Medication don’t do much.
It just numbs the brain
GET UP, Shinedown
Yesterday I was at the pool talking about emotional repression and the repression of like… perceived social impropriety or standards or random things we internalize. We were saying we’re so pent up inside that we seek that release of pressure. That kinda, like, wall drop.
Alcohol is that for most people.
We spend a lot of our time in beta brain waves… this sort of high-alert, fight or flight state where our minds are constantly spinning and we are gogogogo. It’s fine for the purposes of productivity, for analyzing people, for making quick decisions, keeping ourselves safe and all that it’s actually MEANT for. But, and forgive me, because I don’t have the research in front of me, but I’m pretty sure fight or flight is a temporary safety response. It’s supposed to kick in and go away.
For me? I lived for YEARS in fight or flight mode. If I had to delve back ::lays down on the shrink couch:: it’d be caused by the lack of safety in my home life growing up, but obviously fostered by the constant demand for perfection, constant transfer of guilt and blame and anger both emotionally and physically…
I was never safe.
It wasn’t egregious. There were never huge bruises or scars. But maybe that’s because they were all hidden inside.
Walls come up, whether you like it or not, as a result of our brain and heart trying to protect us from further trauma. The more trauma, the more damage, and the more anxious, scared, angry, egocentric, and sad we are – and the deeper those scars go. And the deeper they go? The more you forget about them. It’s like… a spiritual closet. You go to clean it out and you’re gonna find some way ass deep back there fucked up shit that you forget even existed.
Some of us will go our entire lives without going inside to do the work and free ourselves from those wounds. A decluttering or Spring cleaning of the spiritual closet, if you will. Some of us will go way farther into that closet than we ever intended to go in exploring them.
But fight or flight mode, however you arrive there (whether from social conditioning, PTSD, or another way), isn’t meant to stick around. And yet, for every single one of my evaluations with my chiropractor in the last 7 years, when my chiropractor shone his flashlight in my eyes, my pupils would dilate in such a way that indicated my body was living in stress.
It manifested in extraordinary shoulder pain and neck pain. Every week. Even with my supplements in having been going to the chiropractor for that long, it remained. That’s because there are physical, chemical, and EMOTIONAL subluxations that occur in your body, but that’s a blog for another day.
When your body is constantly on the defense, you seek a little break every now and then. And alcohol? Is the PERFECT escape. Well, for some.
Hard day at work? Have a drink.
Fight with the boyfriend? Have a drink.
Wife being impossible? Have a drink.
Kids up your ass 24 hours a day? Have a drink.
It’s not the “Having a drink” part that’s bad. It’s the addiction we form. Not addiction like AA, but our bodies like to wire themselves in. The brain is responsible for sending so much information all the time, it likes to automate what it can. Efficiency, to the logical mind, after all, is everything.
It loves to automate that routine.
Get done with work. Have a drink.
Get in an argument. Have a drink.
Kids are (always) impossible. Have a drink.
We crave it.
Because not only has it become routine, but it chemically pulls down all our walls.
Ahhhh to be uninhibited for an entire night? To not give a fuck about what anyone thought? Act like a dumbass. Chug the beer. Take the shot. Call that ex and tell them what you REALLY think. Do the karaoke. Yell belligerent, stupid things. Just, pull the walls down for a moment and stop thinking on the back end. Do all the things you never allow yourself to do, because we’re so enclosed in these fucking societal cages that we wire-up ourselves with our own inner turmoil and self judgement that we will do the STUPIDEST shit just to not feel ourselves in there for a few hours.
Just to be FREE mentally and emotionally.
It’s so easy to fall into that. And when you’re in the business of providing it and you’re someone who studies her demographic inside and out from a psychological perspective, you can see the trends that allow you to uncover precisely the words that work that trigger the responses in the brain that tell you – Yes, you need a drink. You deserve a drink. You EARNED a drink.
I realize that this is a little counter intuitive, given I own a brewery, and literally profit off this entire concept – but I think awareness is really important.
The key and the reason that the people that don’t drink can do it, is because they’ve found an alternative way to free their minds from all the bullshit without the booze.
There are tons of ways:
Do yoga or meditate. Work out. HIIT training or intensive cardio is a GREAT way to break yourself down so that you can’t think of anything but just existing.
I think if you figure out a way to let things go and relax inside all the bullshit, maybe give yourself credit and allow yourself to just be the person you are without any apologies or any attachments to any other person or things or whatever… that’s when you elevate to see that you don’t need something to bring down those walls or that emotional volatility. Like, hey, it’s not your fault. You’re enough. You can let it go. You’re safe.
These things sound so weird, but you’d be surprised when you say them to yourself how your body and mind react. I did this inner child healing meditation that was just EVERYTHING once.
My point here is – sometimes we need to take a step back and explore why we are doing the things we’re doing. These attention seeking habits, the way we treat the people in our lives, the way we’re so entirely harsh on ourselves and others if they don’t believe what we believe – we need to explore the emotions surrounding them. The ones we don’t acknowledge and turn to get relief for.
There’s data stored within that you need to access to elevate yourself to become a more emotionally aware person. When you’re emotionally aware and still also aware with ration and logic, your ability to manipulate reality and achieve and become whoever you ever wanted to be is exponentially more potent. The more your ability to manipulate your own reality? The less likely you are to attempt to escape your reality.
You can numb this stuff. In fact, if you wanna numb it, I happen to know a chick that owns a brewery that would love to sell you a fuckload of beer.
But its always gonna be there. That’s why alcohol is an “essential” business. Because how the FUCK would we cope with ourselves and everyone around us if we didn’t have our lever to lower the emotional barricades?
Next time you go to drink, ask yourself how you’re feeling and why you’re taking it to the next level. Feeling good has an expense in excess. And that’s not feeling good later. You’re just delaying it, shoving it back into the back of the closet.
Energy cannot be created or destroyed. But it can be transmuted.
You can do that. But you gotta stop avoiding yourself and sit in stillness with yourself. And not everyone is willing to be that uncomfortable.
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