Articles By Category
The Shorter, Sweeter Life.
It’s often the simple questions from children that really stump us. For example, the other day my eleven-year-old son asked me ‘If smoking is bad for you why don’t people just stop?’ It’s those kinds of questions that can leave you utterly at a loss. My stock answer...
Cuppa
I was speaking to someone the other day who was struggling with their drinking and was trying to quit. Not an unusual sequence of events you’d think, but in fact, it was unusual because they didn’t know me through Alcohol Explained, they are a parent of a child who is...
The Longterm Effects of Drinking
I thought it would be useful to set out a timeline of the physiological changes that take place when you consume alcohol regularly. 1. Experimental When you first consume alcohol, your brain has never encountered it before and it is ill-prepared to deal with it....
The Magic Pebble
Someone messaged me recently to ask the following question: If it takes 20 minutes for alcohol to get into our system why do I get a buzz straight after the first sip? I thought it was worth delving into a bit further in the form of a blog post because this feeds into...
The Benefits of Sobriety
This topic could almost be a rewriting of the whole of Alcohol Explained, things like reduced heart rate which leads to higher energy levels, greater mental resilience, far better sleep (and the whole world of increased quality of life that flows from that), weight...
Why Life Isn’t Boring Without Alcohol
This particular topic opens up a whole realm of interesting sub topics, not least of which is where we draw the line between the so called ‘normal drinker’ and the ‘problem drinker’. If you are drinking all day every day without being able to stop, then you clearly...
Falling Off The Wagon
There is a common dynamic when we fall off the wagon after a period of sobriety that is worth bearing in mind. With regular drinkers, because alcohol is a sedative, and because your brain reacts to it by becoming hypersensitive so that it can work under the sedating...
Online Course Free Taster
I'm very pleased to say that the first 7 modules of the online course are now available to try for free. You can find this on the 'Online Course' page of the website, link below: https://www.alcoholexplained.com/course/ Please do let me have any feedback, good...
Alcohol Explained Online Course
I’m very pleased to say that the Alcohol Explained online course is now up and running. You can find it on this site under the main menu. The idea was to get everything in Alcohol Explained and Alcohol Explained 2 (and even one or two things that aren’t in either...
Trauma and Alcohol Dependency
There is a big drive these days to say that trauma is at the root of all addiction. I seem to be the only person out there saying this: but it isn’t. Let me explain. What proponents of the trauma / addiction model are saying is not that you cannot get addicted to a...
Is Alcohol a Stimulant?
Alcohol is a sedative. It is a chemical depressant. By that I mean it decreases or inhibits nerve activity. Some people struggle with this concept because their personal experience of drinking is that a drink energises them (over here in the UK one of the many terms...
The End of Lockdown – Socialising
In my last post I looked at why lockdown has caused many people to drink more. But drinking more isn’t everyone’s story. A lot of people used lockdown as a springboard for stopping and have been very successful. But for these people the ending of lockdown will bring...
Why Lockdown Led to an Increase in Drinking
The lockdown has had quite a profound effect on many people’s drinking. Some people have found that their drinking has increased (often dramatically) and others have found that the lockdown was their key to stopping. People in this second group may have stopped for...
Genetics and Addiction
I’ve read a lot recently about the link between genetics and addiction. I thought it was worth doing a post clarifying the position. The starting point, I think, it that genetics cannot dictate behaviour. Behaviour is learnt, not inherited. There is no gene that can...
At The Root of All Addiction is Pain – or is it?
This topic has come up a few times recently and I thought it was worth doing a post just to clarify the situation. As a starting point, using absolutes in terms of addiction is always fraught with difficulties. Addiction is a complicated mix of physiological, chemical...
Cravings
I deal with different aspects of cravings in both AE1 and AE2 and I thought it would be useful to put it all together in one place. A craving is a hugely misunderstood concept, people think of it as an outside occurrence, something that happens to them over which they...
Can Alcohol Cause Sleeping Problems?
I deal with alcohol and how it affects sleep in Alcohol Explained, but I think it is worth going in to a bit more detail on exactly how drinking alcohol impacts our sleep. To appreciate the effect fully we need to understand three things; how our brain works, how...
