Since I did a follow-up on added sugar, I thought I might as well knock out a follow-up on alcohol before the year ends. I haven't drank at all since I last wrote about alcohol, but I've reflected on alcohol more, and wow has my outlook changed!
At risk of being a little hard on my past self, I now see I was basically being a big baby about alcohol for about 15 years straight.
I slowly, gradually gained acceptance of my alcohol sensitivity as it worsened over the years, but for the most part, after developing chronic illness, my inner narrative around alcohol was, Wah, wah, wah! Poor me! I did nothing wrong and now I'm being punished for no reason and am unable to drink like I'd like?! I've had something fun stripped from me while everyone else gets to enjoy it?! No fair! Waaah!
I especially felt it was unfair that I couldn't enjoy alcohol even though I wasn't an alcoholic. I had a very all-or-nothing outlook: alcoholics have to become sober because of their disorder and everyone else can drink as much as they want.
It's true that I wasn't addicted to alcohol. But, I now see more clearly that, for the first decade I drank, at least, I abused it. Which is to say, I had total control over when I started or stopped drinking. I could take weeks or months off when I felt like it, no problem. I didn't feel that addiction pull toward drinking the way I've often felt pulled toward sugary foods or my phone. But when I did drink, I consciously chose to drink a lot, because my purpose with drinking was always to get drunk or buzzed.
I recall saying, on multiple occasions, Why would anyone ever only drink one drink? One drink didn't get me buzzed until rather recently, so for years I viewed drinking only one drink as a baffling choice — drinking one drink meant spending money only to consume unnecessary sugar and calories without the payoff of being buzzed.
[Side bar warning: Semi-gross health stuff ahead!]
In hindsight, my initial relationship to alcohol illustrates just how early on and how ferociously I ignored my body's messages. I mean, the third time that I drank in my life, I threw up! Repeatedly! Like, head in the toilet while I sat on the floor and the room spun around me threw up. That was my body sending a pretty strong, Hey, slow down, this stuff can hurt you, message. Yet, I kept drinking most weekends (and some weekdays!) for years after.
I recall a few times in my 20s when, while wasted, I pooped blood. It was probably just hemorrhoids or something — I never went to a doctor for it — but it only happened while I was drunk. It stopped happening when I finally began drinking in moderation later on. Shitting literal blood seems like another pretty strong, Hey, this stuff can hurt you message from my body that I blatantly ignored.
I also made out with men I didn't feel attracted to a few times while drunk. That might not seem so terrible, but I am usually very picky about whom I swap spit with to the point where I feel super grossed out at the thought of someone I'm not into trying to touch or kiss me. And so every time I made out with someone while drunk then realized I didn't find them attractive in the light of day, I felt pretty disgusted with myself. Yet another Chill out on the booze message from my body that went ignored.
Probably the worst of all is that I repeatedly drove while drunk in my first few years of drinking. Not always, but probably at least a few times a year if not more. You don't have to tell me — I know this is very bad! But my driving ability didn't seem to be impaired (though I'm sure it was), so I didn't think it was a huge deal. I feel very fortunate that nothing horrible happened and no one got hurt. But this past bad habit illustrates just how reckless, immature, and illogical I was being about alcohol use.
Finally, I used alcohol to allow myself to experience intimacy, both emotional and sexual. I didn’t do much dating in high school, because I had too much anxiety and fear. In college and really throughout my whole 20s and even into my 30s I was only able to form intimate, romantic relationships because booze helped me shake off that layer of fear. Most of those relationships turned out to be unhealthy for me, and, in hindsight, I’m not surprised! Alcohol greatly impairs a person’s judgment.
Research doesn't suggest that alcohol consumption can cause fibromyalgia, but I am convinced there is a link in my case. I don't need scientific evidence, because I listen closely to my body's wisdom now, and my body is very blatantly saying, This shit has been fucking us up the whole time, how the hell did you not realize that earlier???
I didn't always throw up or shit blood or make out with someone gross or drive when I was drunk. Those things only happened on occasion, during my first five or so years of drinking, then I reeled it in and matured a bit. But, I did get hella hungover almost every time I drank, even as a teenager. I know many drinkers talk about having bad hangovers begin in their 30s, but mine began from day one.
