Kick the Drink Easily! Read online

  The heroin addict may think they are getting high but any outsider can see clearly that they are simply trying to end the lows caused by the drug. All the over-sixteens who drink alcohol in the UK will also come up with rational reasons as to why they drink. If, collectively, they use the same reasons to justify their drinking, then we are bound to end up believing them, even if they make no rational sense whatsoever. Everything that I believed alcohol did for me was an illusion. The illusions simply confirm what we have heard for years, so we end up believing that alcohol provides a host of genuine benefits. But does it? One of the biggest delusions is that alcohol provides the drinker with a genuine pleasure. Exactly what pleasure is there in drinking alcohol? If it’s a genuine pleasure then it can only come either from the taste, the thirst-quenching or the marvellous effect.

  So let’s remove the brainwashing a bit at a time. First of all let’s get it clear that …

  Taste Has Nothing to Do With It!

  Taste really has nothing to do with why people drink alcohol. I understand that many people believe they love the taste of their favourite tipple but this is not why people drink. I used to believe that I loved the taste of a dry white wine, a pint of beer or a Southern Comfort but I now realise I never did. In order to remove this part of the brainwashing, let me ask you a question. How did your first alcoholic drink taste? Be honest. There isn’t a single person in the world who, when they were having their first alcoholic drink, wasn’t secretly thinking, ‘What is this rubbish? I’d sooner have a fruit juice!’ There isn’t a person alive who, when they had their first drink, didn’t feel physically and mentally sick. The reason is because alcohol is a poison.

  The irony is that the awful taste is part of what springs the alcohol trap. Our fears of getting hooked are immediately removed because we are convinced that adults drink this muck because they actually enjoy the taste. Now, before you think I’ve lost the plot and there’s nothing nicer on the taste front than a cool glass of white wine or an ice cold beer, hear me out. Have you ever drunk an alcoholic drink that you didn’t like the taste of? No? Think about it. Of course you have. Everyone who drinks alcohol has on more than one occasion. When the pubs have closed and you go back to somebody’s house for a nightcap and they only have a drink that you normally don’t like, do you have a coffee? I have left my house at three in the morning looking for an all-night kebab house and paid £15 for a bottle of wine which tasted like sewer water. I have drunk spirits that, if you put a match to them, would light up an area the size of London and I didn’t like the taste. When you are on holiday and can’t get hold of your usual tipple, do you stop drinking? I have seen people having wine with dinner saying that the taste was too sharp or too bland. So why drink it?

  People delude themselves into thinking that they drink alcohol just for the taste but do they? I love bananas but if there are no bananas at a social gathering I don’t feel deprived or get upset. If, after eating bananas, I woke up the next day and I felt as though I had just been run over by a truck, I wouldn’t carry on eating them just for the taste. If somebody offered me a banana which tasted unpleasant, I wouldn’t carry on eating it just because it’s a banana. People say that certain drinks have an ‘acquired taste’ but what does an acquired taste really mean? It means that you didn’t like it in the first place. If you liked it you wouldn’t have to acquire a taste for it. The reality is that you don’t even acquire a taste for alcohol; you simply build up a tolerance to the drug and get over the foul taste in order to get the alcohol into your body with the least possible aggravation.

  Smokers believe that they enjoy the taste of cigarettes yet they never eat them. This just proves that if you tell yourself something for long enough you will end up believing it. What is alcohol anyway? If we get down to reality, it’s simply fruit or vegetables that have gone off. They have fermented, which means it’s off. It is in the process of decay; it is rotten. That is why it tastes awful. Pure alcohol (or ethanol) is a colourless liquid and powerful poison. All poisons taste awful; they are meant to so we don’t harm ourselves. ‘Yes, but surely when mixed with other liquids, alcohol tastes good?’ No, alcohol never tastes good. The whole object of the mixers is to try to cover up the foul taste. The first drinks that we tend to have are those that have been flavoured with fruit that hasn’t gone off: Martini and lemonade, Pernod and blackcurrant, vodka and tomato juice and so many other cocktails. Then in 1995 there was the launch of the so-called ‘alcopops’ with drinks like Vodka Reef and Bacardi Breezer.

