Considering I’ve gone the last 50 days without drinking any alcohol, I have to say that Annie Grace’s book, This Naked Mind, is the most influential book I read in 2019.
This book now sits in my martial arts section in between my Taoist meditation collection and various works on how to punch people in the face. That’s because this book is psychic dynamite. If you really like drinking, and are of the impression it’s not that big of a deal to tie one on from time to time, you don’t want to read this book.
I didn’t begin to abstain immediately after reading the book, but my perspective changed in a single day. It was one of those books that made me so uncomfortable, I had to read it all in one sitting. Something deep down wanted to argue, wanted to put it off. I knew that something would keep me from ever picking it up again. So, knowing when my first impulse is to push back on something, that I’m trying to defend my position without considering it, I instead started taking notes.
6 hours later my wife came home and I read my notes to her. I couldn’t get through them without crying. So yeah, it packs a punch.
In short, the book tackles social and cultural issues as well as the science of alcohol consumption. Not only does it cover how alcohol is marketed, the never ending campaign of you deserve a beer, it clearly lays out how alcohol changes the chemical makeup of the brain, making it impossible to perceive reality objectively long after you think you are sober.
I’ve read a number of books about addiction and alcoholism. They have each had something important to say but none have swayed me quite like this book to the mental ninjitsu of alcohol.
After each chapter I made notes. Most of which are very personal. Instead of sharing all of them, I’m picking out the one’s that are most straight forward, but it’s hard for me to hide my feelings. Here goes:
-Alcohol reduces the brain's ability to understand what is and isn’t a threat. Once it has affected your system, anything that keeps you from drinking is a threat. Family, friends, job, or hobbies.
-It’s a short term solution that has an exponential long term cost. Like borrowing money from a loan shark that charges 200% interest everyday after the original loan.
-Alcohol doesn’t make you feel better. Instead your brain’s ability to process sensation overall decreases.
-You aren’t more charming and you aren’t funnier. At least not in the way you would hope. But your ability to read social cues has lessened so you don’t notice the discomfort of others.
-The pain (often existential) remains, for when you wake up tomorrow, the pain returns often worse than before. But is hard to remember that, because alcohol affects memory. Though the alcohol allows for a short cut, or a short circuit, a quick fix as it were, to dull our social, emotional, and psychological discomfort, it can never make them go away. It actually increases our feeling of powerlessness, because “without alcohol, how else can I handle those situations?”
-Uncomfortable emotions aren’t washed away, they are suppressed. It doesn’t make us feel more comfortable or confident in social situations. Instead alcohol makes it harder to empathize with people, and so we confuse a growing sense of indifference with comfort. You don’t get better at handling situations, you just care less how they turn out.
-If it alcohol made you happy you would be filled with happiness by now.
-Claiming alcohol gives you pleasure is like saying it’s enjoyable to create blisters for the relief of taking off your shoes.
I can go on (I have 5 more pages of notes), but why try to rewrite the book? The Naked Mind made me challenge my definition of courage. It made me aware of my unconscious biases and gave me a way to examine my life more closely. It asked me to consider what I needed a break from and what I really deserved. It offered me a way to be more honest with myself and more present for the people I love.
I have another 50 days to go on my 100 day challenge of no alcohol. Why did I make that choice? I needed to see for myself what life was like without drinking. I needed to discover tools and techniques to deal with the frustrations of life without compounding them. And ultimately I wanted to discover what my best was, without giving myself an excuse for failure. Good enough isn’t my best. And I, along with my family and friends, deserve my best.
I challenge you to read this book. I understand you might be nervous, but I promise it’s worth your life.