A Peat Diet Will Not Save You From Alcohol Consumption

[natedawggh]

I first came to Ray Peat Forum searching for help for my severe illnesses and began implementing Peat based strategies in my diet and lifestyle, but all the while continued to drink alcohol, sort of thinking I could get well and still drink. It didn't happen, and wasn't until I completely gave up alcohol that any of my health conditions began to heal.

I am often approached by people who are seeking help to their seemingly stubborn health issues, without fail it comes up that they drink alcohol. There are no therapies in existence which are stronger than the degenerative effects of alcohol. If you have health issues they absolutely will not heal if you drink, even occasionally. Each time you do is basically resetting any gains in health you may have achieved thus far. I have now been sober for one year and four months, and I am still not completely healed from the damage alcohol did to my health.

Alcohol by nature is a force of entropy. It dissolves and destroys, and entropy is always stronger than forces of creation and healing (which is why all of us die eventually). If you are on this site hoping to find solutions to your health, be warned that they will not be effective if you drink. It's not my opinion, it's just the way it is. The sooner you give it up the faster you'll get better. If my opinion were truth, I'd prefer alcohol to be healthful. It took a while for me to accept, but it's not compatible with healing—EVEN IN MODERATION. I see people on this site getting all worked up over small amounts of iron or other ideas on nutrition, yet freely ingest something that is essentially pure estrogen (alcohol).

If you find it difficult or impossible to give up, as I did, you can get help at alcoholics anonymous. That, in addition to a Ray Peat centered diet, is a superpower of healing and wellness.

 

[Jayfish]

And yet, many amazing, strong, and long lived people were avid drinkers.

Your notion is opinion, please don't construe your personal experiences to be fact for everyone.

 

[natedawggh]

And yet, many amazing, strong, and long lived people were avid drinkers.

Your notion is opinion, please don't construe your personal experiences to be fact for everyone.

Are you one of these people or just wishing you are? It sounds like you're disagreeing with me but actually you're just stating something that is as true as my post. It doesn't mean that someone who is ill can drink and get better. That does not happen. But please, prove me wrong.

 

[Jayfish]

There is nothing to prove. You can have your opinion but it isn't fact.

 

[Simonsays]

Good luck with your recovery. Are you developing any cross addictions to replace the alcohol?

 

[Westside PUFAs]

But you could say the same for any genre of diet, A "paleo" Diet Will Not Save You From Alcohol Consumption, A "vegan" Diet Will Not Save You From Alcohol Consumption, A "standard western diet" Diet Will Not Save You From Alcohol Consumption, A "macrobiotic" Diet Will Not Save You From Alcohol Consumption etc..

Alcoholism is a disease that requires proper treatment. Just because an alcoholic becomes sober doesn't mean that they will become interested in nutrition/health/fitness. If they do, I just hope that they don't fall for the low carb nonsense out there. Alcohol is sugar so they were already high carb (unless they were smashing in the cream, cheese, and fried/oil condiments etc.), now they just have to replace the alcohol with fruit, boiled starch, and refined sugars like maple syrup, sucrose, and turbinado sugar, get sunlight, walk for a half hour, and at least do some squats to maintain bone health, as well as define their purpose.

 

[Tarmander]

I stopped drinking about five years ago, would never go back, especially with what I have learned since about alcohol. Alcohol is the ultimate slave substance in my opinion. It makes you feel good, strong, capable of deciding your destiny, free, social, and unbound, while simultaneously destroying your body's ability to do any of these things. It's a complete lie. It is like being supremely happy while the manacles are strapped on.

I see people who are lively, metabolically strong, and intelligent, who drink regularly. From afar it looks as if positive things are happening, life is expanding, knowledge is being gained. But up close they are not much more mature then they were five, ten, maybe fifteen years before. They are stuck in a limbo that gives the illusion of progress. That is the worst part. You feel as if things are happening, but life is stagnating.

 

[snowboard111]

Isn't there big difference between alcohol consumption and alcoholism?

 

[CoolTweetPete]

I think it's true that drinking will make it more difficult to heal, but I disagree that this is true for everyone as Jayfish mentioned. I was a chronic drinker for nearly 10 years. I would drink 3-4 times a week in excess (1-2 of those times I might even black out) and was eating a SAD diet, then eventually a Paleo, then a ketogenic diet.

I got remarkably worse when I switched to ketogenic, and then I got remarkably better when I switched to Peat. I think my gains did stall at some point because I was still drinking rather often, and still to excess.

In the last 6 months I have relegated my drinking to once every few weeks and I still feel like I'm recovering quite well. It drops my temps and pulse for the following day, but a day of eating well, a night of sleep, and a few precautions (extra B-vitamins, aspirin, caffeine) always seem to resolve it.

 

[Jayfish]

Isn't there big difference between alcohol consumption and alcoholism?

Huge.

I think the tendencies towards alcoholism are the same for creating absolutist posts like this. It's like the people who are addicted to porn preaching abstention from masturbation as a cure all.

 

[What-a-Riot]

^

 

[Drareg]

Haven't been drinking in 3 years,since I started some Peat guidelines.
I never had an issue with it but now it seems pointless, Coca Cola has more depth of flavour and taste than any alcoholic drink IMO, coke is a work of art.
Some of the most popular alcoholic drinks are carbonated which says a lot IMO, champagne ,beer ,some wines a have a small amount. Popular alcoholic mixes use carbonation also.

Peat mentioned small amounts can help inflammation but he really meant small amount like a tablespoon or so?
It's full on estrogenic so if that's your main issue for now it's wise to stop alcohol.