  Alcopops have a higher alcohol content than normal strength beers and are one of the fastest growing alcoholic drinks sectors of all time: sales tripled during the first year. Is this really a surprise? Of course not. It’s bound to be successful, as they don’t taste like alcohol; they taste like orange, lemonade, blackcurrant or apple. All children love fruit and hate alcohol. So the alcohol industry dreamed up this plan to get even more people hooked on the stuff. ‘The earlier we get them, the quicker we get them hooked and the more profit we make. Hooray!’ I know, let’s cover up the foul taste of the poison alcohol with fruit flavours that the young naturally like and give the drinks names that are cool like Two Dogs (whose slogan ‘It’s the dog’s …’ of course means ‘it’s the dog’s bollocks,’ urban slang for ‘the best’). What rebel teenager could refuse?

  A report from Alcohol Concern states: ‘An established control on young people’s drinking has shown that youngsters find traditional alcoholic drinks unpalatable. With alcoholic lemonade, cola, flavoured milk, etc., this control has been removed.’

  I remember sitting down to Sunday dinner when I was eleven and being allowed to have a small glass of wine with the meal. How grown up I felt; what a psychological boost for a young man. I would sip it very slowly and literally shudder after every mouthful. I hated the taste of it yet, later on in life, I could at times get through three bottles in a night. What had changed? Had the taste changed? No, the difference was that I was addicted and couldn’t enjoy myself without it. I was justifying my intake by saying that I enjoyed the taste. I had said it for so long that I really believed it.

  There is so much brainwashing involved even with the taste of alcohol. On the one hand you have your rational brain that knows your first alcoholic drink tasted revolting and on the other, wine connoisseurs telling us that the taste of certain wines are worth hundreds, sometimes thousands, of pounds. Do you honestly believe that any bottle of wine is worth thousands of pounds? You may well think at this stage that I’m just an uncultured git, unable to tell the difference between fine wine and sewer water. But in my mind there is no such thing as a ‘fine wine’ any more than there is ‘fine heroin.’ It is just the way it is advertised. Why is the person who drinks beer perceived differently to the person who spends thousands of pounds on a ‘superior’ wine? It’s for one reason and one reason alone: the brainwashing and conditioning. The person on a park bench drinking their alcohol from a can and getting their nicotine from a roll-up is seen very differently to the person smoking a hundred pound cigar and drinking the ‘finest’ champagne. But why is that? They are both taking the same drugs aren’t they? What is the difference between caviar and taramasalata? They are both fish eggs. It is the conditioning that creates the belief, that’s all. This is an area I don’t fully expect you to agree with me on and I am more than aware that some readers may wish to close the book at this stage. You may think I am saying there is no difference between Blue Nun wine and Cristal Champagne, when of course there is. However, please keep an open mind to the fact that conditioning has played a part at least in how you perceive the taste of your favorite tipple and that there is an enormous amount of brainwashing and snobbery when it comes to alcohol.

  No more so I guess than the nonsense that comes out of the mouths of some ‘wine experts’ when describing it. Wines are described as flippant, cheeky, having a ‘good nose,’ precocious, sombre and even mysterious. The only mystery is why we fall for the hype in the first pla
ce. Next time you see one of these ‘experts’ with their nose deep in a large glass, just ask yourself if you feel they should have the vote. Especially when you see them spitting it into a bucket after they have tried it! We don’t question what we have seen for years, but seriously it’s crackers.

  Have you ever sent back a bottle of wine at dinner? Very few people have, even if they are unsure as to the taste of that wine and think it a bit sharp or even that it might be a little ‘corked’; they still nod and say yes. I know I have, many times. After all, we don’t want to look uncultured or lacking in sophistication. What is all this nonsense anyway? It’s because it is part of the pretentious rubbish that keeps people hooked. As I’ve mentioned before, if you say something for long enough you can end up believing it. It all tastes like rubbish, because it is rubbish, literally.

