I was reading an article the other day about the late, great, Elvis Presley.
He was one of my hero’s when I was growing up.
I read that when he died – on the day he died – he was found in his Toilet.
He was three hundred and fifty pounds in weight – so – grossly overweight.
And he was eating sixty Percodan a day, which is a bad drug, you know?
He was taking sixty of these a day.
So how did he get to sixty Percodan a day.
As I was saying, I was just reading up about Elvis and I was fascinated, because I always remember one of the vivid memories I have of childhood, was looking at a newspaper my Dad brought back, one of the tabloids in England.
And it had a picture of Elvis Presley in a Coffin and he looked like he was twenty, twenty-five.
He looked very young in this picture.
And there’s been a lot of – over the years – a lot of conspiracy theories about – “yeah! he didn’t actually die and he’s actually alive somewhere” – or maybe he’s dead now, but you know what I mean.
Just I read this thing the other day that he was actually three hundred and fifty pounds’ overweight at the time of his death.
And just those two images, don’t match up for me.
A three hundred and fifty-pound guy, doesn’t look like the image of the Guy that I saw in the Coffin.
And, as I read more and more into this article, I read that he was taking sixty of a particular drug – called Percodan – every day.
So my question is how the hell does a guy get to sixty Percodan every day?
And that’s what this is all about.
This habit thing – alcoholism.
The stupid word that people use for it.
Where we are now; where I was when I quit drinking.
I was able to drink twenty-five pints a day, if I wanted to.
I didn’t drink twenty-five pints a day – let’s just get that clear.
I drank twenty-five pints in a day, every so often and when I did drink twenty-five pints, I was in a fucking state you know?
I was hardly able to walk.
So I wasn’t able to drink twenty-five pints with no repercussions.
But I know some people who can drink twenty-five pints and can still function.
These are big lads right?
Who can easily drink twenty-five pints or whatever way the alcohol is dispersed throughout their bodies – they’ve got the stomach capacity for it; they’ve got a way of dispersing this alcohol throughout their body, so that it doesn’t really effect them.
They’ve obviously got big tolerance levels.
That’s the point of this, is the tolerance
When I started drinking first.
I’d drink a Pint and feel like – “Jesus – that was enough.”
I remember I talked about this before, having sort of an argument with a mate of mind who said he can drink ten or fifteen pints – I can’t remember what it was at the time – and I was only able to drink three.
He was saying “yeah! you’re a pussy!”
I was like “What the fuck!” you know, “You’re not a man, you’re only a pussy!”
I felt really bad about myself because I wasn’t able to drink what he could drink.
He was twice the size of me – in width.
I was only a skinny little fella.
And that sort of spurred me on over the years to try and increase my consumption.
And increasing your consumption is very easy to do, when you take it bit by bit.
You don’t notice the consumption that you can increase.
So one day you can drink three; month or two months later – you can drink four; six months later – you can drink five; so on and so forth.
This is the way it works.
So when you get somebody like Elvis, anybody who’s on prescription drugs or whatever drug they’re taking.
The nature of your body and its interaction with drugs is that the tolerances go up.
You can take more of the drug because your body’s defences are working against it.
Not only from the perspective of the toxin, but you’ve also got this perspective of you need to survive.
You need to work to survive.
Your body is still working – your mind is still working – on pre-historic times
So, back in the Cave, where you had to go out and essentially hunt and gather for your food.
You had to defend yourself and your family against predators.
Things that wanted to try and hurt you or eat you.
And our modern day bodies – even though we are in the technological age, where a lot of things are so easy – we still from a physiological point of view and from a psychological point of view, live in the caves.
When you take a drug and when you get obliterated from that drug.
When you get drunk.
You’re not in a position to defend yourself.
So this is not good for your body.
So one of the reasons behind tolerance – the defence mechanism of tolerance – is to prevent your body – prevent you from getting in this state all the time.
You might be in a position where, you’re living in an environment; you’re eating a food which is poisonous.
You need the food for survival, right, you need for food for sustenance but at the same time you are getting a toxic effect of it.
So eventually your body will get used to this toxic effect, it will grow a tolerance to it.
Because your body figures – “well that this is the only food around” – so you’ll get used to it over and over and over again, all the time.
This is where we get the acquired taste from, for any foods, for alcohol, for eating fucking rotten eggs – or for eating things that we don’t like to eat when you’re a child – you look at and you go Jesus that’s awful.
You can get an acquired taste for almost anything.
And that’s the reason why.
It’s because it’s an adaptation and it’s an adaptation for your survival.
So when you’re looking at this thing with Presley for instance.
When somebody can take that many of a certain drug. This is his body going into survival mode.
Eventually the whole lot killed him.
You know, because your body can only do this.
It can tolerate a certain amount.
And then there’s going to be the biggest repercussion of all.
Which is your body just fucking shuts down, it can’t deal with it.
You know, if you take too much alcohol at once your body will shut down in reverse survival.
So the organs that you need the most to survive will be the last to shut down.
One of the first things that shuts down is your gagging reflex – if you’ve had too much.
That’s why a lot of people can drink a lot of alcohol and fall asleep on their backs and choke on their own vomit, because they don’t have that gagging reflex any more.
That’s just closed down.
If you look at alcohol poisoning – and there are several web pages on this – and you can look at which parts of your body will shut down in sequence.
One after the other, until eventually, your brain shuts down, your heart shuts down, your lungs shut down, because it just can’t cope any more, you know?
So, what I am saying is a habit is built up day by day
A habit which involves a substance – like a drug – any drug, is built day by day.
