So, after 9.5 weeks, I’ve used about 18 Naltrexone tablets. I’ve been wondering – should I buy more and “stock up” for the future, or use this freedom and just give up alcohol forever (or, “for the foreseeable future”). This has been my big question lately. I purchased “Alcohol Lied to Me” by Englishman Craig Beck for about the price of what I would have drank last night -- $9.99 for a half-pint of vodka and four or so beers. It’s available in hard copy, kindle e-book, and audio book (the audio book has a hypnosis section if you’re into that).
The author seems to be a wealthy businessman, world traveler, and former wine and champagne connoisseur. He spent about 17 years as a daily drinker, eventually drinking at least two bottles of wine a night before eventually quitting. He has not had a drink in 10+ years. For Beck, alcohol is like a “mouse trap.” You might nibble here and there at the cheese, but eventually the trap is going to snap and you’re stuck (or dead). It’s also like an “anti-personnel landmine. You step on it and beyond a small clunk all appears fine. . .until you try and step off it. Then and only then you discover what a mess you are really in.” We can all relate.
It seems like all approaches to quitting drinking have to deal with the dichotomy or dualism that makes us “hate” something, or want to stop something, yet do it over and over. Traditionally, this was seen as a battle between the “flesh” and the “spirit,” as in “The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak” (Matthew 26:40). For AA, the battle is between the “disease” and the “spiritual man.” For rational recovery, it’s between “the beast / Addictive Voice” and “me.” For TSM, it’s between “me” and my “endorphin reward center.” For Beck, the two players in this battle are the “subconscious” and the “ego” or “conscious.” The ego is the bad guy here. The ego’s main goal is to get pleasure and avoid pain. It also lives in the past and the future, whereas the subconscious lives in the present moment. For humans, avoiding pain is a much stronger motivator than getting pleasure. That’s why when we use “will power” to try to give up something (like drinking or overeating), our ego will make us focus on the past and future and make quitting seem very distressing and painful. For example, when an obese person goes on a diet because they want to experience the pleasure of being thin and energetic, their ego goes into overdrive and makes them picture all the pleasure they have gotten out of food in the past, and all the pain they are going to experience in the future by being deprived of food. It will also make this person feel an intense hunger the moment the diet begins. The power of the brain is amazing in tricking us in this way. Eventually (or quickly), the need to avoid this (false) pain becomes so strong, the dieter quickly begins gorging themselves and the cycle starts again.
When an alcohol addict decides to quit drinking, the ego also goes into overdrive to remind the person of all the good times they’ve had with alcohol and, more importantly, all the deprivation they are going to experience in the future – all the vacations and parties that will be ruined because of not drinking, all the stress that will have to be endured because alcohol won’t be able to relieve them. Oh, the future agony! Like rational recovery suggests: Go ahead and say out loud, “I will never drink another drink again,” and feel the uproar that your brain will create – all the images and terrible things that you are going to undergo. This is nothing but the “ego” (or the “beast”) trying to trick you into maintaining this habit.
The first step to sobriety, for Beck, is to admit that your drinking is a problem. Everyone reading that book, and on this board, has already achieved this step. The purpose of “Alcohol Lied to Me” is to get you to see that alcohol actually provides NO BENEFIT WHATSOEVER to you. Yes, he is a hardliner and anti-moderation. “Alcoholism is a binary condition, it is either on or off, you can’t be a little bit alcoholic in the same way you can’t be a little bit pregnant!” I will now touch on some of the highlights.
***The “secret” to quitting drinking is to “attach more pleasure to not drinking than to drinking.” Beck takes the via negativa for the most part by trying to get you to understand how truly awful alcohol is. You have to understand “the truth about booze.” Throughout the book, Beck refers to alcohol as a “toxin” and “attractively packaged poison” made from “rotting vegetable matter.” Alcohol the chemical is used as an antiseptic (it makes bacteria implode on themselves) and is used to break up fats and oils. Its damaging effects on your cells, brains, and organs is all related to these properties.
***The reason so many people drink is simply because alcohol is “socially acceptable,” owing mostly to the fact that it’s so much a part of Western culture. Other than that, there is really not much difference between alcohol and, say, heroin, other than (a) heroin is actually much more pleasurable, and (b) the “kick” of heroin is stronger (by kick, he means the feelings and physiological reaction that happens when you stop taking it: “all addictive substances will punish you if you try to stop your interaction with them”). He tries to get you to substitute “heroin” for “alcohol” in some of your pro-alcohol arguments. Would you celebrate the birth of a child with heroin? Or Christmas? Or use it after a stressful day? “Let me start by asking you how you manage to avoid injecting heroin at Christmas time?”
***When a drinker suddenly refuses drinks, people around him or her tend to get really upset and aggressive about it, something he experienced very strongly (after all, he says everywhere he went, people were always shoving free, expensive wine in front of him). This “offended” reaction is primarily because their ego is being challenged and is troubled by your (good and healthy) decision to not drink. He suggests you don’t lie (“I’m on antibiotics”) and don’t preach, but just say “No, thanks.” Your friends and colleagues will eventually get over it.