  If you persevere with any drink that contains alcohol, you will eventually get used to the foul taste and you will end up liking it. This creates the illusion that you actually enjoy it. The taste doesn’t change just because you persist with it but remains identical to the very first fix you had. Your brain and body have simply built up an immunity and tolerance. If you still think that taste has got something to do with why you drink alcohol, why not drink non-alcoholic drinks? There are some on the market that taste exactly the same as ‘normal’ alcoholic drinks but that just wouldn’t be the same would it? I tried drinking non-alcoholic beers and wines on many occasions but just couldn’t get used to them, let alone want them. The reason for this was that there was no alcohol in them. Heroin addicts could inject themselves with a saline solution but that wouldn’t be the same either. Reason? No heroin.

  If you persevere with any drink that contains alcohol, you will eventually get used to the foul taste and you will end up liking it.

  If taste had anything to do with it, nobody would ever take their second alcoholic drink. Whether they admit it or not, most drinkers instinctively feel stupid drinking – after all, when you think about it, it is a bit odd standing around with a drink that makes you steadily less in control of your faculties. However, they can block this from their minds most of the time as the majority of people are doing the same thing. If you are doing something collectively, which goes against rational judgement, you do not have to come up with any reasons to justify your actions. It is only when you are alone that you really start questioning it. Nobody likes to take any drug alone. I do not mean with nobody else around; I mean as a lone drinker in the company of people who are not drinking. This is one of the only times when people really question their drinking. This is when we instinctively start to know that what we are doing is stupid.

  For years smoking was also viewed in the same way. At one time it was even unusual not to smoke. Smoking was never seen as drug addiction and many people had no idea they were hooked; that is until now. They only realised they were hooked when they had to stand outside buildings in the freezing cold to get their fix. Smokers also say they like the taste of certain brands of cigarettes but if they cannot get hold of their usual choice, they will smoke any make simply to get the nicotine into their system. I deluded myself for years that I loved the taste of alcohol. Yet if my usual tipple wasn’t available, I would drink anything that contained alcohol, even if it tasted disgusting.

  Poisons in themselves can never taste good, they were never meant to. Alcohol however is a liquid and should, in theory, quench your thirst. Quenching your thirst is a genuine pleasure as I’m sure you’ll agree but, again, this is one of the many misconceptions surrounding alcohol. Let me prove to you why alcohol is incapable of …

  Quenching Your Thirst

  Here is one of the cleverest parts of this whole confidence trick. Alcohol is a diuretic, which means that it makes you pee. Have you ever noticed how you drink one beer but pee out three? This process dehydrates the body. You may know this already as you have probably experienced the ‘Sahara Desert’ syndrome when you wake up during the night and find yourself trying to pour fifty gallons of water down your throat in a minute flat. You also notice that a man has moved into your head and is mercilessly pounding the inside of your skull. This is because your brain has shrunk. Yes, you read correctly, your brain is now smaller than it was the day before because the brain is mainly made up of water as, indeed, is the rest of the body. The more alcohol you take in, the more water you lose. It’s a simple mathematical equation. What you are feeling is the pounding effect of blood trying to pump through your dehydrated brain.

  With water you only need one or two glasses to quench your thirst but because alcohol causes dehydration I managed to get through as many as sixteen pints of lager at one sitting. The more I drank, the more dehydrated I became. The more dehydrated, the thirstier I was. The thirstier I was, the more beer I would drink. It was a vicious circle. Even bearing in mind that the alcohol content of the whole drink is usually very low and the rest of the drink is made up mainly of water, this additional water is still insufficient to mitigate the diuretic quality of alcohol. Alcohol dehydrates so much that even with as little as 3 per cent alcohol and 97 per cent water, the 3 per cent will not only use up the 97 per cent but also rob the body of its own stores.