Is Red Wine Good For You?
This is an old topic that keeps coming up, and it is something that a lot of people struggle to get away from; the idea that drinking moderately is healthy, and in particular that red wine has certain health benefits. I thought it would be useful to do a post just...
Alcohol Free and Low Alcohol Beers and Wines
This is an interesting topic, and one that I think would benefit from further discussion. Some people consider that alcohol free wines and beers helped them immensely to quit drinking, others avoid them as completely as they do the full alcohol versions. There are a...
Is Red Wine Good for You?
This is an old topic that keeps coming up, and it is something that a lot of people struggle to get away from; the idea that drinking moderately is healthy, and in particular that red wine has certain health benefits. I thought it would be useful to do a post just...
Choice
Someone posted in the Facebook group recently saying she was frustrated and angry from looking at her friends on social media posting pictures of the meals and drinks they were having. She saw the falseness of it all but she wanted to be able to buy into that again....
Why it’s not so effective the second time round.
It's not just Alcohol Explained, in fact it's not just alcohol. Whether you are trying to quit drinking, or smoking, or anything else, often a method that worked very well the first time just doesn't seem so effective the second time around. Why is this? Actually...
Covid 19, Anxiety and Relapse
There are a lot of people relapsing at the moment. Anxiety levels are high and our usual routines are out the window (along with the usual rules on drinking). Many so called moderate drinkers are now drinking every day when they didn't before, they are drinking...
How do you get through this without drinking?
This is something I posted to the Alcohol Explained Facebook Group. I thought I may as well share it on my blog. Hi everyone, sorry I’ve not been very visible recently. I’m currently working from home (which has its own challenges) but also trying to look after and...
Zoom Chat
I'm taking part in a Zoom chat later today (5pm UK time) run by Sober Experiment. If anyone is interested in joining here is the link: https://zoom.us/j/585744492 Look forward to virtually seeing you all!
Homeworking
I, like many people, are now working from home. It's not something I've done for a few years. The place I used too work at did it on an ad hoc basis, but since being at my new place (which I've been at nearly three years now) I've not done it at all. Last week was my...
The Coronavirus and Alcohol
I find myself working from home at the moment, which is a challenge, albeit mainly because I am getting used to a slightly different way of working. Years ago this would have been an excuse to drink even more and a lot of people seem to be using the Coronavirus as an...
6 Years
Apologies for the lack of recent blog posts. For those of you who are familiar with my posts you'll know that, for me, they are predominantly a way to explore new ideas and theories. The reason for there not being any posts for so long is that, having written Alcohol...
Alcohol Explained 2
I'm pleased to say that Alcohol Explained 2 is now available on Amazon. It is currently free on Kindle until Thursday 12th December. Links below. For regular readers of my blog post you may recognise much of what is in there from my blog posts, but I have developed...
Thanksgiving, Christmas and Holidays. Alcohol Explained 2 – Definitive Drinking Occasions
Firstly apologies for being so quiet recently, I have been working on Alcohol Explained 2 which is now substantially complete. The current intention is that when it is released it will be free on Kindle for 5 days so watch out for updates in respect of this. Just to...
Dopamine, Serotonin and Endorphins
Dopamine, Serotonin and Endorphins are all chemicals that occur naturally in the human brain. They are all linked to addiction and I thought it was worth clarifying exactly the role that these chemicals play because, as is usual with alcohol and addiction, there is a...
Recovery and Religion
There was a post recently in the Alcohol Explained Facebook Group with some fairly pronounced religious overtones. The recovery community is an amazing thing in many ways. It’s hard to imagine where else you could find such a large group of people whose main interest...
The Tipping Point
A lot of people struggle with endless day ones, or find the thought of attending certain specific occasions (such as socialising, birthdays, etc) without drinking extremely hard and intimidating. For those not familiar with the phrase 'the tipping point' it means the...
Alcohol and Parenting
This article isn’t going to introduce any new concepts or insights, it is just the application of principles already covered in Alcohol Explained to a specific set of individual circumstances, specifically that of parenthood. I have mentioned before how my drinking...
