A Peat Diet Will Not Save You From Alcohol Consumption

[Drareg]

There have been radical Muslims for centuries. So that argument is moot.


That which is stated without proof can be dismissed without proof.

The only research in this thread is what I posted, showing clear benefits to drinking.

The only way to stop it is financial at this stage.

 

[Such_Saturation]

Please enlarge on this, Such.

That it feel good?

 

[narouz]

That it feel good?

You made it sound like there's some dynamic going on that I hadn't heard of--
like: if you drink a lot, or maybe if you're alcoholic, you develop an increased ability
to trigger more dopamine release...?

I thought you were alluding to something like that.:)

 

[Such_Saturation]

You made it sound like there's some dynamic going on that I hadn't heard of--
like: if you drink a lot, or maybe if you're alcoholic, you develop an increased ability
to trigger more dopamine release...?

I thought you were alluding to something like that.:)

Yeah that's it. It feels super good! Like an upper.

 

[Tarmander]

I will add one more thing in here about alcohol that may apply to some of you but not others. Having more then one drink when you have children around can engender some deep distrust in them. They can tell that you are off, that an emotional connection is not there for them to feel safe with. My mom's father drank for all his life, was very healthy, and lived a long time. But his kids had some serious issues from his alcohol abuse when he was younger. They had heavy trust issues and turned to alcohol as well when they got older.

I think this is often not discussed but anyone who grew up with parents who drank, even moderately, knew how their parents changed after a couple glasses of wine. It can be hard to understand as a child.

 

[moss]

I will add one more thing in here about alcohol that may apply to some of you but not others. Having more then one drink when you have children around can engender some deep distrust in them. They can tell that you are off, that an emotional connection is not there for them to feel safe with. My mom's father drank for all his life, was very healthy, and lived a long time. But his kids had some serious issues from his alcohol abuse when he was younger. They had heavy trust issues and turned to alcohol as well when they got older.

I think this is often not discussed but anyone who grew up with parents who drank, even moderately, knew how their parents changed after a couple glasses of wine. It can be hard to understand as a child.

Tarmander a good point to raise and this does apply to me. Three members of my family were/are alcoholics. Both share commonalities in that they have addictive personalities and are highly energized people (always moving) and seeking to find 'spirit', through intoxication and experience some kind of euphoria. I wonder if the same could be said for addictions to starvation (or vomiting), a validity or 'reality' experienced in drugs and other addictions then that is a whole other topic.
Alcohol did cut a swathe of destruction in my family and my brother and I were the silent witnesses in a world that was often unpredictable, scary, violent and downright terrifying at times. Over the years, I have done quite a bit of work in an attempt to understand (and forgive) and I think trusting can be an issue though much better at this now and happy to report I am not an alcoholic. Sorry to hear of your families experiences, sadly this is commonplace.

I didn't give it a moment's thought as a child because it was 'normal'. It was not until my late 30s (unbelievably) when my mother was dying that I realized there was even a problem!

 

[narouz]

Tarmander a good point to raise and this does apply to me. Three members of my family were/are alcoholics. Both share commonalities in that they have addictive personalities and are highly energized people (always moving) and seeking to find 'spirit', through intoxication and experience some kind of euphoria. I wonder if the same could be said for addictions to starvation (or vomiting), a validity or 'reality' experienced in drugs and other addictions then that is a whole other topic.
Alcohol did cut a swathe of destruction in my family and my brother and I were the silent witnesses in a world that was often unpredictable, scary, violent and downright terrifying at times. Over the years, I have done quite a bit of work in an attempt to understand (and forgive) and I think trusting can be an issue though much better at this now and happy to report I am not an alcoholic. Sorry to hear of your families experiences, sadly this is commonplace.

I didn't give it a moment's thought as a child because it was 'normal'. It was not until my late 30s (unbelievably) when my mother was dying that I realized there was even a problem!

Yeah, I can understand, moss--given the situation/drinking you describe.
But Tarmander said deep family injure can occur when parents have one or two glasses of wine.
That...I don't really thing so.

I mean, I guess I can imagine parents with a whole lot of tension and resentment stored up,
and they drink a glass of wine or two,
and then all those bad vibes gush out...
Possible.

 

[Tarmander]

Yeah, I can understand, moss--given the situation/drinking you describe.
But Tarmander said deep family injure can occur when parents have one or two glasses of wine.
That...I don't really thing so.

I mean, I guess I can imagine parents with a whole lot of tension and resentment stored up,
and they drink a glass of wine or two,
and then all those bad vibes gush out...
Possible.

