No longer get a high from alcohol

[Gardengirl]

Can someone explain this, in physiological terms?

I am no longer quit, and I have not returned to excessive drinking. Mainly, because it is just about the most pointless activity I could possibly engage in...there is no high.

I remember feeling good a beer or two into drinking, but that is gone for me. It isn't psychological, it is truly just an absense of euphoria.

Does that happen to people as they get older and continue to drink? Is it addiction?

Maybe it is because I was quit for awhile, and rebalanced myself so that my drinking state is now unpleasant.

Anyway, for those of you wavering with AV's today, this should be a good post! :D

[Bridgit]

Hi GG,

I don't think I get what you are saying. Are you saying you had a few and did not feel them, or had a lot and did not feel them?

Bridgit

[Jackalope]

Gardengirl, The best explanation I've come across -- for many questions about what happens to us when we drink too much -- is this: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1640436,00.html

(((Gardengirl)))

xoxo
J.

[Gardengirl]

Brigit,

I'm saying I do not feel euphoria from drinking anymore. The feeling of well-being, that all is right with the world, which comes after a couple of drinks.

I get everything else: the fuzzy, numb, tired feeling. Just not the high!

I've stopped after 2-3 drinks each time (not every day) because I realize the high never came. :confused:

Anyway, everyone stay quit!!

[Gardengirl]

Jackalope,
I've read that article. Its a good one. But it doesn't explain why I can't recapture the good feeling alcohol used to give me.

[JT]

for some people if they quit for an extended period of time that there can be a rebalancing of the brain, etc. that will allow a person to drink responsibly again.

I never plan to try it. My fear would be that even if I could moderate initially, I could not do it longterm and eventually I would become the drunk that I was. If others can do it, then I say more power to to 'em.

[Hopey]

Jackalope,
I've read that article. Its a good one. But it doesn't explain why I can't recapture the good feeling alcohol used to give me.

here's my guess - but i'm not authority :


ultimately you know drinking is terrible for you and it's likely your brain is just not processing that 'high' anymore

the brain is a powerful thing.

maybe it's your brain is hanging on to your innate desire to just stop and it's trying to help you get there. i dunno.

each day is a new day and you can choose to not drink.

just for today - don't pick up that first drink.

[Gardengirl]

Hi Hopey. :) I've thought of that. I've also thought, maybe I don't *like* that high anymore, since I've experienced some sober highs.

JT, I really didn't think in terms of attempting to moderate when I went back to it. I didn't think at all. I think I was tired of thinking.

[Gardengirl]

Just so I'm clear, what I'm saying is that even if you did go back to it, and you didn't overdrink; it would be pointless.

My theory is that once you've habitually overindulged, going back to drinking will never, ever give you back what it used to give you...the temporary high is OVER. It can make you smashed, but that's not really what any of us wanted anyway.

I drink, I feel bad, and I have no desire to get smashed, so the drinking episode is over, and all I got was tired, and too many calories.

Boring! :rolleyes:

[Jackalope]

Hi, I know exactly what you mean and read an explanation for the phenomena before, but am not sure where I found that info. What I recall, vaguely, is there is a sort of balance beam for perception of pleasure in the brain and when people drink too much, when we push the balance beyond what is pleasurable repeatedly, things just get irreparably out of whack. I remember seeing a bar graph of this including a normal person's brain and a heavy drinker's brain but, again, I don't remember where this was or more details abouto the process, I'm sorry to say.

A professional addiction counselor might be a great source for answers to questions like this, GG. :)

[manatee hunter]

Ah, a kindred spirit! The same thing happened to me sometime last December. It just quit being "fun" and became a tedious boring process. The thought of getting drunk or even drinking again just has no appeal. I have no clue what brought it about, but I'll take it.

I posted about it in my journal, not really an expansive piece, but I believe that we share the same experience.

[Charlie]

Hmmm. This used to happen to me when I'd drink 2 to 3 drinks I'd get tired, numb, sometimes my ears would hurt so I'd have to drink more...way more. The first drinks made me feel like crap so I'd have to drink enough so I didn't. My best guess is that like a lot of alcoholics, I'm actually allergic to the stuff. Alcohol is a poison regardless of the quantity so your body's probably treating it as such. Everytime you drink, you progress further into alcoholism. It doesn't matter how much or how often, or how many weeks, months or years are between the drinks.

