Alcohol is the problem, not you

It's not your fault if you've become addicted to an addictive substance

Alcohol is an addictive substance to humans. If you’ve tried to quit or cut down and found it difficult or even impossible, do you know what this means? It means you’re a human who is struggling to control a substance that is addictive to ALL humans. Some are more at risk than others, for example if you’ve experienced trauma. But anyone who drinks alcohol regularly is at risk of addiction.

Photo by Stefano Bucciarelli on Unsplash

The truth about moderation

I learned this for the first time when I read Annie Grace’s life-changing book This Naked Mind in 2018. Before knowing this, I thought that the reason I had become addicted to alcohol was because there was something deeply wrong with me. I believed I was weak, lacking in self-control and morally defective. I was filled with shame. I thought that, for no valid reason, I had become dependent on a substance that most other people seemed to be able to enjoy ‘normally’.

But that wasn’t true.

If you have found yourself struggling with alcohol I want you to know this: there is nothing wrong with you. You’re not sick, or defective, and you’re not a bad person. Your innocent brain has found something that seems to make you feel better, and so keeps encouraging you to drink it.

The more you drink (both the amount and frequency) the more the neural pathways get ingrained. Drinking becomes the default way you relax, cope with difficult feelings, enhance positive feelings, cope with stress, feel more confident in social situations… The more often you drink, the stronger those neural connections become and the harder it is to unhook from alcohol. The harder it is to moderate. The more power alcohol has over you.

So why do we keep hearing that moderation is the answer? That if we just ‘drink responsibly’, we can enjoy alcohol with no adverse affects? Because there are a lot of people making a lot of money from people drinking alcohol.

Big Alcohol and big money

The UK alcohol industry is worth £46 billion, accounting for 3.7% of all consumer spending. Worldwide, alcohol sales totalled more than $1.5 trillion in 2017.

The Portman Group is the alcohol industry’s self-regulatory body. They created the Drink Aware campaign and influence the government’s policies on alcohol (hmmm, maybe they have a vested interest?). This is from their mission statement:

“We will encourage moderate drinking habits and a balanced understanding of alcohol harm, while promoting targeted interventions to reduce the minority who drink to harmful levels.” (italics mine)

Yet there is now irrefutable evidence that moderate drinking causes harm and that there is no safe amount of alcohol that can be consumed.

The Portman Group’s language reminds me of the Sacklers’ claims for years that their opiate OxyContin was only leading to addiction by a few bad eggs, and it was safe for the general population. This lie lead to the opioid crisis in America, which has killed over half a million people in the past two decades.

It is also reminiscent of the tobacco industry’s cover-up of the addictive nature of nicotine. In 1994, CEOs of seven major tobacco companies lied under oath to the U.S. congress that they did not believe nicotine to be addictive. They had known that it was addictive since at least the 1960s.

Photo by Scott Van Hoy on Unsplash

How do you sell ethanol?

Big Alcohol is now employing the same tactics. They spend billions on advertising alcohol, tapping into our deepest human needs to make us want to buy their harmful product.

Alcohol ads make the unconscious association in our minds that drinking alcohol - a carcinogenic neurotoxin that causes 3 million deaths a year - will meet our needs for belonging, acceptance, joy and freedom.

Adverts depict groups of friends laughing and dancing together in the sunshine. A high-end vodka brand have a rainbow bottle and claim they are ‘determined to accelerate acceptance for the LGBTQ community’. A famous champagne brand encourages you to drink to ‘celebrate life’s memorable moments’, including the moment a father cries with gratitude and awe at meeting his firstborn child.

These ads are everywhere. I don’t think it’s possible to get through the day without seeing an advert for alcohol. Walk to the train station and there’s a huge poster for an Italian alcoholic drink proclaiming ‘summer’s here’. Turn on a daytime chat show and the beaming hosts will show you how to make cocktails to impress your friends. Movies show the glamour and fun of drinking and are often sponsored by alcohol companies. 80% of movies depict alcohol use.

