A Mind Is A Terrible Thing To Waste

For some, it’s an old, distant memory you haven’t experienced since college. For others, it’s Groundhog’s Day.  No matter where you fall on the spectrum, the following morning is always the same. Before even opening your eyes, you get a pit in your stomach thinking about the cringeworthy events from the night before.  If you are smart, you will just delete your text history without even looking at them.  Ignorance is bliss, and in some cases, a free form of Xanax.  Add in brain fog, restlessness and crippling anxiety and you are one step away from checking yourself into the Betty Ford Clinic. 

I’m sure everyone reading this has experienced a hangover at least once in their life.  If not, good for you, Carol. Back in December, I discussed the physical side effects of alcohol right in time to ruin your holidays.  Well, the bitch is back and I am now covering the mental and emotional side effects of imbibing in the toxic juice. 

The older I get, the more I notice the toll drinking is taking on my mental health every time I consume it.   I ALWAYS feel better when I don’t drink, and yet, I keep doing it anyway.  After all, alcohol is a drug but the Olivia Benson in me needed to know why, for some, one drink just doesn’t cut it.  

One Drink Won’t Kill Me

Everyone who drinks knows that initial euphoric feeling of your first cocktail.  Your body becomes warm, your anxiety goes away, and your confidence skyrockets.  This euphoric feeling is dopamine being released  from your hypothalamus. This is a bit of a mind fuck for your brain because the dopamine is making it think you feel good and need more, when in actuality, it’s only a bandaid that will end with you feeling worse.  GABA, the neurotransmitter that relaxes you, is also increased during this time, causing you to slur your speech or stumble over your cat.  Your overall judgment starts to be affected, making you do things you would NEVER do sober.  For some, one drink is fine and you are good for the night.  

But for me, I am often thinking about my second drink before even finishing my first.  

Well Maybe Just a Half A Drink More

Once your body gets that hit of dopamine, your brain wants more.  At this stage, you have passed the initial euphoric feeling and are now trying to chase that initial high you experienced from your first drink.  However, we all know this will never happen.   The positive effects of drinking peak right around a BAC of .05%- .06% (or 1 ½ drinks).   After this point, your energy starts to deplete, your mood might darken and your brain becomes impaired.  Since alcohol disrupts the neurotransmitters from doing their job, your inhibitions go out the door followed by your limbic system, which helps keep your emotions in check.  This makes it very difficult for your brain to regulate your mood which is why you might pick a fight with a family member or cry over a douchebag in a dive bar bathroom.

Invasion Of The Body Snatchers

Some mornings, I have woken up with little-to-no recollection of the previous night’s events.  I have definitely “pretended” that I remembered, when in reality, I have no fucking clue where my phone is or why I am sleeping next to a chicken parm sandwich.

I call this part, Invasion of the Body Snatchers.  When I am at this point of no return, I am told I become a different person.  It’s as if the lights went out inside my brain. During this time, you are physically awake but your hippocampus is no longer making new memories. This is why you might repeat the same story (guilty as charged) every 10 minutes with zero recollection of doing so.  It’s a good way to clear a room, I’ll tell you that.

Not only are there many short-term side effects of heavy drinking, such as sexual assault, injury and death, but there is also research that shows that long-term drinking can cause serious damage to the frontal lobe.

If you have browned or blacked out after a night of heavy drinking, you are not alone.  Roughly,  25% of adults binge drink every month.  Binge drinking is defined as pattern drinking that brings your BAC to a .08% or higher.  This is typically considered 5 drinks for men and 4 drinks for women within a 2-hour period. 

A scary (and eye-opening) stat about alcohol is most people who binge drink are NOT alcohol dependent.  However, binge drinking accounts for almost HALF of alcohol-related deaths.  From personal experience, when you are at that level of intoxication, you are so far gone that you are putting yourself at the direct mercy of strangers.  Besides a run-in with a possum and a laundry list of embarrassing interactions, nothing terrible has ever happened to me as a result of my drinking.  But now, I consider that to be just pure-fucking-luck.

You Just Can’t Handle Your Poison

You most likely won’t see the negative effects of drinking until the next day.  You wake up more thirsty than Kayne West and his new girlfriend with a pounding headache that no amount of water will cure.  The reason you have a throbbing headache is because your brain is actually shrunk due to dehydration associated with the alcohol.   After you stumble to the Advil bottle, the pit in your stomach starts to kicks in. You remember (or not) how you ditched all your friends at the bar and was mass-texting your loser ex to get back together. 

Your mind has convinced you that everyone hates you.  Welcome, hangxiety.  While the shrinking of your brain (so gross to think about) doesn’t help your anxiety after drinking, there are other reasons why you might experience this terrible phenomenon.  The comedown after the endorphin release, the detoxification from the poison you ingested and the overall stupid fucking decisions you made while intoxicated are all obvious triggers as well.  

Lastly, but certainly not least, LACK OF FUCKING SLEEP contributes to your unstable mental condition.  Alcohol is a dream destroyer. No, literally.  After only one drink, your REM sleep (the dream center of the brain) is greatly reduced which leads to poor concentration and day-time drowsiness the following day.  While the liquor might help induce sleep, don’t expect to feel like a fresh-fucking-daisy when you wake up.   A stomped-up dandelion next to the park ‘n ride is probably more accurate.

A hangover is your body’s way of saying, “put down the bottle, you dumb bitch” or, at the very least, “slow your roll, you drunken fool.”

It was hard not to be a little concerned about my brain after learning about these alcohol-induced red flags. In response to these disturbing findings, I will be doing a 4-week long alcohol detox and keeping a catalog of the positive (and negative) side effects of laying off the booze for a bit. Wish me luck while I finish my last martini for a while.