Cycling UK Forum

Shootist wrote:
An interesting post, none of which I could disagree with. However, the part that interests me is the denial stage, and what leads some people to alcoholism. While many alcoholics do start young, I believe that many will start later in life and I think this can be due to socialising or working in a drinking environment. I see no reason to suppose that many yuppie casual heroin users will not, in spite of their best intentions, proceed to addiction, and I can only therefore think that the same could apply to drinkers. Denial is easy to understand if you clearly have an alcohol problem but you are the only one who can't accept that. But what of the person who 'only' drinks three or four pints every night and suffers no untoward social problems? He may continue for many years without addiction but somewhere, hidden in plain sight, there will be a crossover point, but how can he tell? He won't wake up one morning as say to himself "I'm an alcoholic." because nothing has changed from when he wasn't. Nobody, including him, will know where that transition happened but he's hooked for life. While alcoholism can indeed be regarded as a disease, it is mostly self inflicted because people often do not want to know their own weaknesses.

It's also worth remembering that there are different forms of alcoholism. The person who must drink every day, the person who can leave it for one, two, or three months maybe and then goes on a bender for a weekend or even a week. I have to wonder about the mentality of someone willing to tread that path in the face of evidence of the harm it causes, which far outweighs any proposed benefits. To suggest that the government has some sort of hidden agenda, perhaps an increase in tax funds, in publishing health guidelines on consumption is, to be blunt, stupid. Such a suggestion implies they are lying to the public for some secret benefit. One of the symptoms of alcoholism can be paranoia. Another can be an inability to think rationally. Don't light bonfires with petrol.

Shootist wrote:

SpannerGeek wrote:If you read my post, the only scientific proof of alcohol intoxication is reduced motor skills. Whether it makes us happy or sad or angry is purely subjective. Many psychologists will say that these are simply facets we have been able to suppress and that alcohol merely disinhibits these emotions.

Which again, is a process of perception. Happiness after all is just a construct of the mind. It's just an idea and it should be clear by now how unreliable they can be...

What part of motor skills cause a person to end up in bed with another, having unprotected sex, starting another life, and/or getting a sexually transmitted disease? That is most often a lapse of judgement, one they wouldn't make of sober.

Alcoholism is a disease. Those with alcoholism have altered brain function and structure, and part of the disease is denial.

beardy wrote:

Alcoholism is a disease. Those with alcoholism have altered brain function and structure, and part of the disease is denial.

How do you tell the difference between an alcoholic in denial and a heavy drinker who likes to drink.

In my days as young man, I mixed in very alcohol centered society. It was even subsidised to insignificant cost at many times. I was regularly drinking for over 12 hour periods. I doubt that it was sustainable. However as soon as I left that phase of my life and became a motorcycle courier, I stopped drinking overnight, we were a non-alcohol culture there, as we needed our licences.

Edwards wrote:It has recently been reported that the Bars in the Palace of Westminster are subsidised by £8 million at tax payers.

So what does that say about the drunks who run this country?

beardy wrote:Some Dutch courage is required before walking through the "division" which furthers your career instead of the "division" that you believed in before entering the party machine.

Phileas wrote:As a follow up to one of the sub-topics of this thread, this recent BBC tv program is rather pertinent:
The Brain with David Eagleman, 1. What Is Reality?: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b06y8hyr via @bbciplayer

A very brief summary is that most of what we experience as reality from one moment to the next is an internal mental model of the real world which is updated piecemeal by the relatively sparse data received through our senses.

LittleGreyCat wrote:
But slightly more seriously I tend to ignore any guidelines because I suspect that there is very little solid research to back it up.
I tend to be guided by what my body tries to tell me.
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