And you know what those hangovers felt like? Migraine and fibromyalgia. When I have a migraine attack or a fibromyalgia flare-up, I wake up feeling hungover, even though I didn't drink the night before. And I can't help but think that having been hungover so many times in life must be connected. I mean, it's the same exact feeling! Again, this is not something I've seen reflected in scientific research at all, it's just my little theory, but I believe it.
We know that when our brains form pathways, every time those pathways are activated, they are strengthened. And the more the pathways are strengthened, the more likely they are to be activated again in the future. So I feel like in some way or another, by getting hungover so many times in my late teens and 20s, I probably trained my brain to feel hungover more easily. I strengthened the hangover pathways.
Also, as I did reading about added sugar and inflammation, I couldn't help but notice that "added sugar and alcohol" or "alcohol and added sugar" were mentioned as a pair time and time again, across multiple sources, as items known to cause inflammation. So, if inflammation contributed to me developing chronic illness, which I am sure it did, then alcohol was a factor, because it’s inflammatory.
Finally, I learned that alcoholic drinks usually contain high levels of histamine and they also reduce an enzyme that breaks down histamine (DAO). I know that too much histamine is part of my chronic illness problem, so I’m guessing that binge-drinking every weekend for years helped contribute to my histamine intolerance in some way.
Although I'm being critical of my past self for drinking so much, especially the late-teens/early-20s version of me, I also feel great compassion for her. I developed panic disorder at age 16 and didn't receive treatment. I began drinking alcohol at age 17. That timeline wasn't a coincidence. I was self-medicating.
Learning more about highly sensitive people and knowing that I'm an HSP also helps me understand why I went so hard with booze even though I wasn't an alcoholic. I was trying to regulate my overstimulated nervous system. The years I drank the most are the years I went to concerts the most — almost every weekend. My sensitive nervous system wouldn’t have been able to tolerate those loud sounds, flashing lights, and big crowds if I hadn't been desensitizing it using alcohol, a literal nervous system depressant.
I also feel compassion for my younger self, because I see how peer pressure played a role in my drinking. I didn’t view it that way at the time, because I felt like a unique individual making my own decisions. No one was bullying me into drinking or making fun of me if I didn’t drink a certain amount or anything. But, if I had listened to my body and quit drinking in my 20s, I doubt many if any of my friendships would’ve survived. Drinking was what my friends and I did together at a majority of social events and those events would’ve been much less fun for me without alcohol.
In my Mayo Clinic wellness coach training class, we learned about drug cultures. A drug culture involves “certain shared values, beliefs, customs, and traditions, and it has its own rituals and behaviors that evolve over time.” Drug cultures make it hard for a person to quit doing drugs. While learning about drug cultures, I kept thinking, I spent my 20s in an alcohol drug culture. I think American culture in general is an alcohol drug culture. Alcohol punctuates most major events and holidays. If you go out and don’t drink, people ask why you’re not drinking. If you do drink, no one ever asks why you’re drinking. Drinking is the default in many aspects of our culture.
So, all that is to say, now that I have a new perspective on life as someone who actually has a good relationship with her body, I no longer have the, Wah, wah, why can't I drink too?! outlook on booze. The Wah, wah, why can't I drink too?! perspective came from someone who was still battling her body, someone who viewed her body’s messages with frustration and annoyance, someone who didn't realize that the body had valuable wisdom and information to share.
I abused my body, over and over and over, using alcohol, for years. I didn’t fully recognize what I was doing as abuse, because it wasn’t alcoholism. My drinking didn’t negatively impact my work or finances or social life severely enough to sound an alarm. If anything, my social life reinforced the drinking, since most of my friends drank as much as I did, if not more.
When I began experiencing panic attacks at 16, my body was crying out to me for help. Instead of helping it, I poured beer into its crying mouth to shut it up. Instead of listening to my body's messages, I drowned them out.
Alcohol was probably the first and maybe the most aggressive technique I used in an attempt to silence my body. I would've had to face a lot of emotional pain if I'd listened to my body when I first began self-medicating with alcohol, but it would've been so, so much less pain compared to all the physical pain I've had to endure for years and years.