  I’m not saying for a second that a pint of beer after a game of football or rugby, or a glass of wine at lunchtime on a hot sunny day doesn’t quench your thirst at all, but the alcohol in the beer or wine certainly didn’t do it. You wouldn’t drink neat alcohol to quench your thirst would you? Alcohol itself is incapable of quenching thirst; it actually makes you thirsty. What a product! The people who make and sell alcohol are on to a real winner. They are selling a liquid which makes you thirsty, so you buy more to try to quench the thirst which it created in the first place. Very clever!

  This is a subtle part of the pleasure trap and I will soon explain how alcohol is incapable of providing genuine pleasure. However, when you have an aggravation, like thirst or a headache for example, then ending that aggravation is pleasurable. But would you deliberately cause yourself the aggravation to make it pleasurable when it is relieved? Again, the drug is creating a low but deceives its victims that the ending of that low is a genuine pleasure. I could not drink sixteen pints of water in one evening. That is because water is genuinely capable of quenching thirst but alcohol does the complete opposite. So part of the illusion of enjoyment is momentarily ending the thirst aggravation created by that previous drink. In the end, you would eventually need some water hence the ‘Sahara Desert’ syndrome which is the body’s cry for help.

  So if it’s not for the taste, and it’s not to quench your thirst, then it must be for the …

  Marvellous and Pleasurable Effect

  Ah yes, the marvellous and pleasurable effects of alcohol; that rather strange feeling in the brain caused by alcohol. But what is that strange feeling? Is it a genuine pleasure and does it really make us feel truly happy? Can we ever really explain or describe ‘that’ feeling anyway?

  When you are doing something you instinctively know to be stupid, you come up with any reason to justify what you are doing, not only to other people but also to yourself. If you say it for long enough, you end up believing it and will not question whether or not what you are saying makes any rational sense.

  Heroin addicts believe they enjoy injecting themselves with a powerful poison which will zombify and stupefy them. They believe that the destruction of their lives is the price they have to pay in order to get ‘that’ marvellous pleasure. Alcohol addicts also believe they enjoy drinking a poison that will zombify and stupefy them. They just don’t get that the destruction of their lives is the price they have to pay in order to get ‘that’ marvellous pleasure. But, when it comes to alcohol, the biggest illusion is that it can genuinely make us feel happier.

  I have said that I loved drinking. I honestly thought I did at the time but now I see clearly that I had simply fallen for a very clever trick. Alcohol fools you into thinking that you are getting true pleasure when you are not. Heroin addicts think
they get genuine pleasure when they stick that needle into their arm and fill their vein with heroin but all they are actually enjoying is the relief from the awful lows that the drug itself has created. The poor heroin addict is in a constant fight to stay out of that depression and desperate to get back to the state they were in before they started taking the drug. In fact the only reason they continue to take heroin is to try to feel like a person who doesn’t need to take heroin.

  The only problem is that they are trying to gain control over something that is in fact controlling them. The more they try, the more they lose it and the more they lose it, the harder they try to regain it. The body will always build up an immunity and tolerance to any drug; it’s the survival mechanism. So the more of the drug they take, the less relief it provides and the less it relieves them, the more they need.

  Many heroin addicts will often go back to the drug even after they have gone through withdrawal. Some stop for years but are still taking one day at a time. They say they are never really free as they could go back at any time but, for today, they are resisting it. The sad truth is that they are pining for a pleasure that does not exist. They continue to feel mentally deprived because they believe they ‘gave up’ a pleasure.

  Alcohol works in exactly the same way. This is why there are many people in the world who have stopped drinking but still feel there is a void. They take one day at a time trying to resist the marvellous pleasures of alcohol according to the AA philosophy. Unfortunately these people are also pining for something that does not exist. They are going through mental deprivation for nothing. While they still believe they have made a sacrifice, they will always feel the void to some degree, confirming their belief that alcohol fills that emptiness. But it is how they think that actually created the void and the feeling of inadequacy in the first place.