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

rule of thumb in substance abuse gathering:

The social drinker can have a couple of drinks and his personality doesn't change.

The alcoholic has a couple of drinks and there is a personality change, i.e. the shy wallflower turns into a pole dancer on the dance floor.

Well, I think that alcohol in excess causes brain damage, and, over time, this can produce changes in personality over and above the addiction thing.

Although, it's interesting....ever met anyone with Korsakoff's...(a dementia common in alcoholics and older anorexics..due to vitamin B deficiency)?

Often the apparent personality remains there...all the mannerisms and ways of relating...but there's just no content.

Have you every taken any substance abuse courses?

Only very general ones...don't work in that area.

From what I have seen of it, I don't find a lot of the AA dogma convincing at all, by the way, if you were thinking of posting about that.

I don't dispute that it works for a lot of people, but I don't find a lot of the stuff said about the difference between alcoholics and others persuasive, for instance.

I thought at first you were asking if I'd ever abused any substances.



The answer is yes.

But I seem, generally speaking, to remain myself.

Quite sad, really.

It's actually vitamin B1 (thiamine) - and the relation to alcoholics is that this syndrome was first described by Korsakoff with alcoholics - severe malnutrition, dietary deficiencies, and eating disorders are for instances some other actual reasons for a Korsakoff.

A combination of the Wernicke and Korsakoff s., the Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome is worse - and found more with (deadly ill) alcoholics than Korsakoff.

Please qualify what is an alcoholic behavior and what is not alcoholic behavior in your thinking. AA is for folks smart enough, before it is too late, to stop drinking .

paint by numbers is one of many ways to make a picture.

Excuse me Rockhead, I don't think this is the William Alexander thread.

might be more interesting if it were.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Melville_Alexander

wrong Alexander

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRZBrdMuzBY

yeah.

somebody else brought him up I think.

not as colorful as my guy.

anyway, back to the bunny's show now...

No I would never ask you that question. It's not any of my business.

I think scared comes before smart. For example, our former genius alcoholic president G.W.Bush got an ultimatum from his wife Laura: "it's either the sauce, or me" (paraphrased, but you get the idea).

Or, the doctor tells them their liver is past pickled and will stop filtering within a month.

No, why?

I didn't see anyone here who stated that alcohol "merely lowers inhibitions." I consider that the loss of inhibition is a drastic condition, and can be potentially dangerous.

A problem i see with this discussion's direction is a comparison of the "social drinker," the occasional binge drinker, the chronic binge drinker and the alcoholic. Referring, for example, to the effects which arise from malnutrition in alcoholics with regard to change in personality is not at all the same as asking if the occasional binge drinker undergoes a permanent personality change.

I understand Set. It seems folks want to discuss alcohol effects without discussing the detremental aspects.

We all know the damage alcohol can cause. Do you want personal stroies, or what? Cause I know I'm not going to go into it.

The misuse of alcohol cause damages.

Not interested in war stories. But I do love recovery stories.