I'm not sure who said it first, but I've seen multiple people recently say something along the lines of, If you ignore your body's cries, it will begin to scream.
I don't ask Why me? when it comes to alcohol sensitivity anymore, because the why seems clear: I ignored my body's cries by drinking alcohol, so it began to scream. I ignored the screams too, so it screamed louder and louder and louder, for years, and now if I have even one drink, it screams as quickly and as loudly as possible, because it is afraid that alcohol means I will begin abusing it and silencing it once again.
I know that explanation is metaphorical, not literal. My body is likely sensitive to alcohol for a physical reason, like intestinal permeability or neuroinflammation or intestinal dysbiosis or increased histamine or something I don't know about yet. But the metaphorical narrative makes sense to me, too, and I think both can be true.
So, will I ever drink again?
I have no clue. The decision isn't up to me, it's up to my body.
I don't want my body to fear me or think it can't trust me to listen to its messages. Our relationship has been growing, but my body still often fears me, and for good reason. I abused it in many ways for many years — alcohol is just one of those ways. We haven't rebuilt trust enough yet for me to try alcohol without it being a violation.
I’d have to go several months without a single headache or morning that feels like a hangover before I felt my body might be ready to drink. I'm not at that point, yet. Also, I’ve been learning more about how to live in sync with the menstrual cycle (which I’m sure I’ll eventually write about), and I’ve learned it’s best to only drink during the ovulation phase. So if I do ever drink again, it’ll be then only.
Also? I want to fall in love. I want to find my partner. And I don’t want alcohol to be part of the process. I’m not saying I wouldn’t date someone who drinks — I would — but I wouldn’t want either of us drinking around each other in those early stages of getting to know each other. Even in small amounts, alcohol muddies discernment.
Relationships are hard. If we can’t face the difficult feelings of getting to know one another without a drug to make it easier, we probably won’t be able to face the many difficulties that will inevitably come up as the relationship progresses.
(If you’re thinking, “I got to know my husband/boyfriend/wife/girlfriend/partner/etc. while we were drunk/high/tripping/etc. and we’re still together a year/decade/lifetime later!” — congrats! Don’t tell me about it. 😂 I’ve been hearing these types of stories for the past 20 years, and while I’m happy that sort of path has worked for many people, it has backfired for me, repeatedly, and clearly isn’t my path.)
If I ever do drink again, it'll be light drinking only. It'll likely always or almost always adhere to the one drink per day for women guideline outlined by the CDC. And those one drinks per day would be few and far between — champagne on New Year's or at a wedding, a margarita on vacation, etcetera.
I know I’ll never be a person who routinely drinks wine or beer with dinner. That ship has sailed. Maybe I could've been that type of person if I had drank alcohol moderately from the start, but I blew it and abused the stuff, so I lost my privilege. And I can accept that now, fully, without any Wah wah-ing or Why me-ing like a baby.
🍸In the days after writing this, I kept seeing alcohol-related things that felt relevant. I didn’t have time to incorporate them, but here’s a short list for ya:
Earlier this year, both the World Health Organization and Canada’s federal government warned that no amount of alcohol is safe or healthy and “that even small amounts of alcohol can have serious health consequences.”
Two Harvard researchers who basically ruined a gigantic research study on drinking by being sketchily involved with the alcohol industry were almost just added to a committee that will make national alcohol consumption guidelines in the US. One of them was reported as promising alcohol industry players that the guidelines would say moderate drinking is safe.
63% of US adults drink alcohol, with the percentage trending higher as a person’s income and education increase. 76% of college graduates and 75% of postgraduates drink alcohol.
Here’s a quote from research article that’s relevant because many experts believe that the driving force behind fibromyalgia is overactive sympathetic nervous system activation, particularly during sleep: “Finally, alcohol consumption significantly increases activation of the sympathetic nervous system during sleep, while inhibiting the parasympathetic nervous system.”
I keep getting ads for the restaurant Alinea’s ZERO book of recipes for non-alcoholic drinks. I don’t exactly have the budget to buy a $90 book atm (though you know I am TEMPTED), but I’m adding it to my list to get someday.