Alcohol and Insomnia

There are many studies showing the negative effect of alcohol on sleep.  When I hear about people having trouble sleeping I wonder if it is their alcohol intake.

I have found from personal experience that the insomnia will last long after the quit but in time will subside.   The best cure I have found for insomnia is limiting caffeine, absolutely no alcohol and sleep restriction therapy.

Sleep is such a healing and important process messing it up is another reason to quit the alcohol.

Sagawa agreed. "Many alcoholics and habitual drinkers suffer from insomnia," he said. "Suppressed parasympathetic nerve activity is the result of alcohol drinking. Thus, it is inferred that suppressed parasympathetic nerve activity is associated with insomnia, which includes difficulty getting to sleep, early-morning awakening, lack of a sense of deep sleep, and difficulty maintaining sleep."

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No amount of alcohol safe

Professor David Nutt wrote a good article for the Guardian arguing against the myth that there is a safe level of alcohol consumption.

Hopefully these observations will help bring some honesty to the debate about alcohol, which kills up to 40,000 people a year in the UK and over 2.25 million worldwide in the latest 2011 WHO report.
We must not allow apologists for this toxic industry to pull the wool over our eyes with their myth of a safe alcohol dose, however appealing it might be to all us so-called "safe" drinkers.

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Anderson Silva Does Not Drink?

Found this interview that says Anderson Silva does not drink.  Not sure if this is always or just pre fight.  This could be part of the reason he has performed so well into his late 30's.

MMAnytt (MN): Dear Anderson, Thank you so much for taking your time answering our questions. Several readers on MMAnytt.se want to know what you eat while training for a fight.

Anderson Silva (AS): I drink no alcohol, eat maybe 3000 calories a day and don’t measure stuff too much. I don’t eat candy! As you all know I worked at MacDonald’s once and I still like Big Mac.

Ross Enamait On Alcohol

There is a good chance that you have no clue who Ross Enamait is unless you are familiar with strength and conditioning.  But I like his take on alcohol.

I drank alcohol when I was younger. I made many mistakes as a young man. I am not a fan of alcohol. Many problems in this world are fueled by alcohol. Many crimes are committed under the influence of alcohol. 

Almost everyone who has been a "drinker" has made MANY mistakes and done things they most certainly regret. 

Now that I am older and wiser, I speak to youngsters about staying away from drugs and alcohol. I see teens ALL THE TIME who have had their lives almost completely ruined by drinking (ex. one youngster crashed his car and killed his best friend while under the influence). 

I don't need alcohol to be "social". I am fine without it (much better off). 

I am not suggesting that a few drinks equates to a major problem, but many times a few drinks turns into a few too many. It seems like a daily occurence that a drunk driver hits someone on the road. I see these stories on the news almost every day. 

I really have no reason to drink. I am very happy and confident without the booze. I've definitely been around, and I can say without question that I am much better off without ANY alcohol. 

Just my opinion... but I much prefer an exercise-induced natural high. 
Ross

          source


  I don't think alcohol really has a place if we want to stay in outstanding shape.   I know there are many people who are able to drink heavily and still maintain athletic performance but I also see alcohol having a huge impact on most people's careers and health.

 Take a look at Jon Jones he is a gifted athlete who's time would be better spent prepping for his next fight instead of dealing with the aftermath of a DUI.  Now I am sure he is just a normal social drinker and will learn from this but sometimes the price we pay to continue drinking is not worth it.

So I will continue to work at completely quitting alcohol.

The Danger Of Teenage Binge Drinking

It is common for people to begin drinking at a young age, this is a dangerous trend.

 The findings, though preliminary, have demolished the assumption that people can drink heavily for years before causing themselves significant neurological injury. And the research even suggests that early heavy drinking may undermine the precise neurological capacities needed to protect oneself from alcoholism.

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Tony Alva's Story

"There was always something I looked for to make me feel better that was outside of me."  Tony Alva

Tony Alva (born September 2, 1957) is an American skateboarder most prominently known as one of the original members of Z-Boysskateboarding team. He is considered one of the most influential skateboarders of all time.  wiki

Pass The Bucket with Tony Alva from Vans OffTheWall.TV on Vimeo.

How to help a drunk guy drive home

via

Rancid's Tim Armstrong and Lars Frederiksen Sober

Rancid is a defining punk band and the early years forced both Tim and Lars to get sober to continue making music.

Matt, after all, was getting on with his life, playing shows, going on tour, while Tim semed to have hit rock bottom.  Even his mother wouldn’t let him stay at her house anymore, and he wound up in a Salvation Army shelter, working for them in exchange for a bed.  “A humiliating place,” he says, “but I really had nowhere else to go.”  Nowhere, that was, but up: for some reason, somehow, it was at that point that Tim found the strength not to drink anymore.