 

[bobbybobbob]

Booze is great. You're crazy. The key is the social context of it. I heard an interview of Mencken from I think the late 30s where he outlined his rules with regard to alcohol and they made a ton of sense to me. He said: 1) Never drink alone; 2) never drink when you know you still have something you should get done today; 3) never drink before dinner/late-evening, because it's when you spiral into drinking for hours during the day that you really develop a problem.

I think with these rules Mencken pretty much nailed down how people get into trouble. If you follow the rules, you can be a happy social drinker with productive days of hard work.

I've seen zero evidence that having a couple drinks a day is a problem from a physiological perspective.

 

[Drareg]

Booze is great. You're crazy. The key is the social context of it. I heard an interview of Mencken from I think the late 30s where he outlined his rules with regard to alcohol and they made a ton of sense to me. He said: 1) Never drink alone; 2) never drink when you know you still have something you should get done today; 3) never drink before dinner/late-evening, because it's when you spiral into drinking for hours during the day that you really develop a problem.

I think with these rules Mencken pretty much nailed down how people get into trouble. If you follow the rules, you can be a happy social drinker with productive days of hard work.

I've seen zero evidence that having a couple drinks a day is a problem from a physiological perspective.

Social context is open to interpretation, many thing considered social that don't make sense as we evolve.
Going to watched people get hanged was a social event for the whole town less than a 100'years ago.

The guy you mentioned Mencken must have broke those rules to know of them,everyone will break those rules with daily drinking.
Next someone will chime in with how such a former President or some other pseudo successful type drank daily.

Kids don't get it,when adults are drunk, adults who get drunk in front of their kids get in raged when this is pointed out to them. Difference between a drink in front of kids and drunkeness.
Doing this daily is as pathological as it gets Imo.

You have chosen not see the evidence of a couple of drinks a day not being a problem.
It's pointless drinking alcohol everyday when you have read Ray Peat , the big question is did the French lady live to 115 because of the alcohol or nicotine or chocolate,who knows,crucial early years of her life were not filled with PUFA and the like.

 

[bobbybobbob]

I never actually suggested drinking daily as a good policy.

I need to drink to deal with work related stress. It totally works and is a useful drug, like tianeptine and aspirin and methylene blue and phenibut. I could very easily be dry if I was some trust fund kid, off doing interesting things of my choosing, facing no pressure to make a buck. Well, I need to make cash and that involves doing ***t I don't really want to be doing for many hours a week. Social drinking is amazingly effective at both team building and dissipating a lot of that stress.

There's a clear connection between empire and booze. The mongols on campaign were big drinkers. The british navy were big on drinking. The roman legions drank loads. American frotiersmen were big on the whiskey. The Japanese while they worked insane hours and built up their country and export industries from a poor joke into #1 world powerhouse status, they drank like fish. Many, many great business organizations have been known for their drinking culture. It's a useful drug for blowing off stress and then coming back the next day and getting through shitty work you really don't want to be doing and building something great. (I put tobacco in this category, too. It's a useful tool to sustain concentration.)

If you can go live stress free in a log cabin at high altitude in mexico or wherever, sure, go enjoy your ultra optimized metabolism and never drink. Some of us need to make a buck and want to build some interesting things. Booze and smokes help. Oh noes, I might die at 70 instead of 85. I don't care.

What I personally settled on as a forth rule, in addition to Mencken's three, is only drink every other day, with the added flexibility that drinking days stack up (two in a row just means two days of no drinking instead of one).

 

[Mountain]

There's a clear connection between empire and booze. The mongols on campaign were big drinkers. The british navy were big on drinking. The roman legions drank loads. American frotiersmen were big on the whiskey. The Japanese while they worked insane hours and built up their country and export industries from a poor joke into #1 world powerhouse status, they drank like fish. Many, many great business organizations have been known for their drinking culture. It's a useful drug for blowing off stress and then coming back the next day and getting through shitty work you really don't want to be doing and building something great. (I put tobacco in this category, too. It's a useful tool to sustain concentration.)

This is a completely moot point because they are discussing the effects of alcohol on the individual, not what may make for a successful empire. It could be just as likely that alcohol after work fills the time that people would normally spend thinking about their bad working conditions which they endure during the day. In my opinion, it's probably a way to keep the working class submissive automata.

 

[thegiantess]

I get the original point; maybe some folks on here desperately want to get better, but they're unwilling to give up something as obviously toxic as alcohol. That makes sense and maybe they should reconsider. What I don't get is the absolute statement that alcohol is basically the devil and is the sum of all evil. Societies were built on alcohol consumption. People have been drinking for like, forever. No this doesn't make it optimal, but it means that we humans can thrive and societies can flourish despite (or because?) of booze. Our guts produce a small amount of ethanol, so it's not a totally foreign substance. I get that in excess it is damaging, but so is sunshine. Shall we totally avoid the sun? I'm not an avid drinker and I'm not trying to heal from anything, but I have a problem with opinions professed as facts.

 

[bobbybobbob]

People have been drinking for like, forever.

Yeah, the archaeological literature on this is interesting. Pre-historic European tribes would travel vast distances to assemble and drink beer and socialize, and build something like Stonehenge in the process. Beer built Stonehenge.

 

[Tarmander]

The Mongols were just a blast to hang out with, what with all the rape and pillaging.

 

[Mountain]

Yeah, the archaeological literature on this is interesting. Pre-historic European tribes would travel vast distances to assemble and drink beer and socialize, and build something like Stonehenge in the process. Beer built Stonehenge.

>Pre-historic
>Beer built stonehenge.

hmmm