Alcohol?

[metal dog]

Alcohol...

 

When one is "under the influence" of alcohol it means that it has affected them physiologically and behaviorally to where another person can note they are under the influence or the actual drinker can sense they are under the influence of alcohol.

 

Most people drink alcohol to alter their consciousness or change the way they feel. Not as a medicinal dose.

This is where moderation and caution is best advised. And a thorough asking of oneself as to why they wish to drink to change their mood or how they feel.

 

I believe the term "spirits" was given to alcoholic beverages because it can render one's will weakened and allow external entities to inhabit such a person who has diminished control over themselves, or while under the influence their behavior changes so much that they act as if something had possession over them. I believe both are applicable and accurate.

 

Alcohol is naturally present in very small amounts in healthful fermented drinks like kefir. But the alcohol is a byproduct of the fermentation process and is not the reason why the beverage is consumed, nor does the amount seem to tax the internal organs or effect behavior.

 

Then you have fermented grains where the original "beer" was a fermented porridge thick enough that one need to eat it with a spoon. It is from here that the process of creating alcohol comes from with small beers, ale, strong beers and the rest of the hard liquors. Wine of course from grapes, rice wine from rice, etc.

 

Alcohol in very minute amounts in food is not consumed for changing mood or its effects. One is consuming healthful food and is getting a minute amount of alcohol unintentionally speaking.

 

When one consumes alcohol for the sake of consuming alcohol and changing mood or consciousness then some considerations need to be pondered.

 

Intoxication is just that...a toxicity. And this is how alcohol changes your mood, as a toxic reaction occurring within.

 

How toxic is alcohol?

 

"The World Health Organization has classified alcohol as a Group 1 carcinogen, which puts it in the same class as tobacco smoke and asbestos."

 

So how toxic is alcohol even if you're only having a few wines or beers over dinner each night, once a week, once a month, once a year? It is up to the consumer decide.

 

It is the resveratrol in wine that gives it the health properties commonly touted. This can be gained by drinking good quality organic grape juice or grapes. Thing is, if the grapes have been sprayed with insecticides or anti-bacterial or fungal sprays the grapes will have no resveratrol. So an organic designation on these products is your best bet to getting the healthy substance. And why not get this healthy substance without consuming a Class 1 carcinogen along with it?

Those who have the benefits to heart health by drinking alcohol offset that benefit by their incidences of increased colon cancers.

 

Do a little research on the fraud in the wine industry about how many wines that are advertised as good quality are really not that good and have additives that are not required to be labeled. This practice for saving money is quite rampant in the industry with many large companies. You would not know it because there are no requirements to put in on the label. Also many wines have sulfites (calcium sulfite) as a preservative, which I cannot drink because they give me a headache. And it is suspected that sulfites may also be carcinogenic.

 

There are many additives in today's commercial alcoholic drinks that are under scrutiny regarding health.

Alcohol is not a health promoting substance. It kills live cells on contact and is carcinogenic.

It dehydrates the body and taxes the internal organs sometimes to their limits. It is not good for the liver.

 

It is high in sugar and many develop a dependence or addiction to the sugar or alcohol itself. It has a significant depleting action on certain vitamins and minerals.

 

Consider the role of alcohol in people's behaviors and its role in suicides (one of the top ten causes of death in the world is suicide) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide

 

That can give you the worst-case considerations to think about. From there one can work toward the positives, the issue of moderation, to relax, medicinal use and work it out for themselves and in what context.

 

For myself...I see no benefit for me at all. I drank when I was in college due to socializing, but even small amounts slow me down or make me feel upset in the stomach. So I never really touch the stuff. Because of this, in my youth, it was the ganga that did it for me...and its side effects were of no concern to my immortal self-image and outlook on life at the time. But even this I don't do any longer because, it too has deleterious side effects.

 

I have found that I do not socialize with drinkers, cigarette smokers or drug users any longer. The whole aura around these activities and the socializing around them are absent from my reality.

Edited August 24, 2010 by metal dog

[Gerard]

...I have found that I do not socialize with drinkers, cigarette smokers or drug users any longer. The whole aura around these activities and the socializing around them are absent from my reality.

 

 

Very "iron dog" kind of answer.

 

I agree though.

 

Often entities get attached to those who abuse themselves emotionally through drug usage (recreational drugs, tobacco, sex, gambling, etc.) as they open holes in their auras, hence their natural defences are low and prone to hungry ghosts and demons who are very keen to suck human energy.

[metal dog]

Regarding smoking...

 

These are my earliest observations as a child and having found the act of smoking on many levels to be extremely repulsive.

 

I found it strange and foreign for someone to be lifting a white shaft of paper filled with dried brown stuff to their mouths and lighting it with a flame, sucking it, and inhaling and exhaling the smoke. The movements of the body to tap the pack of cigs repeatedly, open it, remove a cig, tap the cig to further compact the contents, lift it to one's mouth and then light it while further witnessing the act of smoking it. The body motions of holding the cig and how one actually smokes it. The flicking of the ashes and tapping into an ashtray. And the eventual accumulation of spent and bent butts lying in an ash-filled tray. The sight of a filled ashtray just as visually disgusting as an open hole in an outhouse filled with nastiness.

 

The effects on the body and mind are insidious. Also the effects on other's surrounding air and the potential for second and even third hand smoke related toxins making others sick.

 

It is slow suicide. And I would question seriously the judgment of someone who does this to themselves.

And I have found that I cannot really hang around people who smoke while they are smoking. The visual, the smell and whole scene is just so repulsive to my senses that I remove it from my reality as much as possible.

 

Same thing with alcohol and drinkers. Same thing with drug use.

 

I have gone through all of this extensively in my life and came out the other side to totally dismiss it all and leave it totally behind.

They are scourges upon human potential and lead one away from realizing who they are or can become during their personal evolution.

 

I truly, cannot for the life of me, figure out how humanity still smokes.