[stevens]

Clearly, the ability to consume several (three, four, five) drinks and not be incapacitated is related to two processes, building up a physiological tolerance and behavioral habituation.

What the latter phrase means is that we begin to spend SO much time drunk, that we adapt to it. The room doesn't spin anymore, we can walk a straight line, we feel the effect but most of the functions still work, whereas they didn't work after that many drinks before.

I remember being completely unbalanced after only three beers, way back when. At the end, I could drink seven and still function. Eventually it required nine or ten to produce the incapacitation that three did at the beginning.

None of this can be a good sign in any drinker. It's usually a message that it's time to quit. Otherwise, we'd be "functioning" after fifteen drinks eventually. The body can only take so much abuse before serious damage occurs.

[lincoln]

I know exactly what you are talking about, i'm experiencing the same thing. I'm drinking 1/2 a bottle of wine a night and getting absolutely nothing out of it. Despite that, I still feel the desire to do it. No, I'm driven to do it. What's the point? It's addiction, makes no sense, it's like you blindly do something that you know isn't adding anything to your life, and is in fact making things more difficult, and you just keep doing it anyway.

I can't seem to recapture the "fun" part of drinking again either. But how do people deal with life day after day, month after month, year after year, totally sober? I know that's the way to go, but I still want to zone out and escape.

[manatee hunter]

Ooops, maybe I didn't understand Gardengirl's post. I no longer feel compelled to drink and don't, because there is no point to it, it just does not feel good.

[HollyJM]

I'm saying I do not feel euphoria from drinking anymore. The feeling of well-being, that all is right with the world, which comes after a couple of drinks.I get everything else: the fuzzy, numb, tired feeling. Just not the high!

Yep, that happened to me too, last year when I was trying to stay quit and slipping every so often. Two drinks and I'd be all fuzzy, but no warm glow at all. Skipped the warm glow and straight to feeling all "wrong". I kept drinking anyway, once I'd started, most times.

I'm satisfied not drinking is the better option. :)

[Luke]

I can't seem to recapture the "fun" part of drinking again either. But how do people deal with life day after day, month after month, year after year, totally sober? I know that's the way to go, but I still want to zone out and escape.

I'm no expert, not a year sober, but what amazes me is how I "dealt" with life when I was drunk so often.
I just don't know how I did it.
I think I was on some sort of autopilot.
I certainly wasn't alive to what was happening to my life, or to other people's lives.

[cleverneutron]

If I may said it was caused by the alcohol toxic that can make you feel how the taste of beer or other kinds of alcohol. So you are include in alcohol addict. I think you need an alcohol detox (http://www.alcoholtreatment.cc/drug-detox.htm) or drug detox (http://www.alcoholtreatment.cc/drug-detox.htm). Your addiction is taking over your life, perhaps hurting the people closest to you as well as yourself. You can feel its power over you, and you know it’s time to break this bond, but you don’t know how.

Alcohol detox and drug detox can be defined as a period of medical treatment, usually including counseling, during which you are helped to overcome the physical and psychological dependence on alcohol. Both of them can help prepare you for your next level of treatment which may include: a residential alcohol rehab program to loose what you feel.

[functional drunk]

Yeh I noticed that over the last 6 months or so. I'd look at the empty bottle and could hardly remember what any of it had tasted like. It came to a head on a recent trip to France (when I was still drinking), my wife got all excited and was encouraging me to spend serious money on wine, to get 'some really good stuff that you'll enjoy' which once upon a time I would have. I was thinking oh I cannot be bothered the stuff in the supermarket back home is good enough. I bought some very good wine in so as not to spoil things. Drank a case of the cheaper stuff (still expensive) the first week back and the last bottle I had was a very good Pomerol. Very good, he says, I didn't even taste it. Just went straight down. Talk about bad timing I quit with a cupboard full of expensive French wine!

[Rich]

I just notice it took more and more for me to get the feeling I wanted and then it did not last long