Do I really binge drink, really? (and how to stop binge drinking)
When I was younger, I used to have 4 drinks a day – back then it was okay. But now it is classified as binge drinking. What has changed?
I used to enjoy a few glasses of wine in the evening after work – no harm in that right? We were even told that it was good for health – so what has changed?
I used to drink more than the weekly limit of alcohol, and it never hurt me – so why should I worry about alcohol?
It seems like the alcohol guidelines have changed so often lately that I don’t know what to believe. Why should I cut back on alcohol?
Why have the recommended alcohol limits suddenly become so severe?
If you have any of these questions running around in your mind, then I fully understand. These are the questions I had in my mind also. It seemed totally unfair that I should cut back on drinking when I had always abided by the alcohol guidelines. The alcohol limits used to allow up to 4 alcohol drinks per day. Now the alcohol guidelines suggest that anything more than 3 or 4 drinks is actually binge drinking. Worse than that, according to the alcohol guidelines, I was actually drinking to dangerous levels. But I thought that I was sticking within the limits. I never thought that I could be classified as a dangerous drinker! I always believed that if I stayed within the recommended alcohol limits that I had no problem. Imagine my shock when I discovered that the changes to the recommended alcohol guidelines put me over the limit!
The issue appeared to have become how to stop binge drinking, when I really didn’t believe I was binge drinking.
Am I drinking too much – really?
I was firmly in denial for a long time that I was doing anything wrong! It seems that most people find themselves in this situation. The statistics suggest that many people might be accidentally drinking alcohol at dangerous levels. Or like me, are actually classified as binge drinkers! Preposterous! What has changed within the recommended alcohol guidelines? And why are so many people caught up in the high risk or even dangerous drinking category?
I started to do a little research in to the risks of alcohol
It was surprisingly difficult to understand the problem with alcohol. Despite a lot of information being available on the internet, there is also a surprising amount of mis-information. In fact, there is a lot of completely misleading information about alcohol, which means there is a lot of confusion about why drinking alcohol can be dangerous. Small wonder that many people are in denial about the dangers of drinking alcohol. If you follow popular thinking, you would never know about the risk of drinking alcohol.
The reason is that alcohol has been found to be harmful at all drinking levels
Unfortunately, the old beliefs that alcohol was beneficial for health were found to be false. In fact, one of the by-products of drinking alcohol has been proven to be a grade 1 carcinogen. When alcohol is broken down in the liver, it forms a by product called acetaldehyde. This is nasty stuff, and a known carcinogenic substance. This is bad news for those of us who thought there was some health benefit from drinking alcohol. In fact there is no benefit, and there is a correlation between drinking and developing cancer. The more alcohol we drink, the higher the risk of getting cancer. There is no safe level of alcohol consumption.
The latest information about alcohol is shocking
I was very surprised to learn many things about drinking too much alcohol. We all know that alcohol gives a temporary high. But this feeling of well being is also part of the problem. The high actually comes from a release of dopamine in the brain, rather than alcohol directly. When we drink, we get a huge flood of dopamine. Unfortunately, it is the dopamine hit which can be addictive. And because all humans are subject to the pleasurable effects of dopamine, we are all at risk of drinking too much alcohol. When we have become accustomed to the pleasurable effects of dopamine, it can be very hard to stop drinking alcohol.
But we can’t stay in denial
The problem is that the longer we stay in denial, the longer we are exposed to the risks posed by acetaldehyde. This is particularly the case for binge drinking where we experience the highest levels of acetaldehyde. This has become a real “catch 22” situation, as the more we drink for the pleasurable effects of dopamine, the higher the levels of acetaldehyde.
Drinking alcohol became a vicious cycle for me
The more I began to worry about drinking too much, the more stress it caused me. The more stress I felt, the more I wanted to drink! Something had to give. The only way I could find a way out of the confusion about the alcohol guidelines was to learn about the effects of alcohol on the body. Specifically, about what alcohol was doing to me. I would fiercely deny that I as in any way addicted to alcohol, but I would also deny that I was drinking too much! I can look back and recognize the feelings of denial whenever the alcohol guidelines changed. It was not easy to confront the need to cut back on drinking. It was not easy to consider how to stop binge drinking.
I tried hard to cut back on drinking – I learned how to stop binge drinking
Strangely, it seemed that the harder I tried to cut back on drinking, the more stressed out I felt. The more I tried to stop drinking too much, the more I needed to drink! I could argue that I never had a problem with drinking, because I could stop whenever I liked. But when was that? Sure I could do the 30 day challenge, and go without alcohol for a month. It was a challenge all right, and I am not sure that I ever completed it 100%. But I was still in denial that I had a problem with alcohol.
But it’s not easy to escape from the trap while we are still in it!
That is how I look back at the problem now. I succeeded in cutting back on alcohol. I stopped drinking completely. For me – that was the best way I could do it, with 100% success.
But it can be very difficult to escape from the alcohol trap while you are still in it. The alcohol guidelines can seem overly restrictive. It is very easy to find yourself drinking more than the safe alcohol limits.
If you want to know more about how I stopped drinking, then click here to read more about what you need to know. Help to Stop Drinking Alcohol