The effects of alcohol – listen to my thoughts or to my body?
PRINT PAGE
The effects of alcohol – listen to my thoughts or to my body?
The first time I can remember trying alcohol was when I was in my early teens at an engagement party. I felt like a grown-up because I thought drinking was a grown-up thing to do.
The first taste was sweetness, then followed by a bitterness which left an awful taste in my mouth that was very unpleasant. I convinced myself to like it because I wanted to be like the adults. The effects of alcohol made me very sick that night and I remember telling myself to not try it again after that first experience.
Every time I was around alcohol I had thoughts that convinced me to have another try because I wanted to be like everyone else. When I look back I realise my body was telling me to not take one more sip into my mouth because of the harmful effects that it was having on my body, but my thoughts were trying to convince me to try it again and again.
Every time I was offered a drink I would try it with caution.
Each time I had the smallest amount, the effect of the alcohol was clear and my body responded with my heart pounding hard and fast, my fingertips and ears could feel every pulse and my face would turn bright red and hot like I had a fever. I generally felt very unwell.
My heartbeat was so loud I found it difficult to concentrate or have a conversation with anyone. I would have to go home and go to bed to sleep off the poison that my body was working extremely hard to eradicate.
When I was a student at university the main social event was going out drinking with friends. I knew how my body would react but I still said yes to alcohol, hoping that my body might respond differently or that if I tried different types I may be able to tolerate it better.
But the key reason I wanted to drink alcohol was to fit in with my friends and because I felt pressured to drink.
I thought that getting drunk was part of having fun and if I didn’t join in I would feel left out.
Also, because I have never been drunk, I often felt at the beginning of the night I was part of my group of friends, but by the end of the night I felt like I was a stranger as I no longer recognised them. They acted differently, our conversations became shallow, repetitive and weird. I often didn’t like this feeling but pretended I was having fun with them even though something didn’t feel right. I knew it was because of the effects of alcohol but I didn’t fully understand what was taking place when people drank.
The pressure to drink was intense; the people I met persistently tried to convince me to drink and to get me drunk. I was often offered drinks, and when I would ask for water or a soft drink people used to say to me: “No, you’ve got to have something better than that – come on, have a real drink.”
After trying a handful of times, my body gave me a louder message. I started to have itchy palms which later turned to blisters and I realised it might be related to the alcohol. I tried it again one more time after this to make sure it was, because in the back of my mind I was hoping it wasn’t.
When the rash and blisters appeared the second time, I knew my body was not able to cope with the toxins in the alcohol. I felt my heart was not going to handle the poison and my body was not tolerating any of it, but still I felt the pressure from friends to drink and to be like them. My body was very loud and clear but thoughts came rushing in to convince me to try again – to maybe drink a small quantity every night before bed so I could build up a tolerance to the effects.
All these thoughts came in to encourage me to drink, to ignore my body’s messages and to try every way possible to fit in. Do I listen to my body or do I drink alcohol, which is poisonous to my body? It was like I had an internal battle going on; to drink to fit in, or to listen to my precious body.
When I realised that I was allergic to alcohol I felt a sigh of relief on one hand and dread on the other, because of the persistent pressure to get drunk from the people I met. When I told people I was allergic they acted shocked and uncomfortable, which was then followed by sympathy that I was doomed to not have a good night out. It felt like it was unacceptable if I was sober the entire night. Every time I met someone new I went through the same conversation and felt the same drive from them to get me drunk – I felt being sober made a lot of people very uncomfortable. I too felt very uncomfortable around people as I saw them slowly change throughout the night due to the effects of alcohol.
I decided to listen to my body because I realised my body’s reaction was a sign it was not coping with the effects of alcohol. I had already previously felt my body was very delicate and precious but I didn’t really want to acknowledge this until then.
I also realised that no amount of trying to fit in is more important than looking after me. The pressure to drink alcohol had a huge influence on my choices. Once I honoured what my body was telling me, my decision was clear.
Once I realised that my friends will accept me for who I am regardless of whether I drink or not, I let go of trying to fit in and I felt to just be myself . . . and then the thoughts to drink alcohol again dissipated.
I had already given up alcohol many years before I was introduced to Universal Medicine and what I learnt from Universal Medicine confirmed what I felt about listening to my body and my choice to be alcohol free. Universal Medicine supported me to understand energetically what happens to us when we drink and to understand why we have such huge pressures from society to drink as a way to have ‘fun’, to relax and be with each other. It is now clear to me why many people felt challenged by my choice to be alcohol free, because I was making a loving and responsible choice whenever I said no, therefore I was also offering people the reflection that they too can make the same choice and an opportunity to see that it is possible to have fun without drinking alcohol.
Also, Universal Medicine supported me to understand why I had those awful eerie feelings around people who drank.
I will give you an example: when I was out with my friends who got very drunk; at the beginning of the night I knew who they were, but by the end of the night I didn’t recognise them anymore. Their eyes looked empty, their faces changed and their movements were jerky and weird. I felt like I was standing alone in a room full of strangers and I remember I often asked myself: “Why I am here?” I didn’t feel it was fun, I felt an emptiness from our lack of connection and I felt like I was talking to people who were not present – they weren’t really listening or able to connect to me.
As I now understand it, alcohol not only affects our physical body but it energetically drains us and opens up our bodies to allow energies which are not us to enter and run us. This makes total sense to me and the understanding confirms what I have always felt.
Through Universal Medicine I have come to understand the intelligence of our body, and to understand how precious, powerful and delicate our bodies are. Reflecting back, I appreciate how many loving messages I was receiving from my body and how empowering it was when I listened to them.
Once I accepted myself for who I am and I dropped the need to seek recognition and to fit in, my thoughts started to align to my body and I noticed the unloving thoughts had no room to creep in around the subject of alcohol.
The messages were very clear once I chose to listen to my body; my thoughts had nowhere to go but to align to the love that my body is and always was communicating.
Filed under
Addiction, Alcohol, Energy, Human body, Self-empowerment