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Booze Britain

Booze Britain is a good documentary that delves into some of the effects of binge drinking in Britain but also around the world.

more videos here.

Low Doses of Alcohol Effect Sleep

A study performed at Trinity College in Dublin found that even moderate alcohol intake affected sleep.

The study, which used wristband devices to measure how long students slept in their own beds, is the first to show alcohol consumption can reduce overall sleep time, the researchers said. Previous studies conducted in sleep labs have found alcohol consumption interferes with the second half of sleep, but not overall sleep time.

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Reddit Fetal Alcohol Syndrome

This discussion at reddit is worth browsing, it is posted by a kid that was affected by his mother's drinking while pregnant.

Hangover Short Story

I woke up pondering the relevance of my existence. I was so hung over I couldn't function enough to get up out of bed and make even my usual pale appearance at class. I'm not really the type of person who gives a shit if anybody knows I like to go out on a regular basis and have a few drinks. I'm also not the kind of person who has never experienced a grade reduction, or two, for repetitive absenteeism. I just don't care. Especially at quarter to eight on a Wednesday morning after a Tuesday night that should never have happened. My body feels numb and in the back of my mind there's something I can't quite remember yet I can't quite forget. Most of the time when I feel this way it means I did something stupid that I'll either find, or, find out about later.

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Quitting and Dating

 It wasn’t any dramatic event that made me want to stop, but rather a series of recurring regrets. After a particularly horrendous hangover, I decided to cut out drinking indefinitely. But while sobriety was great for my health, and my head, it was proving bad for my dating life.

more.. By JOE BERKOWITZ

Is it truly and issue?

Anthony Hopkins on Giving Up Alcohol

A New Documentary about the co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous

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60 Minute Segment on Why We Get Addicted

This is a good video that gives a high level overview on how addiction starts and why it is hard to stop any pleasurable activity from food to cocaine.   Dr. Nora Volkow is a world renowned addiction researcher.



via huffingtonpost

The Addictive Voice

I realized a couple of years ago that drinking had lost it's fun and was having a negative impact on my life.  After a few failed quits One of the first books I read was The Small Book by Jack Trimpey, this is where I was first introduced to the Addictive Voice (AV) concept. The Small Book argues that the Addictive Voice (AV) or The Beast is the primal part of your brain used for survival.  The AV helped us survive by focusing on the pursuit of pleasure, but in modern society the AV can cause problems.

The Rational Website summarizes it as follows

In effect, you have two separate brains within your head — a human brain, which supports consciousness, and an animal/beast brain which supports life itself. The beast brain generates survival appetites which drive the rest of the body toward what it demands, such as oxygen, food, sex, and fluids.

These survival needs are all associated with physical pleasure, i.e., the better something feels, the more necessary it seems for survival. Alcohol and other drugs feel better than anything else, including food, sex, even breathing. Your survival drive has become a death drive in search of physical pleasure.

Your survival appetite is aimed at the wrong stuff, to be sure, but addiction is more a reflection of health than of a mysterious disease. The desire for pleasure fades among sick or diseased people, further suggesting that addiction is a reflection of health rather than a disease process. In RR, some call the human midbrain "the party center," because of the bond between pleasure and addiction. Of course, it is often quite stupid (self-defeating) to act on healthy desires or impulses, as in substance addictions.

Jack Trimpey argues that ANY thought that would lead to drinking is the AV and should be ignored.

For example any of these thoughts would be the AV and can be ignored or disputed.

• I deserve a drink.
• I can not enjoy myself without a drink.
• I can have just one.
• This will be the last time I drink.
• I can moderate.
• I can't stand not drinking.
• I must have a drink.
• It's a holiday, I deserve a drink.
• I will go crazy without a drink.
• I don't have a problem.

By recognizing these thoughts and understanding that they are nothing but a symptom of the Addiction it is easy to either recognize and let them pass or actively dispute them.  A couple of good resources that will help you deal with your Addictive Voice when they occur are.

Resources:

When AA Doesn't Work For You: Rational Steps to Quitting Alcohol
Alcohol: How to Give It Up and Be Glad You Did
The Crash Course on AVRT

Colin Farrell Seven Years Sober

OK Magazine reports that Colin Farrell has seven years of sobriety although he was scared of getting sober and losing his edge.

"I was terrified [of being sober] because, I'm not saying I was a great actor before or a great actor since, but I was terrified that whatever my capacity was as an actor beforehand, however little or large — it would completely dispappear."

Colin Farrell is set to release the remake to Total Recall this year, looks like it will be excellent.

