Alcohol. My best friend. There for me in the good times and the bad. I was 15 when we first met at the dinner table.

A dash of port and lemonade. I didn’t like you much. So I moved on. I made new friends; scotch and coke and later my BFFs, champagne and red wine.

Wow you were so much fun to be with. The elixir of life. Footloose and fancy free in my twenties, the jungle juice, my coat of armour, supporting me when I needed to make friends, have sex, light up the party.

My trusted sidekick and best friend at every social shindig. You did show your ugly side on occasion. Senseless, throwing up, hungover, unable to do anything the next day. But like a true friend, you were soon back by my side.

Alcohol is addictive

Like a river of gold, it slid down my throat. The tingle, the rush, the feel-goods. The dopamine hit I’d been waiting for. But the afterglow quickly disappears.

I’d chase the rush with another drink, and another. The dopamine is now doing cartwheels in anticipation of the

drink that drinks the drink, that drinks me.

Science shows alcohol alters brain chemicals that increase depression.

But the twist is, alcohol also increases the release of dopamine in your brain’s reward centre.

The alcohol artificially stimulates your brain’s pleasure centres, but over time the altered brain chemicals diminish the enjoyment until the illusion of pleasure no longer exists.

At this stage, the dopamine levels are high, which creates a compulsive need for alcohol, says David DiSalvo

in What Alcohol Really Does to the Brain.

Over time, one became 2. 2 became 3. 3 sometimes became 4 and 5. I built a tolerance to the booze. I felt like I was in control.

But the next morning feeling tired and irritable, I moved through the day feeling low. The brain fog slowed me down. I wasn’t always performing at my best.

Still the good times with alcohol repeatedly laid down in my brain kept telling me “Life can only be good with alcohol.”

During COVID lockdowns, alcohol was an essential item, our saviour in times of trouble. Alcohol that attacks our liver and immune system; causes cancer, depression; destroys relationships, fuels domestic violence; a killer in motor vehicle accidents.

I thought I could take it or leave it. I’d leave it alone for a couple of nights early in the week. But come hump day and I’d be doing cartwheels as I reached for the bottle.

Could I go a Friday or Saturday night without a drink?

If I went to a pub or restaurant, had friends over for dinner, could I go without alcohol? No.

As Annie Grace, author of This Naked Mind says “No-one is immune to addiction from alcohol."

The Unconscious Mind and the Conscious Mind

Studies confirm that we have 2 separate cognitive thinking systems, the conscious and the unconscious.

Daniel Kahneham, author of Thinking Fast and Thinking Slow says the unconscious mind (System 1) operates automatically and quickly, with little or no effort and no sense of voluntary control.

The conscious mind (System 2) allocates attention to the effortful mental activities that demand it.

We identify with the conscious mind, the reasoning self that has beliefs, makes choices, and decides what to think about and what to do.

However, the conscious mind is not where the action is, he says. It’s the unconscious mind with our effortlessly originating impressions and feelings that are the explicit beliefs and deliberate choices of the conscious mind.

And it’s this unconscious mind, the source of our feelings, love, desire, fear, jealousy, sadness, joy, anger that drive our emotions and desires.

The unconscious mind remembers our repeated experiences and assumptions about alcohol says Grace.

“Alcohol provides enjoyment. Alcohol provides relief.

Alcohol is the key to social situations. A party can’t really be a party without booze. Alcohol makes us funnier or more creative. Alcohol can relieve our stress or boredom.

For some it can be hard, if not impossible, to stop drinking.”

So with Grace’s help, I'm waging a war with my unconscious mind. She challenged my belief that:

Alcohol relieves our stress and anxiety.

Red wine, my pain relief after a long day at work.

But the next day, rough pebbles were grinding together in my head, with bits chipping off.

Next evening, more wine to glue me back together. But if it patched me up, why did I need more of it? And as a bull charges at a red flag, I would sometimes charge at the red wine challenging my loved ones to a fight.

Locking horns, wounded and miserable.

Alcohol makes us happy. As fireworks go off with a bang, the alcohol sparkles in your head for a moment, but soon the lights go out and no-one is home.

Was I happy being a numb nut with tunnel vision, unable to concentrate?

No.

Alcohol is vital to social life and relationships. The social lubricant to keep the jokes rolling off your tongue. It gives you a potty mouth too. The night at the pub without a drink, how boring were you? I thought that too.

And so I was a gaping yawn in a cave of boredom while the party raged on next door.