might have killed’? Of course you don’t because you know that these crimes happened largely due to the depressant, alcohol.

When I was a drinker I was always more stressed than I am now. I was either on the drug, thinking about when I could take it again, trying to control my intake of the drug or coming off the drug. Non-drinkers just do not have these stresses. I don’t have them any more. I used to get stressed whenever I heard the bell for ‘Time Please’ in the pub. I may already have had five pints with one more sitting in front of me, yet I still wanted more, why? Was I stressed? Was I unhappy? Was I not being sociable? Wasn’t I relaxed? Did I need courage?

Did I need confidence? No, no, no, no … I just needed more of my drug like any other drug addict. I felt a chemical reaction that simply made me want more and more. I would walk to the ends of the earth to get more. I would pay any amount of money for ‘take outs’ as money is never an issue when you have been chemically and mentally programmed to need a drug. That is why, no matter what the cost, when you are ‘under,’ you don’t care. This is when you can see clearly that it’s a drug addiction because, at these times, you would drink sewer water provided it contained alcohol.

If the car engine blows up, you can consume a thousand alcoholic drinks but you still need a mechanic. If your partner leaves you, all the drinks in the world will not bring them back or help you find another one. In reality it does the opposite and it probably drove them away in the first place. If you are looking for someone new, you might recognise this remark: ‘I have never gone to bed with an ugly person, but I have woken up with a few.’ Alcohol really does change your perception.

Alcohol causes financial stress, physical stress, mental stress and emotional stress. Exactly how does it relieve stress to wake up worrying about what you have said and done the night before or how you got home? Where is the relief in wondering how you can face people thinking: ‘I really didn’t mean to do it,’ ‘God I wish I hadn’t had so much to drink, I have a very important day ahead,’ ‘I’d better not drive this morning, I think I am still over the limit’ and ‘How much did I spend last night – where has all my money gone?’ Then there are

the even more embarrassing questions: ‘How did I get here?,’ ‘Who are you?’

People who do not drink simply do not have these stresses. It is only the people who do drink who are stressed out by alcohol. When I was stressed and still an addict, I would say ‘God I need a drink!’ I would then phone a friend either to join me for a bottle at home or go to a pub. As the evening progressed I would start to feel better. Why? Was it because the alcohol helped put things in perspective or was it because I was able to talk about my stress with a friend? Alcohol alters your perspective. Again the addict remains blind as, to them, it was the alcohol that helped, not the friend. However, the biggest stress is having constantly to control your intake. I now do not have that stress. Nor do I wonder when I can have my next drink without having to exercise control or the stress of having to keep it to just a couple because of work or whatever. I don’t have the stress of feeling resentful about not drinking because I have to drive people nor do I have the physical , financial, mental or emotional stress that alcohol dependency creates.

Once again, children provide the best example. If your child was stressed because she had too much homework or was being bullied at school, would alcohol help her stress? So why do you think that it would help yours? It’s for the same reasons that I did because it appeared to help at times. Any outsider can see clearly that alcohol , far from relieving stress, causes it. Alcohol causes both physical and mental aggravation that, in turn,

creates various degrees of stress. Any form of aggravation , whether physical or mental will affect your ability to focus or concentrate properly. But there are some drinkers who believe the illusion that a drink helps them to …