The Key to Quitting
The key to quitting any drug, including alcohol, is to materially change how we perceive that drug. Addiction, any addiction, comes about because a part of the addict believes that they need the drug to fully enjoy, or cope with, life. The drug may be dragging them...
Vicky’s Story
This post is something a little different. When a few people had contacted me to say thank you for writing Alcohol Explained I added the 'Personal Stories' page to the website sand started asking people who emailed me if I could add their stories there. Vicky is...
You Made me Drink
Most problem drinkers have a reason they drink, or several reasons. Their partner, their job, their kids, their life. It’s not their fault. These things have happened to them and they drive them to drink. In fact these are really just excuses. It helps to dissect this...
Getting Out of The Rut of Endless Day Ones
I posted this to the Alcohol Explained Facebook group in response to posts from people struggling with endless days ones. I thought it was worth sharing further. Sometimes when you hit an obstacle, you need to back track a little way to give yourself a run up. For...
Drinking Alcohol is Just Borrowing Happiness From Tomorrow
One of the central frustrations of the drinker is the fact that we get alcohol into our bloodstream through our stomach (we imbibe it my drinking it, it goes into our mouths and from there into our stomach where it works its way into our digestive system before...
Moderation
Moderation seems to be an issue that is constantly coming up, and I get asked regularly what I think about it. I was also asked recently to do a post on why some people end up with drinking problems, where others don't. In fact the topics are interrelated because a...
Nicotine Explained
I'm very pleased to say that Nicotine Explained is now available for purchase (the paperback version is available now, the kindle version is available for pr-order for release this Tuesday 14th May). It provides a similar analysis of nicotine as Alcohol Explained does...
Envy
This weekend is a Bank Holiday weekend here in the UK. This means that most Monday to Friday workers get this Monday off. It’s essentially a slightly elongated weekend. For obvious reasons Bank Holiday Weekends tend to be times when people drink more, and I’m not just...
Polish Language Version of Alcohol Explained
I'm pleased to say that the Polish Language version of Alcohol Explained is now available for sale. As Amazon Kindle doesn't support Polish Language books it is available on Kobo (link below). It is currently available for the special introductory price of £1.99 (or...
Podcast and Event
I was very kindly invited by Janey Lee Grace to do a podcast with her. You can listen to it on this link to itunes (or your usual platform for listening to podcasts):...
Falling off the Wagon
One of the reasons we tend to drink far too much when we fall off the wagon is because alcohol isn’t all it’s cracked up to be; we exaggerate the effects in our mind and build it up to be the elixir of life when all it really is, is a drug in a drink form. It’s the...
Recording Alcohol Withdrawal
Something that some people struggle with is the concept that every drinker, no matter how occasional or light, suffers alcohol withdrawal. They understand the concept that the brain has its own naturally occurring drugs, hormones and chemicals, they understand that...
Addressing the Underlying Problems That Cause us to Drink
I have read a few articles recently saying that there is no point trying to give up an addiction until you address the underlying problems that caused that addiction to take hold in the first place; the loss of a loved one, unemployment, low self-esteem, depression...
Stopping Drinking and Weightloss
Today is my 5 year soberversary. I was going to do a post about all the benefits I've seen over the last 5 years, but as I was planning it in my mind one benefit in particular seemed to warrant an entire post in itself; the often controversial topic of quitting...
Repeating Day One
There are a few people that keep repeating those early days of sobriety over and over again, they get the first day or two (or even three) under their belt, and then slip up again. It highlights a conflict I have over what advice to give people when they slip up. On...
Some Tips on Sleep
One of the worst things about drinking is its impact on sleep (for more information on this click here) and one of the greatest gains in stopping is to get back to sleeping well and getting the good quality sleep you need so you wake up feeling refreshed, positive,...
Alcohol Explained – French Version
I'm pleased to say that the French translation of Alcohol Explained is now complete. As with the English version the first 5 Chapters are available on the website, the link to this is below:...
How Long Does it Take to Start Feeling Better After You Stop Drinking?
