Gymbunny7

Hi everyone hope all well. I have recently started listening to sober podcasts and the recent one I'm listening to is talking to everyday people about sobriety. Before I stopped drinking I started really learning about alcohol and addiction, in hindsight I absolutely knew I had major drink issues so maybe subconsciously gearing up for quitting. I learned more about the actual addiction side and didn't really focus too much on the physical maybe not wanting to know. I'm posting to see if there's been anything you've learned that's shocked you after quitting.

So one issue I didn't really know was how alcohol turns into sugar in the body.
Yesterday I learned that alcohol affects our sleep as it means we never get proper REM sleep.
I also learned our body sees alcohol immediately as a posion, even one sip switches our bodies into flight or fight. Cortisol then gets released as a protection mechanism, so stress levels rise, the more alcohol we drink more Cortisol more stress.

I clearly see now how attempting to help my stress with alcohol actually was causing more problems.

I'm sure you all know these things already, but sometimes when we hear simple causes it so much easier to grasp and maybe if this was more common knowledge it might prompt more people to try and stop.

Thanks 😀

Bunker

I also find the podcasts very helpful (and sometimes scary).

DriGuy

Alcohol is made from sugar, and the chemical formula for alcohol is very similar to sugar, so when the liver processes alcohol, it easily turns back to sugar. Well most of it; There are also other products produced during the breakdown that are unusable and/or toxic by the body.

One of these products is a compound called acetaldehyde. It is a toxin that causes stress and discomfort (what I call an irritable case of the jitters). In nonalcoholics the liver processes acetaldehyde very quickly into inert substances that pass as waste. In alcoholics, the acetaldehyde is processed slowly, and creates the need for more alcohol to ease the stress, and the new alcohol must then be processed producing more of the toxin in a continuing and increasing vicious circle.

(from a book, Under the Influence, which describes the process - published around the 1960s).

fishkiller

Cool stuff!

Information is a valuable tool once we are ready to receive it.

Thanks for posting

SamanthaSang

Very glad you found helpful podcasts. And lifelong learning is always a plus!

However, it is a popular misconception - for some reason unknown to me - that alcohol is converted into sugar after consumption.

This is not true.

There is a separate metabolic pathway for alcohol digestion.

While there are carbohydrates in beer and some liquors, and mixed cocktails often have sugary additives like syrups or soft drinks, the alcohol content of alcoholic beverages are not converted into sugar after consumption.

Hope this aids you ongoing learning!

https://www.painreliefwellness.com.a...way-explained/

DriGuy

Interesting. Although I need to read more, because your article does not describe what I have read about the alcoholic's physical adaptation to alcohol as a preferred substitute for sugar. This maybe true, however. In science, understanding changes with new information.

DriGuy

I've found several other sites that correct the misconception about alcohol turning to sugar, so I going to concede on that point. My only consolation is that it was a "popular" misconception. "Drat! Darn! Sometimes I'm so *$@#$#! Kick! <sigh>

Anna

Gymbunny, I agree with you about the sleeping issues. I began drinking to deal with terrible insomnia and of course made everything so much worse. I always craved sugar as a child. Luckily I was very athletic and didn't have a weight problem so it seemed like a non-issue. But, I realize that it was one more thing pushing me towards drinking alcohol. I wish I had known that.

Gymbunny7

It's all very fascinating I think hearing it in very simple terms via podcast made it very easy to understand. I also know when I was drinking I didn't want to know any physical damage alcohol could cause. I also had the attitude that because a lot of the time I didn't drink and exercised I would avoid any issues, clearly I was very delusional. I was really surprised how much my health and especially sleep improved as I thought again because most of the time I only drank weekend evenings I wouldn't benefit from any improvements I was totally wrong there. My sleep Anna was very similar throw in added night sweats I barely slept.

The debate about sugar all I can say I've lost over a stone without remotely trying and at 56 I've never been able to say that. My biggest improvement thats kept me motivated has largely been my physical improvements, sleep fitness in general but I now think it is the improvement to my nervous system. I've learned so much since stopping and its totally changed how I react to everything, I'm so much calmer. If these and other benefits where more out there I'm sure it would encourage others to rethink. Thanks for all your answers.

KneePads

Hey Bunny!

Great post, you sound like you’re doing great 😊

One thing I learned about alcohol which I found pretty scary is that it’s one of the few (or may even be the only) substances that infiltrates EVERY. SINGLE. CELL in the human body. Not sure if it’s the size or its composition (any science brains here feel free to explain it properly for us?) but yeah. It gets into every single cell. No other substances do that. If you think about that for a minute, that means it is damaging every part of you. From blood cells, to skin, to fat, to every organ. Eyes, brain, nerves and hormone systems. The lot.

So it makes you think. How fricking STRONG AND AMAZING are we all to manage to stop drinking? Something that addictive that saturates every bit of us? And makes God knows what sort of sneaky blueprint changes within those cells to make us keep reaching for the bottle?

And we said: “Hey! Booze! I’ll take your ‘every single cell in my body infiltration’ and I’ll raise you a: “Piss off!”

We’ve literally fought with our entire bodily makeup at a cellular level to get here.

If we can do that, imagine what else is achievable? … Sky’s the limit.

Love to all my sober dude warriors.

We are strong. We can do hard things 💪🏻💪🏻💪🏻

xxx

Oglsby

I have found that so many things that alcohol seems to help at first tend to exacerbate them when the drinking gets heavy. For me, I definitely used drinking to try to normalize my sleep, and I would never get the REM sleep I get now. Also, I would use alcohol to handle anxiety, but of course anxiety is much worse the next day when you have a hangover and your heart is racing. It just doesn't seem to make anything better at all.

RecklessDrunk

In hindsight I think a lot of what I craved was the blood sugar spike. Combined with the alcohol was where I got the ease and comfort. It was artwork to get just the right stomach of just enough food for my body to tolerate the alcohol. Can't be too little or too much food. Start out with very high alcohol craft beer, and work down to some kind of wheat beer or something. I think a lot was the instant sugar along with the alcohol. Make it some beer that taste like 18 proof pumpkin pie or 22 proof chocolate candy bar and im really downing it quickly and probably heading for crack cocaine.

Looking back I was pretty bad. I'd show a visitor what's in my fridge with passionate speeches about whatever beers I had in stock.


In my later days i wouldn't drink shots often and certainly not without beer. On those days that I wasn't planning to drink and the AV over powered me it was never with the promise of shots or drugs. The AV always spoke of the ease and comfort and the taste of craft beer.

Especially on vacation, friends and family would stuff me full of food. Then I would complain, im too full to get a buzz! Then I would drink shots of whatever trying to feel ok. It wasn't the way I preferred to drink.

Oglsby

I could not drink after I ate either. It lost its appeal. I don't really have cravings anymore, but if I ever do, it usually means I'm hungry: HALT.