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The Rise and Fall of Pitcher Matt Bush

This is truly a sad story showing the dangers of alcohol abuse.  Matt Bush had all the breaks and a chance for a good life, sadly alcohol got the best of him.

Today, Matt Bush is in jail. He is going to be there for a long time. A Florida judge Monday set his bail at more than $1 million after Bush allegedly stole his spring roommate’s SUV Thursday night, got drunk, climbed on stage at a strip club before bouncers booted him, headed back on the road and hit a 72-year-old motorcyclist named Tony Tufano. Bush reportedly ran over Tufano’s head while peeling away. He drove from the carnage with a .18 blood alcohol level and a septuagenarian lying in the street in critical condition.

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Heavy Drinking Linked to Depression

Most of us who have done heavy drinking know that depressive episodes tend to follow so this study does not tell us anything new but it is good to see it researched.  I would like to see studies on the long term depressive nature of alcohol.

 This study suggests that heavy drinking occasions are risk factors for depressive symptoms independently of the total alcohol consumption. This result indicates that greater emphasis should be placed on the drinking pattern when counselling individuals on alcohol and its health-related consequences. The alcohol use disorders identification test (AUDIT) includes a question of frequency of heavy drinking occasions and that can be used in screening people with unfavourable drinking habits.

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Alcoholism Documentary

A series of videos documenting deadly alcohol addiction.

Kindling in Alcohol Withdrawal Howard C. Becker, Ph.D.

In many alcoholics, the severity of withdrawal symptoms increases after repeated withdrawal
episodes. This exacerbation may be attributable to a kindling process. Kindling is a
phenomenon in which a weak electrical or chemical stimulus, which initially causes no overt
behavioral responses, results in the appearance of behavioral effects, such as seizures, when
it is administered repeatedly. Both clinical and experimental evidence support the existence
of a kindling mechanism during alcohol withdrawal. Withdrawal symptoms, such as seizures,
result from neurochemical imbalances in the brain of alcoholics who suddenly reduce or
cease alcohol consumption. These imbalances may be exacerbated after repeated withdrawal
experiences. The existence of kindling during withdrawal suggests that even patients
experiencing mild withdrawal should be treated aggressively to prevent the increase in
severity of subsequent withdrawal episodes. Kindling also may contribute to a patient’s
relapse risk and to alcohol-related brain damage and cognitive impairment. KEY WORDS: AOD
withdrawal syndrome;

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You Know You Have Drinking Problem When?

You start crap with a table full of guys with Cauliflower Ear.  Ryan Hall handles a drunk guy nicely.

Learn more about it here.

During the brief moments of action that occurred, Hall took the belligerent man down with a double leg take down and mounted him until the man was momentarily pacified. Later, when the man returned to instigate more against Hall and his friends, Hall ended up safely putting the man to sleep to prevent him from doing harm to himself or others in the restaurant. At that point the police arrived and took control of the situation.

Mike Ness Sobriety

Mike Ness lead singer for Social Distortion spent years in addiction and was able to get clean and stay clean.  I have not been able to track down any in depth discussion detailing his process of getting and staying sober. He briefly touches on it in this interview a more complete picture of his addiction and struggle can best be found in his music both as a solo musician and his years with Social Distortion.

JAM: Do you ever really know what the bottom is? Well, it's not really a situational thing, it's an emotional thing. It all came down to me being sick and tired of being sick and tired living with the pain. There is an intense emotional struggle with pain that comes with heroin addiction. Your craving for the next fix becomes so intense, you'll do anything to get rid of it. Instead of falling deeper into drug addiction to battle the hurt, I was willing to submit myself to rehab. As a result of that decision, I'm alive and talking to you today.

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Craig Ferguson Talks About His Alcoholism

Sober Is My New Drunk

Just finished reading Sober Is My New Drunk by Paul Carr.  I was not familiar with Paul Carr or any of his other works before seeing this book start showing up on various blogs.  Sober Is My New Drunk is a quick 20-30 minute read, Paul covers most of the issues we will run into when quitting alcohol, questioning if we truly have a problem, STD's, learning to date again and making sober life interesting.  I think this book could help anyone who is trying to quit drinking without AA.

This book would probably not be a good resource if you are using AA to quit drinking.

Updated 3/18 - The Wall Street Journal has a complete write up on the book.

$100 reward for reporting drunk drivers

Sen. Robert Calderon has proposed a bill that would give people who report Drunk Drivers $100 dollars if a conviction is reached.


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Alcohol The Bitter Truth

These videos cover a lecture done discussing how alcohol is metabolized and the consequences of heavy drinking.  A good video that touches on the good and the bad of alcohol.