I think you exaggerate what I said. I said more then one glass of wine. Obviously if the parents consume a few glasses on New Years every year, no biggie. It is the chronic consumption of more then a glass , yes that can be only two drinks, that causes distrust. Kids are very smart, very aware of trust and not trust. It does not take much to understand that when mommy drinks a couple glasses she changes.

The kids feel it, they respond to it, and often they get gaslighted/blamed for the person drinking's absence.

 

[narouz]

I think you exaggerate what I said. I said more then one glass of wine. Obviously if the parents consume a few glasses on New Years every year, no biggie. It is the chronic consumption of more then a glass , yes that can be only two drinks, that causes distrust. Kids are very smart, very aware of trust and not trust. It does not take much to understand that when mommy drinks a couple glasses she changes.

The kids feel it, they respond to it, and often they get gaslighted/blamed for the person drinking's absence.

One or two glasses is how I referred to your post, Tamander.
Not trying to falsify.

I can see where you're coming from.
But I guess for me I would say:
it depends upon how mommy and daddy are/act after those one or two drinks.
And even one or two glasses every day.

I do think you're right about how savvy kids can be,
picking up what drinking is and how it is an unusual zone--
one they're forbidden from.
Kids are the same way about when mommy and daddy go into the bedroom sometimes.

If mommy and daddy are joyful and celebratory, or even just relaxed,
kid will pick up on that yes...but probably fine.
If mommy and daddy drink and get bitchy and violent, sure...kids will be scared.

 

[Such_Saturation]

Kids are the same way about when mommy and daddy go into the bedroom sometimes.

(behold the new and socially acceptable Idi Amin)

 

[Tarmander]

One or two glasses is how I referred to your post, Tamander.
Not trying to falsify.

I can see where you're coming from.
But I guess for me I would say:
it depends upon how mommy and daddy are/act after those one or two drinks.
And even one or two glasses every day.

I do think you're right about how savvy kids can be,
picking up what drinking is and how it is an unusual zone--
one they're forbidden from.
Kids are the same way about when mommy and daddy go into the bedroom sometimes.

If mommy and daddy are joyful and celebratory, or even just relaxed,
kid will pick up on that yes...but probably fine.
If mommy and daddy drink and get bitchy and violent, sure...kids will be scared.

I have not really experienced what you describe. I have not come across really anyone who is able to maintain awake awareness after that first drink. Agree to disagree I suppose but I think it is intrinsic to alcohol that this absence is created.

My dad was the drinker in my family, and he was very sweet. A really nice guy, everyone loved him. But after that first drink he just kind of checked out. He wasn't mean, just absent. This absence caused all manner of problems that he promptly checked out on as well. The fear was created in the kids because of his absence, whether he was nice or mean.

 

[narouz]

I have not really experienced what you describe. I have not come across really anyone who is able to maintain awake awareness after that first drink. Agree to disagree I suppose but I think it is intrinsic to alcohol that this absence is created.

My dad was the drinker in my family, and he was very sweet. A really nice guy, everyone loved him. But after that first drink he just kind of checked out. He wasn't mean, just absent. This absence caused all manner of problems that he promptly checked out on as well. The fear was created in the kids because of his absence, whether he was nice or mean.

Here too, Tar, I guess the devil is in the details--what exactly is the nature of daddy "checking out"...?
I have some therapist friends who use that terminology.
In the ways I've heard them use the phrase "checked out,"
indeed it can be a serious thing.
However, in the contexts they talked about checking out,
it didn't have anything to do with drinking alcohol or even taking drugs.

The way they used it, it meant an emotional distancing or insulation.
So if a spouse, say, is being hurt by the other spouse,
the first spouse can do a psychological/emotion maneuver
which sortuv protects him/her from pain.
They do something to make themselves cold and unfeeling to the offending spouse.

 

[narouz]

(behold the new and socially acceptable Idi Amin)

Hahahahaha!!
Exactly what I was thinking!

 

[Makrosky]

These same points could be made about PUFA, no? But we mostly don't say that makes PUFA good in some contexts - wouldn't many of us be more likely to say it's sometimes a difficult/impossible-to-avoid harm?

If the yogis are pressuring you to drink, there is something off with their practice.


Nice summary. (Also damages metabolism.)

Hey tara,

PUFA is good in the sense that certain PUFA containing foods are delicious and allowing yourself to have pleasure eating good things is healthy. To a certain ammount, of course. Same with alcohol. A good liver can detoxify some PUFA and some alcohol and it's not going to damage your metabolism if you are healthy.

