Can alcohol change personality, or does it just reveal what is there?

In my opinion, from my observation:
it is unpredictable, even as to the same person
(as u have already indicated).

As among different people,
as to some it probably reveals the underlying personality (sometimes)
and as to other folks, it alters their personalities.

Without rigorous experimentation, we can only guess.





David

If it wasn't for booze I wouldn't have any personality at all. When sober I am totally beige. Unfortunately I am totally beige almost all the time.

Why is Dyslexia beige?



So he can hide in the tofu.

So not true.

You are blonde.

Or maybe griege.

Because your post read to me as a play on words, which I found amusing.

Huh?


I, just as an example, have discussed Korsakoff's, and you think I don't get the detrimental aspects?

Well, it's not be PERMANENT when, by definition, I am talking about someone who seems to be quite different when drunk as opposed to sober, so I am really excluding those with frank brain damage.


I was hoping someone might come along who actually knew whether alcohol can chemically act in the way that ice does, for instance.....I mean, not in the same way...but ice really does seem to be able to make people hyper-aggressive. I have wondered if it induces paranoia.


I admit I haven't done a really determined search, but all I have found on the web so far doesn't seem to be based on anything but opinion and ongoing rehearsal of what others have said before.

I thought you were a redhead.

I think of low bottom drunks as candidates for Korsakoffs not white collar alcoholics who haven't suffered losses, yet.

These are classic cases of projection. I have neither suggested that anyone does not wish to discuss the "detrimental aspects" of alcohol use, nor have i asked anyone for personal stories.

My point in making that remark is that the question seemed, initially, simply to be about the effect of alcohol on the individual, but that it had wandered off into a discussion of the effect of long term and/or heavy alcohol abuse on the individual. Essentially, i complaining of a lack of specificity in the question. As asked, "Can alcohol change personality, or does it just reveal what is there," it seemed to me to be a very general question about the effect of the drug on an otherwise unspecified individual.

But if Miss Wabbit had something else in mind, or if the majority opinion is that something more specific needs to be discussed, it would be, at the least, simple courtesy to let people know.

I think that there has very likely been very little serious research (i.e., research with a methodology subject to analysis and criticism) on alcohol. When i got out of the army, in which i had been in the medical corps, i worked for a few years in hospitals (until i got sick of prima dona nurses and doctors), and specifically in emergency rooms. Weekends, of course, you're just swamped with drunks who have injured themselves, or with those injured as the result of their or someone else's drunkenness. One of the complaints i heard more than once by ER doctors was the lack of reliable literature on alcohol and its effects--other than long term, heavy alcohol abuse. There was an article in The New England Journal of Medicine in the early 1970s about the effect of a 5% fructose solution (IV drip) as opposed to the normal 5% glucose, but that was simply a description of clinical effects, and didn't address the much more interesting topic of how alcohol effects the individual's personality.

Given that alcohol is one of the most destructive drugs known to man, and that it is legal almost everywhere as it has been for thousands of years, and finally, given the vexed questions of drug abuse in our contemporary world, i would hazard a surmise that no one has really ever taken a systematic look a the topic. You can bet Seagram's isn't going to fund the research. As the most commonly abused drug, i'd bet the idea of dissecting it with clinical studies makes too many people uncomfortable.

And we do live in a society with a terrible blind spot. Prospective employers or government agencies often require drug testing before they will employ you--they don't seem to take much interest in one's drinking habits, though, unless and until they glaringly impinge on one's performance of one's duties.

When and after I went through detox and rehab, became poart of a longer term genetic study with alcoholics. It took several years to establish the condition as alcoholism among the participants. Personality shifts and conditions in sleeplessness were among the markers that were used to define alcohol induced "lesions".
The genetic marker was on PAX-2 and 3 and included a chemo-metabolic compound THIQ. The THIQ was a metabolic pathway that was responsible for the inability to break down acetaldehyde and instead, created a surfeit of various ketones. The relationship between personality changes and the THIQ "enzyme flood" was then studied and , as I recall, there was a proposed mechanism for pwersonality changes in alcoholics. However, as I recall, this study was never duplicated (I think mostly for funding cuts during the Clinton years and funding disappearance during BushII).
Was this published?. All I know was that there was serious work done at the U of Penn med school and similar work at YAle (I believe).

The whole thing was to do a better understanding of the genetic components of dependencies that seem to be populational , as identified by allele id study.

NOW, the important thing to me, has always been, is it a permamnent condition or merely temporarily induced.

SO, I just quit drinking entirely and I havent beaten anyone up for over twenty years.

Thank you Farmerperson!

Exactly the kind of thing I was hoping for.

Be fascinating to know if it was ever replicated, since people throw around all kinds of assumptions about alcoholism.

Well, as said, there has been some works done years ago.

I've looked through my thesis: I used one, done by Jewish Hospital in Berlin: the psychiatry has as important focus the addiction therapy and research, with (one of) Europe's most long-standing tradition.

Ill have to look up the meta pathway for THIQ (I believe that THIQ is tetrahydroxy-indoquinone-[but dont quote me])

Hoever deb, if there is a sizable base of evidence for a genetic marker for a metabolic condition (alcohol induced inability to process acetaldehyde), then the possible association for personality changes , both induced and permamnent, seems to be a next step, but I can see that , like circumstantial evidence, the real conclusion that "this must follow" dosnt seem to be too rigorous.

The study used certain personality lesions to establish alcoholism. It didnt plot these personality changes as being "Induced", but they just may ride along with the whole bag of specific genetic stuff .
KnowhatImean?

So...what did this inquire about, and what was the outcome?

I don't remember it exactly .... and I can't find that thesis since ages. (Though parts of it were reprinted not the more psychiatric chapters.)

The survey was based, as far as I remember on the ideas of Badura.

But the most recent study done here was an analysis by the Insdtitue of Cognitive Neuropsychiatry at the University of Tübingen, "The Comorbidity of Anorexia Nervosa and Personality Disorders: A Meta-Analysis". (With a chapter where the authors compared it to previous analysis re alcoholism.)
It was only announced two weeks ago at a congress in Berlin and will be published later next year.

What about the deer ?

sometimes you can be an annoying asshole Dave. What does quoting my entire post followed by a stupid comment that is only funny to you yet is still a source of some nightime disturbance for me. When I sometimes share stuff, I do it to initiate communication not to suffer ridicules from some corner dweller. Im gonna give you a months rest by putting you on ignore for a while. Im not getting annoyed, I just would like you to know that I didnt find you particularly funny.
Maybe my own PAX 2 is in hypersensitivity since my accident, So Ill talk with you in Feb.

sorry, lets get back to your subject at hand