Fading Affect Bias-Explains My Worst Fears

Will I drink again? I never want to forget the reasons I quit.

Book Review: Alcohol Explained By William Porter

When we were teenagers, you may have heard that alcohol is bad in health class. Basic things like, it’s a depressant, or it’s not good for your organs. You may have stayed away from it in high school. But then, you turned 21, and a whole world of drunken-related shenanigans became your joyful moments of life — the icing on the cake.

And then, time reared on, and you still found yourself drinking. You got older. Party life got slower until you found yourself binge-watching mommy’s shows on the couch late into the night. If you say, “yup, sounds familiar,” then you and I lived similar lifestyles.

You, like me, have forgotten the lessons from that health class. Thinking back now, I am not even sure what my health teacher taught me exactly, but I know it didn’t include a discussion about brain chemistry.

So, let’s refresh our memory.

William Porter’s book Alcohol Explained shares the truth of what alcohol does to your mind and body. Here are some major keep points.

What sticks out to me:

1. Alcohol is a depressant and eventually dulls our senses making us feel joyless.
2. Drinking alcohol triggered our reward system (dopamine) unnaturally. This makes it difficult to feel joy naturally.
3. The repeated use of alcohol impacts your subconscious.
4. The moment we drink, our body responds with anxiety. The more you drink, the more anxious you become.
5. Fading Affect Bias- after some distance, you start to forget what it was like and perhaps begin focusing on the ‘good’ or ‘pleasurable’ aspects.

Throughout all the chapters, it seems William Porter wants to remind readers that alcohol is a depressant and dulls our senses. It doesn’t make us excited or feel good. It is an anesthetic. A slew of other chemicals is excreted through our body to alleviate the withdrawal of alcohol, even after one drink. This system becomes taxed over time, leaving us feeling depressed, anxious, and moody nearly every day.

What we think is a relief ends up triggering a sequence of physiological events that makes our bodies feel more depressed, anxious, and stressed. He offers some strategies for quitting drinking towards the end of the book. But mainly, this book does a great job with what the title suggests; explains alcohol.

One major thing that sticks out to me about this book is the idea of the Fading Affect Bias (FAB). Ken Makimsy Middleton explains why people keep repeating mistakes in this article. It’s all because of the Fading Affect Bias. This effect is when you start to forget all the bad stuff after time passes, and you start remembering the joys of drinking.

“FAB warps the reality of past events, making us see them more positively than they were. With drinking, it means we forget the reality; the tiredness, the lying awake worrying, the lethargy, and all for the dubious pleasure of drinking a carcinogen whose main benefit is to anesthetize all the unpleasant feelings the last dose caused. Instead, we think of those one or two occasions where we think we enjoyed a drink.” -William Porter on FAB.

I am committed to my sober lifestyle. I have finally admitted that I need to abstain from alcohol to reach the goals I set out for myself. I know that moderation isn’t for me in my heart of hearts. I have tried that and failed over and over and over and over and over and over… It’s like the song that never ends or that never-ending knock-knock joke — Bill Murray’s Groundhogs Day. I have exhausted the drinking lifestyle. Now I am on a new frontier. Sober living. It’s exciting. It’s scary. And it’s brought me more clarity than I have had in years.

But, I know from experience that I may entertain that drink when I start to feel good, like when I am camping. One drink won’t hurt. I have had enough time under my belt. Why not? What is the worst that can happen? I am afraid that I will forget the damaging effects drinking has on my life. The sleepless nights. The bloat. The consistent feeling of the burden of getting out of bed for the day. The angriness. The overwhelm. The outbursts. The loneliness. I never want to forget that I wasted my life drinking, sacrificing the sweet moments that parenthood has to offer for a sip of wine here and there. I know that sip is going to turn into Groundhog’s Day.

I never want to forget how the side effects of alcohol affected my inability to handle the situation. I was no Olivia Pope.

I never want to forget how the side effects of alcohol affected my inability to feel fully present with the people I love, especially my kids.

I never want to forget how the side effects of alcohol affected my inability to love myself.

I never want to forget.

So, when I read about FAB, lightning hit me. As I write this, I have 54 days of sobriety under my belt. Minus my time in pregnancy, this is the longest I have been sober since I was 20 years old. In 3 months, I have gone through 2 resets; that’s two sets of 10 days of getting over the withdrawal and a lot of deep intentional breathing to silence the ping pong back in forth questioning to drink or not to drink? The light bulb switched on and illuminated a shadow I wasn’t ready to explore. The work isn’t over yet. Will it ever be?

Will it ever be? For some reason, I felt that after a 21 day reset, I would feel fixed as if I wouldn’t have to deal with this ‘issue’ anymore. And yet, what I have come to realize is that the 21-day reset wasn’t a fix-all. It was a door opening to a new journey I idealized in planning for, but I realized I was on the tarmac waiting to board a really long flight. This isn’t a commuter flight, ya’ll. This is a cross-country flight to catch another plane to a distant country that you know little about but have seen pictures of on your Instagram feed. When you open the door to this journey, it invites you to a destination. But when you arrive, you realize it’s just another feedback moment to the life you are living. How do you want to live it?

Keeping the study of the impacts of alcohol on my radar helps me stay the course. Reading a quit-lit, a genre of self-help that is committed to supporting recovery, helps me understand not only the effects of alcohol on my life but helps lift a burden off my shoulders. I am not alone.

So, Alcohol Explained. Do I recommend this book? Hell ya.

This book is for anyone who is exploring their relationship with alcohol.

This book will remind you of how alcohol affects your body and mind and how your mind tries so hard to compensate for what you do to it. Regardless of where you are on your journey, this book will challenge your romantic visions of the joys of drinking and remind you of the reality of your relationship with alcohol.

Alcohol is a depressant. It dulls your senses. Its purpose is to make you go to sleep. It is not what we have made it out to be. Thank you, William Porter, for engaging in the truth of this carcinogen.

DISCLAIMER: Some of these links may be affiliate links. This means that I receive a small commission when you purchase. Also, I am an educator, not a medical professional or a licensed counselor. If you have concerns about alcoholism and/or trauma related healing, including mental health concerns please seek help from the appropriate professional.

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