I said I met some yogis/taoists etc. who drank sometimes, not that they pressured others to drink ;-)

 

[thebigpeatowski]

My anecdotal two cents:

I grew up with very high functioning alcoholic parents, granted they would/will never admit their drinking was a problem. Their erratic behavior was absolutely terrifying for me as a child (I could tell ya some scary stories) and I vowed not to drink when I had kids......I never wanted them to experience what I went through.

Unfortunately, I started drinking when I was in junior high school and by my third year in college most of my friends considered me a full-on alcoholic. I quit everything (smoking, drugs and alcohol) cold turkey just before I turned 21, ironically. That was the beginning of what I call the Amish Years, but was actually closer to being a Mennonite. I drank only very rarely over the next 24 years.

Fortunately I never had problems with my kids experimenting with alcohol/drugs during the teenage years, thank goodness!!! But I did start drinking alcohol again about five years ago and when I did, it was in the presence of my now grown children.

Both boys initially made comments on "how weird it was seeing mom drink". I could see the gears turning in their minds, a dissonance of sorts. At first I worried, and it certainly triggered those old feelings/concerns from my childhood. I asked if it bothered them that I was drinking....We ended up talking for hours and hours about what it was like for me growing up with that kind of instability and how it ultimately lead to my decision NOT to drink.

They had LOTS of why why why questions and I shared my ugly stories with them, not really sure if it was the right thing to do. After all, I was basically dragging their beloved grandparents through the proverbial mud. Pretty sure I violated two of the Ten commandments during that conversation...you know, Honor Thy Father and Mother and not taking The Lord's name in vain....blah, blah, blah.

I still kind of wince over that, but I've never withheld anything from my kids when they ask questions. Naturally this eye-opening process lead to them to ask even more questions which gave rise to some mighty humbling confessions on my part and I ended up having to drag myself through the very same mud....Double Ouch.

They were fairly dumbfounded sitting there... shocked while trying to envision this dark side of their mother of which they had never known. But in the end both boys concluded this New Scotch Swilling Version (Mom 2.0) was okay and indeed way more fun.

So yeah, we drink together on occasion and we have a great time. No weirdness at all.

Heaps of Truth, Balance and Trust.....CHEERS!!!

 

[jyb]

I think you exaggerate what I said. I said more then one glass of wine. Obviously if the parents consume a few glasses on New Years every year, no biggie. It is the chronic consumption of more then a glass , yes that can be only two drinks, that causes distrust. Kids are very smart, very aware of trust and not trust. It does not take much to understand that when mommy drinks a couple glasses she changes.

The kids feel it, they respond to it, and often they get gaslighted/blamed for the person drinking's absence.

2 glasses of wine in a day makes parents bad... Have you been to Europe?

 

[Tarmander]

2 glasses of wine in a day makes parents bad... Have you been to Europe?

I have, quite a bit. I went to Italy when I was 12 and got drunk for the first time, then again a few more times as I got older, also in Ireland and Scottland when I was 17. Kids can deal with their parent's drinking problem much easier when they start drinking early. As long as everyone is drunk there are no problems. It is when one person isn't drunk and is fully aware, when problems start.

 

[ThinkPerceive]

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.

Probably this thread is too old, but I did have an experience related to this...

When I was doing the low-carb paleo diet for some months a few years ago. It was great for weight loss and I really was overdoing the low-carb thing.

But, at some point a year in, I became an alcoholic. Now, I have always liked alcohol, and sometimes drank too much socially - but it had never been a big problem for me. But this time was very different - I was compulsively drinking a bottle of wine every night! And I was hiding this - I'd buy wine in the day and sneak it into my room, and just drink. I'd get several bottles and keep them hidden in a cupboard. I preferred wine, but sometimes drank hard liquor, and sometimes to the point of vomiting.

It was really disturbing for me - I was absolutely out of control, and whenever I'd try to manage this even a little I'd failed miserably. I asked on Paleo forums wtf was happening to me, but all the advice was useless or terrible.

There was a silver lining here which was interesting: it was VERY pleasurable. It was absolutely enjoyable, to be drunk. I would be dancing, in my room, feeling as if the grace of God was filling me with light and joy. And - bonus - my hangovers were minimal to non-existent. I had long ago discovered that several aspirins would help me sleep and prevent hangovers from booze - and I was still taking aspirin - but this was different; it was as if my system was completely burning up the toxin, leaving little behind to cause problems.