I thought it would be useful to set out a timeline so you know what you can expect when you stop drinking, and most importantly when you start feeling human again. There are four main physiological processes you need to go through before you wake up with that feeling...
Ambition Re-Examined
I've touched before on how ambition is a natural driving force in living things. When I speak of ambition I am not restricting it to wanting to progress a career, I am talking about the desire of all living things to improve their lot in life. I think it is worth...
The Definition of Insanity
There is a saying that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. It’s often used in relation to addiction. This is nonsense. The addict is not insane. The reason they do the same thing over and over again...
Christmas (Not) Drinking
A little tip for getting through the myriad of Christmas functions that most people attend is to run through not drinking in your mind before you get to the event. When I was in the military we did drill. Most people, when you mention drill, think about square bashing...
Alcohol and Anxiety
The problems with drugs is that the brain seeks to compensate for whatever effect the drug is having, so when the drug eventually leaves our system the brain is then out of kilter. Imagine your brain as one of those memory foam mattresses. Flat is ok, a lump on it...
We Admitted We Were Powerless Over Alcohol
Step 1 of the 12 steps of AA is admitting you are powerless over alcohol. Admitting powerlessness is very debasing, it is a form of surrender. It is giving up. Of course that is one of the main thrusts of AA, giving up and ceding control to your higher power. In this...
Webinar
This is a talk I gave at the Royal Lancaster Infirmary Alcohol Liaison Unit. You'll have to forgive the rather dreary monologue, it was better live; talking in front of a live audience is far more engaging than than sitting alone at home late in the evening after a...
Cravings
This is a slightly amended response of mine to a post in the Facebook Alcohol Explained group about cravings. I thought it was worth sharing a bit more widely: Don’t forget what a ‘craving’ is. It is you, fantasising about how nice it would be to have a drink. It is a...
Animation – What Happens to Your Body When You Drink Alcohol
A contact through the Alcohol Explained Facebook Group recently posted an animation of my last blog post. I thought it was incredibly effective so we’ve worked together to create the following which details the physiological effects of drinking. Please let me know if...
How Lifestyles Influence Drinking
Let’s look at the ways in which our lifestyle can influence our drinking. This article is primarily about the dynamics that come into play in regular, daily drinking, as opposed to binge drinking. To be clear I am not dealing with traumatic events that have been shown...
Why You Drink More Than You Want To
You wake up. You feel rubbish. How much did you drink last night? Can’t remember exactly? The only thing you are sure of is that it was far more then you intended. Again. So why is there this tendency to drink too much? Is it just that you get carried away in the...
The Bad Days
Most people can understand how drinking upsets the delicate chemical balance in their brain, leaving them feeling anxious, out of sorts, and even out and out depressed. They therefore have a reasonable expectation when they stop drinking that they will be happier....
Rock Bottom
There a general accepted platitude about alcoholism that the addict has to hit rock bottom before they can start recovery. Like most of the platitudes and accepted ‘knowledge’ about drinking and alcoholism, it is not only incorrect it is also dangerous and contributes...
Alcohol and Weight
With so many articles in the news this week trying to extol the ‘health benefits’ of drinking, I thought it was a good time to summarise the various effects alcohol has on weight. 1. Empty calories The first and easiest one, alcoholic drinks contain a huge...
Redemption
So how do you redeem yourself for all the terrible things you did while you were drinking? Do you need to seek people out to apologise? Or do good deeds to make up for the bad? Or spend your life dragging around your guilt like Jacob Marley's ghost? Well here's some...
Alcohol Withdrawal
I’ve been thinking a bit recently about how and why alcohol withdrawal is so powerful. As I cover in Alcohol Explained the physical withdrawal from alcohol occurs because the brain seeks to counter the depressive effects of the alcohol by releasing its own supply of...
Taking the Bull by the Horns
Someone posted in the Alcohol Explained Facebook group recently to say he was on a weeks vacation in South Carolina right on the ocean. He’s been doing this for 12 years with a group of 20 friends. Every night they sit and the beach and drink away into the early...
Our Heroes and Heroines, and Social Media
Two of the aspects of drinking that I have been mulling over recently is when people post pictures of themselves drinking (or even just their drinks) on social media. I’ve also been thinking about our drinking icons, our heroes and heroines (both real and fictional)...
