Let’s face it, alcohol is good at dulling the pain. You’ve often seen it with old westerns or war movies, someone gets shot, there is no anaesthetic, so the wound is doused liberally with whiskey, and the rest is poured down the throat of the individual being treated. We all know it works to some extent. It might not be the best pain relief available, but it helps… in the moment.

When You Quit Drinking Alcohol, Sensitivity Returns or Is Heightened…

Many people also use alcohol to dull psychological pain. If you have such pain, you can drink until you are too drunk to care. It helps… in the moment.

There are so many “in the moment” reasons why we drink. Pain is just one. But all pain, physical or psychological, is there for a reason. Pain is telling you something. Pain is telling you that something needs to be fixed.

Physical pain tells you that there is a problem, a bullet wound, a broken leg, an enlarged liver. The pain is your body’s way of alerting you that there is damage.

It’s the same with psychological pain. We feel psychological pain because there is an underlying issue that needs to be resolved.

Drinking alcohol to anaesthetise physical or psychological pain will never solve the pain, it will only mask the symptoms, dampening the pain in the moment. The problem that caused the pain will still be there once you come around from your drunken stupor. What then? More momentary (and temporary) relief?

Yes, alcohol will dull the pain. Alcohol also dulls your brain. Alcohol dulls your emotions and feelings. Alcohol dulls your sex life, your physical sensations. And we’re not just talking about dulling these things in the short term, in the moment. There is a gradual deadening of these feelings and emotions over time. These feelings and emotions are an essential parts of our lives. We don’t notice this desensitisation until a lot of the damage has been done.

Large quantities of alcohol have no place in the human body. The effects of large amounts of alcohol are insidious. It’s a subtle decline.

The good news is that all of this is reversible. When you quit putting alcohol into your body, your body will begin to heal very quickly. I think this is one of the reasons why many people say that they become tired and listless when they have stopped consuming alcohol. Your body is not only using a lot of energy to heal (finally), the damage that has been caused by this toxin over the years, you will also find that your emotions will become much more sensitive. This is natural. It’s nothing to be afraid of.

It took me a long while to process what was happening. Instead of hiding under a blanket of alcohol induced fog, I had to face the world. It’s a scary prospect. It’s one of the more difficult things that you will do. It takes a lot of thinking. It takes a lot of action. However, the results are truly rewarding.

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