Sometimes, after nights or weekends of drinking, I feel as
if I have a day or so where my antidepressants seem to have no effects and I
return to low moods. It is only in these moments that I wonder how on earth
alcohol is legal and how damning it is on our society.
I’m not going to go and preach about how bad it is for us
like some sort of saint, for undoubtedly in the next couple of weekends I will
have occasions where I drink heavily once again. Yet even despite that, I
believe society as a whole makes it so that you need alcohol to ‘have fun’ and
we overlook its true effects to suit us.
I could throw statistics about the harm of alcohol or
medical studies that prove its danger at you, but if I’m honest, as a reader
I’d find that quite condescending. So at risk of sounding a little
self-centred, I’m going to talk about its effect on me. And maybe have a little
rant at society’s attitudes to it in doing so!
When most think of alcohol, most usually think of having an
amazing time followed by a splitting hangover the next day, and I was of the
same opinion up until the start of this year. I need not get into it again but I’ve
ended up on an antidepressant, sertraline, which has improved my mental
well-being tenfold. I’ve still drunk alcohol, as you would expect of an 18
year-old teenager, but it’s made me notice the distinct impact it has had on
me.
Alcohol is a depressant, that cannot be disputed. It slows
our actions down, blocks some of the receptors to our brains, and depresses the
central nervous system. But it makes us feel on top of the world while we are
drunk. Yet after I drink alcohol on these medication, even if it is just a pint
or two, at some point in the next day I will feel like I cannot do the most
simple things. And this scares me.
It gives me a stark reminder to when my mental health was at
its worst, late January and early February. In these alcohol-induced moods
though, I am at least a little more self-aware of why I’m feeling awful and the
knowledge that it is only temporary softens the blow a little. Yet similarly,
the simple fact that alcohol acts as a neutraliser to the antidepressants that
have had so much of an effect in the last few months, serves as evidence to me
that alcohol is a depressant.
Here I reach a crossroads in this piece. I can either go one
way and harshly slam alcohol and its influence on us all, or go the other and
condone its use. This challenges me in many a way.
For on one hand, I really do believe society would generally
be ‘happier’ in the absence of alcohol (though I recognise happy is such a
loose term, and has no real definition). We did not truly know the detriment of
alcohol when it first started becoming part of culture and a way to enjoy
ourselves, yet even once we’ve found those severe dangers that they can have on
both our physical and mental health, we choose to ignore them.
And the sole reason for this is money. Alcohol makes us so
much money from tax and the like that we choose for it to be legal. To me, this
seems pretty abhorrent and shows the power of wealth in our society. How on
earth is it right to put money before the well-being of fellow human beings?
Yet on the other hand, you could point to many things such
as sugar that we allow but have harmful impacts on us. And it would also be so
hypocritical of me to condemn alcohol and yet continue to drink it. Not to
mention the fact that I cannot speak for everyone so my view on its effects
might be exaggerated, we do not know.
You might suggest that the solution is simple; I just stop
drinking. But that’s not the point. I simply think we just underestimate the
dangers of alcohol, simply because it is legal.
Look at how the majority view hard illegal drugs. With
disdain and contempt. Is alcohol really different because more of us drink it
and governments who profit from it allow it?
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