Then, I got interested in Peat. I decided to add fruit, and gradually started increasing my sugar intake - a while later put sugar in my coffee for example. I hadn't yet started buying supplements or powders.

About a month into my "Peat" experiment, I had a sudden realization: I hadn't had a drop to drink in two weeks!

I was really floored - not only had I stopped drinking, but it had been so easy and natural I didn't even notice the extreme shift in behavior.

Since that time - and still Peating - I've mostly lost all interest in alcohol. I still like it, and I'll have a glass here and there socially. But it rarely occurs to me to have a drink. If I got out to dinner with friends I might have a glass of something - but usually not, even if the others are drinking. My overall alcohol consumption has dropped dramatically, even compared to normal behavior before that weird "alcoholic" phase.

My theory now is that many addictions, at least chemical ones, are really about sugar. That if there's a problem getting sugar into cells, or if one restricts sugars, the body will find another way to get fuel. In my case, low-carb had "optimized" my fat metabolism, and that modification made alcohol metabolism more efficient - thus the extreme joy and minimal hangover.

Looking back, I think this was true of my cigarette addiction years earlier. I did finally 'decide' to quit - and at the time attributed my HUGE increase in eating bread (I worked a deli with fresh bread deliveries) as a side effect. Now, I suspect that the huge sugar increase was actually what made it possible to quit.

Certainly, someone with a life long alcohol addiction wouldn't have such an easy time as I did - mine was only a couple months tops, and my body hadn't adapted to that new change. But I think consuming a lot of sugar (like a cup, dissolved into liquid, a couple times a day) would make a huge difference.

 

[tara]

I was really floored - not only had I stopped drinking, but it had been so easy and natural I didn't even notice the extreme shift in behavior.

Glad you got out of that habit. :)
Alcohol is carbohydrate, so if you were stricter on restricting all the other carbs, maybe it makes sense that your body decided it had to have some in some form?

 

[Sheila]

Dear ThinkPerceive,

For what it is worth, I concur with the conclusions of your personal experiences. I have seen the same in many patients that I used to work with, that when carbohydrate consumption was improved (in a way that engendered improvement for them, not some generic solution) the need to drink alcohol decreased sharply and quickly. Just getting some patients to have afternoon tea regularly and not fall into adrenalin-from-low-blood-sugar and the system panic that ensues (at a time when the body's own energy cycles are also winding down), obviated the need for alcohol before dinner, "to cope", where one glass would initially lower the stress, until it didn't and they needed, two, three, four and then lived for this 'release'. I found 'thin' women in their 40s particularly susceptible to this behaviour as they restricted their food intake and increased their endurance exercise to stay 'thin' (as their hormones, liver function etc all became more problematic and pushed dysfunction over and above 'just' age-related hormone changes). Since changing eating habits in this realm usually engenders some weight gain, even when some women could see the progress and intellectually the benefits of more food on their mood, manner and relationships, alcohol was their choice because weight gain was a whole new stress. So back to what worked, however destructive longer term.

One day I read that RP said something along the lines that "people do things that make themselves feel better" and in an instant many behaviours became understandable for me, because in that moment, 'that behaviour' however acutely or chronically damaging, makes them feel better, gives them release. Release from what, I don't know, as everyone's stressors are different but on some level it was "making them feel better" until that feeling eclipsed everything else - family, friends, relationships, job, health etc. For you then, sufficient carbs I believe engendered the same, and alcoholic carbs/CNS depression was not the route of choice.

Before this RP revelation, I noticed that the children (who could now be adults) of alcoholic parents seemed to have more blood sugar dysregulation than those whose parents were not habitual drinkers. When it was particularly obvious - to me - and this may actually have been conformational bias, I would ask them gently if there had been alcoholism in the family, and often that would indeed be the case, and they would profess that they however could not cope with alcohol at all, suggesting to me that the effects of sugar dysregulation and alcoholism (which is likely more of a symptom than a cause) engenders multi-generational liver problems. The sins of the Father, or the Mother, are visited on the sons/daughters. Some of course did drink alcohol from what may be described as learned behaviour, but I think the physiological basis still applies. Things are rarely single factorial.

Indeed life-long addiction - to anything - is unlikely to be resolved swiftly, but it is certainly easier to understand if we see it as meeting a physiological need - that also may not be of that person's own making and it is certainly not a lapse of moral fibre or ill-discipline.

Thank you for relating your experience here.
Sincerely
Sheila