Accepting That You Will Never Drink Again
One of the problems we encounter when stopping drinking for good is reconciling ourselves with the decision to never ever take a drink again. When we start drinking it all seems like sweetness and light. We have fun evenings out, hangovers are manageable and even the...
Diet and Fitness Explained Free on Kindle
The latest book is free on Kindle for the next few days if anyone is interested. Links as per my previous blog post.
Diet and Fitness Explained
The new book is now available (links below). It is entitled 'Diet and Fitness Explained', but the fitness element is fairly short (some three chapters). It just gives a very high level overview of fitness aimed at the absolute beginner. So for those with an...
The Worst Drink You’ll Ever Drink
I was thinking recently about those first few drinks that you have after you have stopped for a while. Those times when you simply ‘give up giving up’. These are always, generally speaking, the worst drinks we will ever have. There are three specific reasons for this...
Alcohol Explained Facebook Group
The Alcohol Explained Facebook group is now created. If you search Alcohol Explained on Facebook you should be able to find it. If you want to join it just do a membership request which I will approve. Any problems drop me a line through the Contact page of the...
Diet and Fitness Explained
Firstly apologies for being out of contact for so long. I've been working on a new book about diet and fitness (with the not very imaginative provisional title of 'Diet and Fitness Explained'). It's been enjoyable and interesting to write but fitting it around a full...
The Monster Under the Bed
Is it odd that Alcohol Explained is such a practical and pragmatic book, and yet I will still read a book of pure fiction, maybe a horror story, with a part of me (and not a small part either) believing every single word of it. If not believing it in actuality, then...
Ambition
When I talk about ambition in this article I am talking about something far more than a simple desire to take the next step up whatever career ladder we’ve found ourselves trying to climb. I am talking about a very basic motivating factor in all living creatures; the...
Meetings
Someone contacted me recently to ask about setting up meetings, to give her the chance, as she put it, 'to chat with like minded people'. I think it is an excellent idea, human beings are social animals, socialising is both necessary and good for us. However because...
Self-Image
Self-image is a mental picture we have of ourselves. Is it very resistant to change and determines how we act and react, and how we deal with difficult and challenging situations. It is made up in part of a long lasting and stable set of memories. There are various...
Self-Image
Self-image is a mental picture we have of ourselves. Is it very resistant to change and determines how we act and react, and how we deal with difficult and challenging situations. It is made up in part of a long lasting and stable set of memories. There are various...
Morning Drinking
There are a few fairly nonsensical indicators when it comes to problem drinking. Things like drinking alone and experiencing memory loss. I doubt there is a serious drinker on the planet who hasn't had drinking induced memory loss to one degree or another, unless they...
Moderating
Karyn recently asked about my doing a blog post amplifying the concept of the 'stimulant vs depressant' side of alcohol consumption, and its impact on moderation. This coincided with someone sending me an email asking about moderation. Hence this post. I am not going...
Audio Version of Alcohol Explained
I am pleased to announce that the audio version of Alcohol Explained is now available on Audible. You can find it here. It should be available on Amazon and ITunes within the next couple of days. Don't worry about the high price (it is dictated by the retailer...
Differentiating Between Food and Poison
Allen Carr pointed out that one of the key aspects of the survival of living creatures is the ability to differentiate between poison and food. We use smell and taste to do this. Poisons like nicotine and alcohol taste and smell bad and we have to work at them until...
Christmas
There are two types of drinking at Christmas. Firstly, there is the ‘mistletoe and wine’ drinking. The good side of drinking, the Dickensian side of drinking. Good friends coming in from the cold and snow into a warm room of dark oak with a roaring fire, flagons of...
Afraid of the Dark
As father of two young children I am reminded, almost nightly, of the concept of being afraid of the dark. Of course it's not dark that children, or anyone else for that matter, is afraid of, it is what may be lurking within it. This is why it affects children more...
Comments
I've added a comments page to the website. Please feel free to make whatever use of it you see fit. Also a quick update on the audio version of Alcohol Explained, production is well underway and I am hoping it will be released in early December.