***The “kick” of alcohol peaks at about 12-24 hours, and is usually experienced as irritability and anxiety. Just as a shot of heroin instantly relieves the kick for the drug abuser, so a drink or more removes the kick of alcohol. The drinker believes that they need the drink to calm them down, but they’re really just relieving the withdrawal symptoms. (Note: This is similar to current research on tobacco addiction. Smokers always say they need to smoke to calm them down and make them less anxious, but the only reason they’re anxious is because of the “kick” of tobacco. It’s a vicious cycle that can last for many decades.).
***Beck talks about “threshold moments,” which are the points in a drinker’s addiction that they realize that the pain caused by their drinking outweighs their pleasure. For Beck, this came through a diagnosis of severe liver problems and a calculation of the amount of money (about $10,000 a year!) and time with his kids (a total of 9,000 hours!) that his addiction had cost him. The combo of fear and anger created his threshold moment. He tells a great story of how he quit for a month, felt better, and decided to “moderate” by buying an expensive safe, stocking it with rum minis, and giving his wife the key. She was instructed to, nightly, take out one mini and give it to him. Well, one night she was busy and wasn’t able to get out his allotted drink. He quickly figured out that the back of the safe was flimsy and he simply pried it open and got drunk. That reminds me of my grand plan to have my wife check my breathalyzer every night at 10 to make sure it said zero. My mind had already devised many ways around this – morning drinking, drinking immediately after the “zero,” and timing my drinks. We simply can’t rely on others to police us, I learned.
***Another “secret to stopping drinking” is to “remain in the moment.” “Don’t make predictions about what sort of person you will be in the future.” In other words, think about right now – Do I need and want to drink right now? Usually, the answer will be “no.” However, our ego thrusts us into the future (which is always hypothetical) – my daughter’s wedding, a vacation at the beach, a romantic dinner, a golf tournament with my buddies, a fishing trip – how could I possibly do these things without alcohol?! In our addicted logic, we conclude, We can’t abstain then, so we can’t abstain now! Yet, in reality, the idea that alcohol will make these events better is all part of the lie alcohol tells you. He tells a profound story about a beautiful wedding he attended in a castle in England. The bride was dressed beautiful and crying as she said the vows. What a moment! Yet, immediately afterwards, the bride and groom started shooting whiskey. In essence, they removed themselves from the beauty of the moment. Their experience from that point on would be a blur and anything but “magical.” I can relate. This summer, we took a 20th trip to a beautiful Caribbean island. We lacked for nothing, yet I spent all sorts of time acting like a fool trying to obtain and sneak alcohol. It was ridiculous and shameful what I did to get booze on that trip, and it added nothing to the trip. In fact, my best memories were while sober. (On the flip side, though, I have had some great experiences drinking moderately on vacation, as I’m sure you have, too).
***Beck has us twice consider Hindus in India, who can feast and party for days on end, “Yet not a drop of alcohol touches their lips.” The idea that alcohol = fun = socializing is purely a social construct that has been passed down from generation to generation in our culture (and we’ve probably already passed it down to our kids). Beck would argue that, in reality, alcohol detracts from socialization (think blackouts, fights, passing out, slurred conversations, inappropriate speech, etc…).
***Beck spends some amount of time talking about supplements to heal the damage alcohol has done to your organs, especially your brain, and the “chemical imbalances” that foster the urge to drink. He suggests Omega-3 (to repair the fat lysing properties of alcohol on the brain), 5-HTZ for sleep and mood, B vitamins, high dose Vitamin D (10 IU per pound of bodyweight), and a good multivitamin. I took him up on that, as I’ve been spending some of my former “beer money” on positive things. I’m not a big vitamin guy, but I do know that, in hospitals, IV infusions of vitamins is standard when treating alcoholics.
Overall, I would recommend this book as a quick read. Surely, you will get SOMETHING out of this that you can use to motivate you. For me, Beck had a lot of credibility and, despite many typos and grammar errors, is very readable. For my part, I had an insight that is helpful. I’m going to picture three of my favorite teetotaling actors – Jason Bateman, Jim Carrey, and Will Farrell – on vacation or at a big party. On a vacation, they surely have fun, play with the kids, charm the locals, woo the women, make people laugh, make love to their wives, enjoy great food, and generally act crazy, yet without any alcohol. When I think of a future event and get stressed that I’m not going to drink at it, I will just try to picture how one of these celebrities would act at the event. To me, that’s very useful (my personality is probably closest to Will Farrell, but I look a bit like Jason Bateman).
Anyway, if you made it through the whole review, thanks for reading and have a great alcohol-free day!
P.S. I'm not ordering more Naltrexone.
P.P.S. Have a kindle, ipad, or e-book? e-mail me at
barrybrockelman@yahoo.com (not my real name) with an e-mail address, and I'll "lend" it to the first person who wants it.
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