But there is also this underlying tolerance, the survival instinct, right, so when you can drink twenty pints or when you can drink two bottles of wine.
That’s your body tolerating the substance, right?
It’s a natural part of your bodies make-up.
It’s nothing to do with the drug.
It’s nothing to do with the drug – everybody’s body works in the same fucking way.
So that’s why I hate people saying you’re an alcoholic, because it’s like you’re trying to say something about somebody else which basically defines you as well.
Defines anybody that drinks alcohol, works in the same way.
Just because your body hasn’t yet tolerated a certain amount of alcohol, doesn’t mean to say that you won’t get there.
If you keep drinking, the more you drink, the more your body needs and the more tolerance your body gets.
This is a basically a lesson for anybody who thinks, “well – I’ll wait. It’s not my time yet, I’ll give it another six months or maybe a year.”
Your body is going to be much more tolerant in six months or a year.
This doesn’t just go away.
Your body looks at alcohol as a toxin.
To get rid of – to deal with.
It has to deal with this stuff.
And it’s got a certain amount of ways of dealing with this.
The vomiting – has probably long since passed – unless you go over that tolerance level.
And then once you go over that tolerance level where your body can’t deal with the alcohol – where you’re overloading your system to the extent that you’re at risk of severe harm or death – then your body will revert back to the old vomiting again; or give you the really bad hang-overs; or do something to try and stop you from doing what you’re doing.
Habit is built one sip at a time, over time and it’s constructed, deconstructed, one sip at a time, all the time.
So you know there’s also the question of control
The more of this drug you take the less control you have.
Because of the habit nature of just life in general.
If you get into the habit of doing something, you get into the ritual of doing something, the more ritualised you make alcohol, the more you need it in your life.
This is the habit part.
This is the part of it that everyone else has.
People mark themselves out, as I said earlier on, as being alcoholics and being different and that they can’t drink.
It’s just that you’ve gone to a …
Maybe you’re habit levels are different or maybe your levels of tolerance are different.
Some people get tolerant quicker; some people slower; some people take on habit quicker and other people are a lot slower to take on a habit.
But we’ve all essentially got the same shit going on, right?
And control with anything like this, with a drug, is like trying to control a wild animal.
There is no fucking control.
You can lock a tiger into a cage – a wild tiger into a cage – and you know it’s not going to harm you, right?
As soon as he gets out of that cage and he gets the chance, he’s going to rip your fucking head off.
Simple as that you know.
That’s his nature.
It’s the nature of the alcohol inside the human body, the interaction of the alcohol with the human body, to do the same thing. To act as, to act the way it does.
It is the nature of your human body to re-act.
This is nothing to do with the alcohol – per se.
Because the alcohol outside is just a substance.
It’s only when you put it inside your body and it’s the reaction of your body to the alcohol.
That’s the problem.
So it’s nothing to do with the alcohol, in so far as the alcohol can’t cause anything.
It’s only when the alcohol gets into your body and your body reacts, that’s where the problem lies.
So the alcohol is only relevant in so far as IT is causing the reaction.
But it is the reaction of your body every time and everybody’s body is essentially the same thing, right?
So there is no control.
And you know saying – “well my habit is built around alcohol.”
You know I’ve got a habit of drinking too much alcohol, how do I solve this?
Moderation is not the answer to this right.
If you’ve got problems with alcohol.
If you stop drinking the alcohol, period.
Then the problems solve themselves.
You either halt the problem and there is a reparation going on and the problems gone or you holt the problem and at least you’re not doing any more damage.
Same thing is, if you go into a Doctor and you say “well, you know, I am having chest pains.”
And he says “right you know, your heart is damaged because of all the food that you’re eating. You’re whole cardiovascular system is damaged.”
He’s not going to tell you to cut down on the Cheese Pizzas.
He’s going to tell you to stop fucking eating the Cheese Pizzas.
Basically, that’s it – don’t eat any more Cheese Pizzas – this has done you damage.
All this shit food that you’re eating has done you damage.
Don’t eat any more of that.
And he’s going to tell you.
He’s going to send maybe send you to a nutritionist who will say to tell you “well, this is the stuff you need to eat.”
Look, at the end of the day, the habit is built up over time, by you putting alcohol into your mouth, over time.
Sip, after sip, after sip, after sip.
Day after day after day.
You built up the habit and only you can reduce the habit.
Only you can get rid of the habit.
Nobody is going to come in here and save you – Nobody.
You’re the only person who can save yourself.
Other people can tell you “this is the right way to go, that is the right way to go.”
At the end of the day, the only way you’re going to do this is to not put the shit inside your body anymore – period!
Right? Full Stop.
That’s it for today, if you have any questions or comments leave them down below.
Go on over to the website, sign up for the Alcohol Mastery newsletter.
If you want to support alcohol mastery you can do so.
You can become a Patron of the show over on patreon – you can find the link at the end and down below in the description section http://www.patreon.com/AlcoholMastery
And until next time..
Stay safe
Keep the alcohol out of your mouth..
That’s the only way this is going to happen, right?
As I say nobody else is going to be there to save you – except yourself.
You have to save yourself, you know?
You have to do the work yourself.
You have to put yourself through the discomfort and if you put yourself through the discomfort, you’re the one going to get the benefits nobody else.
Other people are going to get the outside benefits and are going to benefit in the long-run – but you are going to get the primary full-time, life-long, benefits – of not putting this shit in your body anymore.
“Habit-forming products often start as nice-to-haves, but once the habit is formed they become must-haves”
Until next time…
Take Care
Good Luck
Onwards and Upwards!
0 Comments