Alcohol Explained – 2nd Edition
Firstly apologies for being fairly inactive recently. I started a new job a month ago and what little free time I did have almost entirely evaporated, and what I have had I have spent rewriting and updating Alcohol Explained. I am pleased to announce this this task is...
Alcohol and Emotional Resiliance
There was a study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology on 13th July 2017 that analysed the relationship between the acceptance of negative emotion and psychological health in 1,300 adults. What the study found was that people who regularly...
You can be a moderate drinker if you want to…
Someone recently contacted me saying that they have stopped drinking, but still think about being a moderate drinker. They asked me what the key was to remove every last desire for alcohol. My response (slightly reworded) is below. I thought it might be useful to...
How Alcocentric is our Society?
This chart Is from the Washington Post from 2014 relating to drinking habits in the US. I think it is extremely interesting and ties in with a couple of incidents that happened to me recently that has made me consider how ‘alcocentric’ western society actually is. To...
This Naked Mind
I recently read This Naked Mind by Annie Grace. There are many points in there that work very well with Alcohol Explained and some in particular that I think are worth specifically mentioning. Firstly is the question of why it is difficult to limit our intake during...
At what stage do we become ‘Alcohol Reliant’?
You hear some extraordinary things in an open plan office. I’ve just overheard a holiday conversation between three of my colleagues. One of the ladies has two children, aged 18 and 20 (clearly not ‘children’ but I shall use the word because ‘issue’ or 'offspring’...
Alcohol and Our Emotions
Whilst I have tried to keep Alcohol Explained as short as concise as I can, sometimes I think I have dealt with some important points too quickly, and perhaps I ought perhaps have dwelled on them a bit longer to emphasise them. In particular the there is a key part of...
Craving
Since I’ve stopped drinking I have found my appetite has changed considerably. I deal with this in Alcohol Explained in the Chapter on Drinking and Obesity so I won’t repeat it here, but suffice to say that the food I want to eat now is usually fairly healthy, whereas...
Holiday
Firstly apologies for the lack of blog posts recently. I am actually on holiday at the moment, and those of you with young children will appreciate that 'holiday' does give rather the wrong impression. In fact it is one of the more hectic two weeks of the year. We're...
Using Alcohol To Deal With Your Problems.
I was thinking recently about the alcohol withdrawal and why it is so overpowering. Everyone faces problems in their life. Some big. Some small. Some in between. We tend to have more of the smaller ones, and less of the larger ones. Smaller ones might be paying a...
The Problem With Accepting That You Have a Problem
You are probably expecting this article to be about the many and varied blocks people have when it comes to accepting that they have an alcohol problem; that they are alcoholic. It is not. In fact it is about the additional problems the individual encounters when they...
Contributions
Some of you may be aware but this website went down recently and I had to rebuild it (thanks again to John S for putting me on to Goole cached pages and saving me I dread to think how many hours work). While I was putting it together again I began to look at it...
Alcohol Explained for Non-Drinkers
Someone recently very kindly left a review on the US Amazon page for Alcohol Explained which I found particularly gratifying. Just to clarify I find every positive review intensely gratifying, as I have said more times that I care to remember I found Alcohol Explained...
The Problem With Accepting That You Have a Problem
You are probably expecting this article to be about the many and varied blocks people have when it comes to accepting that they have an alcohol problem; that they are alcoholic. It is not. In fact it is about the additional problems the individual encounters when they...
References in Alcohol Explained
Several times I have been asked about putting references in Alcohol Explained to back up the text itself. Originally I didn’t put references in because I had in mind the readership could include those suffering from severe alcohol withdrawal so didn’t want to clutter...
Dehydration
The average human body is around 70% water. The actual water content is controlled by the brain which keeps a certain percentage as a reserve in case it is suddenly required, most usually for sweating. Sweating is one of the ways in which our bodies maintain the...
Blackouts
When I talk about blackouts I am not talking about falling unconscious after drinking, I am talking about periods of consciousness which the drinker has no memory of. Indeed the term ‘blackout’ usually has even further connotations than this. It is usually a period...
