Why do we never learn from our hangovers?

Question

Am currently nursing the most cruel hangover of my life and even though i feel like not drinking ever ever ever again I know this won't be the case. Why does our brain not tell us to not drink alcohol as it is poisonous?

Answer 1

Well, its like this, any thing that is bad for us we want it even more.

Answer 2

I'm 30, I've had one hangover in my life (I didn't like it) and now I still drink but I know my limit.

Do you remember the first time you tasted alcohol? Our brains do try to give us a heads up; most people don't like it at first. It has an addictive quality though, so those who persist (nearly everybody), generally begin to associate alcohol with it's pleasant effects. Once you're feeling pleasant you want to feel more pleasant and so you drink more to achieve it but it doesn't work and instead you end up with a hangover. If you manage to not lose you're head while you're tipsy, you can avoid the unpleasantness and save yourself some cash as well.

Answer 3

Following a hangover, provided one has not had a drink in rising from bed (an 'eye-opener'), we rapidly forget the foul feeling as the body responds and becomes detoxified and normal.

The immediacy of the reward that alcohol gives means that concerns about hangovers get rapidly forgotten, especially after the first couple of pints or shots have been consumed and the alcohol gets to work on reducing our discernment.

I do not subscribe to the theory of "binge drinking" - the theory that states that 5 pints of beer taken several times per week is symptomatic of a drink problem. When I was young, maturing (like a good wine), in industrial Tyneside, it was common for a lot of men to take 4 or five pints of beer on a daily basis. These were not all young men - most of the users of my local on a daily basis were men in their forties and beyond. However, one seldom saw them drunk - they had become accustomed to their daily ration, and moderate drinking such as I have described was very much the norm.

Given the stress that we all have these days - long work hours, commuting, the constant change of values within society, the reduction of the enforcement of law, the insecurity of employment (and, thus, ones means of making a living), alcohol is a useful de-stressor, if consumed sensibly, and appears now to be a necessary drug of the first resort as a means of alleviating the stresses that we are forced to live with in this non-Unionised, competitive, exploitative and uncaring society. A few beers will not hurt any more than the constant adrenaline rush of the fight or flight mechanism encouraged by business gurus from Alan Sugar downwards.

I have no time for youths, or others, who seem to think that the be all and end all of leisure is to get pissed and noisy as quickly as possible on the worst kind of liquid **** available.

For the ordinary drinker, I suggest the following guidelines.

1. Eat, before you drink.
2. Drink real beer (bitter, from a hand-pump) Lager is full of chemicals.
3. Whatever you drink, drink it from a glass. Drinkling directly from a bottle means that you take in air as well as beer. Hic!
4. Find out, from yourself, why you drink. If.for any reason - stress, peer pressure or whatever, you set out on a drinking bout - either at home or in pubs, with the precise intent to get pissed, pack it in pronto and see a doctor of medicine.

Answer 4

There are many people who do learn from the hangovers. However, many people, after recovering from the hangover want to go chase the high again. Then there are the alcoholics who will never stop, unless they realize they are under the power of alcohol.

Answer 5

Because we only focus on the "fun" we thought we had that last time we drank, not the miserable hangover.
All action starts with thought, so you are going to have to remind yourself on a daily (at least) basis that you don't want to drink again because it is poisonous, and you don't like the hangover.

Answer 6

My brain did tell me this for nearly five years. I got alcohol poisoning nearly six years ago and didn't touch alcohol for a very veryyyy long time! Now I'll just have a drink or two a couple times a month.
When your body has finally had enough, you'll know it's time to quit or at least slow down.

Answer 7

Well Rosiomartin honey.

Our brains seek stimulation.

And not only is alcohol available, addictive and tasty (sometimes) but it is also a stimulant. By receiving this stimulation of alcohol to you're brain, one see's themselves as more confident, more out-going and does things that they would other wise not do, when sober.
Lets face it, society is Boring! Just look at the extreme measures that the human mind brings us to in order to quench our stimulation longing:

Cage Diving, Hand feeding crocodiles, car surfing, sky diving, the results are endless!

Anyway, we receive such a stimulation when experiencing 'tipsyness' or 'drunkeness' or, rather, intoxication that our mind tells us that we ENJOY drinking alcohol.

We are in a constant search for enjoyment, after all, we are constantly told to live for the moment and that you only live once, so we do as we please and stimulate our bodies with alcohol.

Hey, just be thankful that you are not reaching stimulation through illegal drugs. ;-)

Answer 8

I don't know.

But after the day you've had a hangover, you seem to forget how bad it was. I remember my worst ever hangover, yet thinking back to it, I can't remember how bad I actually felt.

It would make sense that our brains tell us that alcohol is poisonous.... hmmm... good question.

Answer 9

A very good question. Drinking alcohol gives us that elusive feeling of being at one with the world. Our nerves are soothed and we seem to become closer to our friends and strangers-a social lubricant. I was willing to put up with the hangovers because it allowed me to live in the world. Drinking eventually became a subtly powerful and humanly unbreakable obsession.
Alcoholics anonymous gave me the help I needed to stop drinking.

Answer 10

Because we also enjoy the fun times that can be had when we drink. When you are going out to drink with friends, you can forget about the consequences that follow the next day. You are just concerned with being happy for the moment.

Answer 11

Simply because you do not want to. I am allergic to alcohol , I lack an enzyme that allows me to process it.... therefore I do not ever ever drink. I tried to drink every so often when I was younger but always had the same results, couldn't breathe, my face would turn red like the devil from the constricted capillaries.... and after awhile I said WHY BOTHER?????