Thanks, J-Lo

So many celebrities pedal booze - subtly linking alcohol with good looks and glamour. George Clooney has his own tequila brand, Emma Watson sells gin. Jennifer Lopez promotes her pre-mixed cocktail on chat shows and Instagram. This, despite saying for years that she doesn’t drink, and despite the fact that she has a husband (possibly now ex-husband) in recovery from alcohol addiction. According to the tagline, this drink is ‘crafted to set you free’. Er….WTF?

Brad Pitt, who has been open about his struggles with alcohol addiction since the breakdown of his marriage, recently launched a new gin brand which apparently ‘captures the soul of the French Riviera’. So he’s sober… but he’s still selling alcohol. OK.

The message this sends is: alcohol isn’t the problem, people are the problem. J-Lo can drink happily and moderately, but poor Ben and Brad can’t anymore. They had too much, they ruined the party. They’re like richer, better-looking versions of the sad men sitting on park benches drinking cans of Special Brew. They can’t drink normally; they can’t enjoy it anymore.

But you can. Oh, YOU can.

Am I an alcoholic?

Unless… you can’t. You try to quit or cut down, but your drinking keeps creeping up again. Moderation feels miserable, incredibly hard, even impossible. You manage to white-knuckle it through Dry January but then go all-out when the 1 February comes around, feeling total relief you don’t have to try so hard not to drink.

So where does that leave you? The predominant narrative in our culture, and one the alcohol industry continues to insidiously promote, is that if you’re struggling to moderate, to drink ‘normally’ - then you’re an alcoholic.

It says: you’re different from normal people. You have a lifelong, incurable disease. Don’t blame the alcohol! That’s just a lovely substance that should be enjoyed occasionally, alongside a healthy lifestyle. It can bring a lot of joy and happiness to your life, as long as you drink responsibly.

Photo by Chelsea Gates on Unsplash

Do you need to moderate your yoga use?

Think about the things that actually bring you joy and relaxation. Maybe walking in the forest, having a bath with candles, practicing yoga, dancing to your favourite song, playing guitar, hugging a loved one, savouring a glass of ice water on a hot summer’s day.

Tell me: with any of these things, do you find yourself very quickly feeling worse than you did before you did them? Do you have to plan out your week, setting rules for yourself about how many times you’re going to walk in the forest or hug your partner, to make sure you don’t do it too much? Do you wake up the morning after your bath feeling like shit and swearing you won’t have a bath for a month - you need a break from it, you need to get back control?

You see what I’m saying. The things that truly bring you nourishment, relaxation, a sense of presence, of feeling OK, are not things that also do you harm. They don’t cause vomiting, anxiety, headaches, cancer, heart disease, brain damage and strokes (alcohol causes all of these, and more). In fact, the things that actually relax your nervous system and lower cortisol levels will reduce your risk of illness, not increase it.

Don’t take my word for it…

As for the sense of connection, belonging and love - is alcohol really bringing you closer to your friends? Or does it bring greater distance? Does it make you more yourself or less yourself? Does it allow you to show up as yourself, in all your perfectly imperfect humanness, or does it take you away from yourself?

Just try it and see. This isn’t about me telling you what’s true or not - you have to see for yourself.

Get thinking. Notice the adverts. Notice the beliefs you have about alcohol.

Notice how alcohol is really making you feel.

• Is it really bringing you what you so dearly wish for yourself?

• Do you have power over it, or does it have power over you?

• Is it setting you free, or keeping you trapped?

Consider the drink, the substance itself, without all the advertising. Without the images of healthy, happy people on the TV. Without the photo on the label of the rolling hills of Tuscany. What’s left is ethanol, mixed with some other stuff.

Ethanol: the same substance used as a disinfectant and car fuel. ‘Mmmmm ethanol, capturing the soul of the French Rivieria.’

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What are your thoughts?

I’d love to hear from you in the comments, or do drop me an email at hello@ellie-nova.com

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