I often hear: “It’s so hard for me, so much of everything is falling on me, my life is filled with stress, so I just need to drink in the evenings and / or take sedatives in order to calm down and fall asleep.” Alcohol is thought to be (how to stop drinking forever) helps to relax, calm the nervous system and improve mood.
With this, I will not argue, alcohol, through its “inhibiting” effect, helps to forget about problems that have piled in and for the time being feel calmer and happier.
The fact that you cannot relax without alcohol is a lie!
Meanwhile, the systematic use of alcohol is a big threat.
After all, it is not just that ethyl alcohol (the main active ingredient in alcoholic beverages) is included in the top 5 most dangerous drugs according to a classification based on a survey of leading experts in the field of narcology. Here I am not going to spread particularly regarding physical harm and the danger of alcohol addiction.
I will only talk about why I think alcohol is not an appropriate means of relaxation, and why its use reduces your body's ability to resist stress and tension.
Cause of stress inside us
In fact, many of us exaggerate the influence of external negative factors on our well-being. We do not notice how we are beginning to attach great importance to trifles, to be nervous and upset about nonsense. And the main problem is that we do not know how to relax! We simply did not teach this.
That is why we have to resort to auxiliary means, such as alcohol or drugs, to relieve stress. Well, it's never too late to catch up, read the materials on my site, and I will teach you how to relieve stress without drugs and alcohol. Yes, life in the modern city is full of tension, but, nevertheless, everyone has the strength to cope with this voltage or simply not to let it in itself. I will teach you how.
Okay, let's go further. As I wrote in the last article, the link to which I gave above, stress is determined not only by external circumstances, it is rather our internal property! The level of stress is determined primarily by the strength of our reaction to what is happening!
That is why different people react to the same events in different ways. Someone pours cold sweat on a date, and someone demonstrates confidence and emancipation, thereby achieving success in the field of love, someone is nervous and breaks down in traffic jams, someone is calm and relaxed in this situation.
In short, it's not about what is happening in the circle, but about yourself! As long as you do not stop perceiving any situations as critical, they will remain so for you! After all, many people get to resist stress, while not escaping pills, alcohol and tobacco. Why do not you get? I have already written in several articles (in the article about how to relieve stress and how to stop being nervous) that there is an opportunity to bring the nervous system and mind into a state where stress and negative cannot penetrate into us.
This ability corresponds to the capabilities of a person and everyone is able to achieve this. But sedatives and alcohol reduce this ability. Why?
Why alcohol is not suitable for relaxation and reduces stress resistance?
The whole thing is not only that alcohol has a damaging effect on the nervous system, and gradually you become more and more stressed and forced to take large doses of alcohol in order to relax. This is only one of the factors of the negative influence of alcohol on the ability to resist stress.
There is also another important point. If you get used to relieve tension and nervousness with some drugs, then your nervous system stops struggling with stress on its own. She gets used to the fact that there is always the possibility of leaning on a certain “crutch” - a soothing drug that will make you calm and you will stop being nervous.
Thus, not only the painful addiction, dependence on drugs, is formed, but it becomes more difficult to cope with difficulties without them. And I am sure that there are few such difficulties with which it would be impossible to cope on our own! When you have been taking various means to relax for a long time: tobacco, alcohol, drugs, it weakens your endurance and will, you begin to think that without them it is impossible to relieve tension and stress in the evening.
It is not so, such thoughts are a natural symptom of psychological dependence, weakness of the body and the nervous system, and if such a symptom occurs, you should think about it in time. This can be compared with taking cough pills: if you get used to cope with a cold with potent drugs, the body gradually ceases to fight the disease itself. The same is true of sedatives.
Alcohol, tobacco - are potent drugs that cause a strong psychological and physiological dependence and are of great harm to the body. And you thought that the drugs are only those substances that are transported in dirty trucks across the border, and then driven into syringes somewhere in dark cellars or used at parties to have fun and dance all night or see bright visions?
No, this is not only the case: some of the most dangerous drugs are sold in every store, in order to replenish an arsenal of sedatives in every home. Even a seemingly harmless Corvalol can be addictive and harmful.
Looking for easy solutions
Many psychotherapists, instead of working with patients who complain of nervousness, that they can not relax, they are prescribed a whole battery of drugs that promise to make life easier and problems less noticeable.
Only these doctors cannot be blamed, because their method meets the human need for easy solutions. Many people, when they come to the doctor, even unconsciously, but do not want to hear, really correct advice in this situation: “let us, pull yourself together, stop feeling sorry for yourself, take care of yourself, stop smoking and drinking, choose a sport, etc. . "They will leave the doctor dissatisfied and think that the bad doctor, since he requires them to do something and change their lifestyle. People do not want to strain themselves, instead they are waiting for such a diagnosis: “yes, darling, you have problems with nerves, but now I will prescribe a pill for you, you will drink and everything will be fine!” Oh, what a wonderful doctor!
We wrote a prescription, bought pills, drank it and calmed down. Simple as that. Unfortunately, such methods do not work, the pills will make you calm only for a while, they will not eliminate the psychological causes of nervousness and will not teach you to relax. Medicines do not eliminate the causes of depression, will not solve personal problems, they just temporarily “drown out” the suffering, but they will not destroy it. The demand for instant and easy solutions and the offer, which appeared in response to this demand, formed a culture of consuming alcoholic beverages in order to get rid of fatigue and stress, extended the “fashion” to taking antidepressants and tranquilizers as a way to relieve tension and nervousness.
This culture is so deeply rooted in society that a large part of the American population is sitting on Prozac (a strong anti-depressant), and this is not reprehensible both as a social phenomenon and as a medicine. Many do not see anything wrong with "relaxing" through abundant alcoholic libations (I mean the amount of more glasses of wine), considering it natural and necessary. Although, taking doses of alcohol above moderate, you not only do not relax, but, on the contrary, destroy your nervous system (remember the state of a hangover, do you feel “rested?” During it).
The problem of society?
In the end, everything looks as if society does not need healthy, harmonious individuals at all, its business is limited only to minimizing the friction that can arise at the junction of each individual and his social functions (work, social interaction) as a result of personal unrest. . (hence the term “social lubrication”) Western culture is not focused on solving particular existential problems, it seeks to disguise them and hide them. That is why we have so many painful and unhappy people.
Do not think that I am trying to accuse some sort of “society” separated from each of us, who is trying to impose our standards on us against our will. Understand that society consists of ourselves, and the situation is simply a reflection of our laziness and the desire to search for easy ways. It is difficult to say what comes first, what is the egg, and what is the chicken. Yes, it should be recognized that we are not taught how to relax properly without compromising health, but we see friends, relatives and parents drinking and / or here and there. We can say that since childhood in our association is laid tired = relax = drink.
On the other hand, everything is in our hands, nobody forces you to do anything. We are the creators of our own destiny and are responsible for our own health. If we want to become less susceptible to daily stress, learn not to pay attention to trivial situations and not to let in negative things, then we need to learn to relax without alcohol, tobacco, drugs or other drugs, temper the nervous system and train the ability to cope with life difficulties sober. head, solve, fix problems, and not drive them deeper.
This requires effort and work on oneself, but it is real and for everyone. A lot of materials from my blog are devoted to this, but I plan to devote even more materials to this in the future. Read my become about meditation, about methods of dealing with stress and nervousness. And most importantly, practice, enter my recommendations into your daily life and then everything will work out for you!
