Kindling

So I went to my sister's for dinner last night and it was just kinda weird.  No one was really drinking that much except for her, which still wasn't a lot.  She asked why I wasn't drinking.  I was really honest and told her that I had just recovered from my hangover from last weekend.  She was confused bc she said she didn't think I drank that much and she drank almost as much and felt ok.  I told her that I actually probably consumed 2 bottles of wine by myself. She said, "yeah but over a 6 hour period." I told her that it doesn't even matter any more really how much I drink, that my hangovers are just unbearable - that I didn't get a good nights sleep, my anxiety wasn't completely gone, that my heart didn't stop racing, that I didn't stop getting hot flashes and night sweats, that I didn't poop (sorry that's gross but true) until Thursday! She said, "That's weird."

I said it really isn't and told her about something called "kindling". When you have abused your brain cells with weekend binge drinking 1-4 times a month for 30 years, it causes a lot of damage and that the longer it continues the less it takes to make your hangovers worse and worse.

I told her I just can't do it anymore - that it isn't worth it.  She said, "Well that sucks!" I think she meant that it sucks for me - that my hangovers are getting worse and that I can't drink like I used to.

I really don't think it sucks for me. Maybe it is just a blessing in disguise - a secret little trick that "a higher power" plays on us.  "Fine, you want to keep abusing your body and mind with binge drinking? I will make it harder and more excruciatingly painful to recover! Mwahhahaha!" (that was an evil laugh btw)

Here is part of an article I found on kindling


By continually going through active periods of substance abuse and then periods of sobriety, a person can become overly sensitive to living with – or without – their drug of choice.

If we look at addiction and alcoholism as the chronic and potentially fatal diseases they are, it’s easy to see that the kindling effect is equivalent to a remission of cancer, whereby each new recurrence could be the final, fatal relapse.

These two excerpts from the above article stood out to me the most.

I can say to myself all day long, "I'm not that bad" but I have to admit that if I stay on this road, "I will eventually be that bad."

Is that a chance I am willing to take?  Is this drug really worth the price I could ultimately pay?

This is another article I found. It is lengthy and very technical, but it really goes into the brain damage that binge drinking causes.

http://rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/363/1507/3169