Drinking: A Love Story - Knapp, C.

Question 1

Compensatory Adaptations

Answer 1

Developed by the brain over time in order to counteract the artificial stimulation of physiological processes; it is an effort by the brain to bring its own chemistry back into its natural equilibrium

Question 2

Stats about alcoholism

Answer 2

• Alcohol contributes to nearly 100,000 deaths a year
• It is the third largest cause of preventable death

Question 3

What does alcohol do to the brain?

Answer 3

Drinking artificially “activates” the brain’s reward system. By drinking too much, your brain’s ability to manufacture feelings of well-being and calm on its own diminishes, and you come to depend increasingly on the artificial stimulus.
The first low doses give the drinker a revved-up, accelerates the heart rate, and stimulates brain cells, all of which makes the drinker feel giddy

Question 4

Why is it hard for the drinker to gain control?

Answer 4

Drinking can have physiological roots –> losing control from alcohol because a set of very powerful physical mechanisms was at work.
No number of revelations or willpower will counter that call, as your neurological reward circuits have extremely long and powerful memories but will not remember the bad memories associated with overdrinking.

Question 5

What is the cucumber-to-picle analogy?

Answer 5

It describes how difficult it is for an alcoholic to fully revert back to their old self; once you’ve crossed the line into alcoholism, there appears to be no safe way to drink again, no way to return to normal, social, controlled drinking.
You can try to stop a cucumber from turning into a pickle, but there’s no way you can turn a pickle back into a cucumber.