Alcohol vs stress

Let’s say someone is constantly stressed out from life and work, and having a drink at night would calm him down and help take the stress away. What do you think has a more negative impact on hormones/muscle building- alcohol or stress?

Obviously using drinking as a coping mechanism is unhealthy but I’m strictly talking from a bodybuilding stand point. I know alcohol is one of the worst things we can put in our body but, can stress be equally destructive?

I am not a big drinker and hardly ever have a drink but this crossed my mind the other day and wanted to see what everyone’s thoughts were. My theory is the relaxing, de-stressing effect alcohol has in moderation (1-2 drinks) will offset the negative effects it has on your body, as you would be relieving stress, which can be pretty harmful as well.

Having a drink or getting drunk? Nothing wrong IMO with having a glass of wine or even a mixed drink once in a while even if its to relieve sress or just relax. Kick back, have a drink and talk about something or watch some tv to get your mind off things.

Now if you are getting drunk to forget about whatever you need to look for another outlet IMO. I enjoy a good drink but its probably been 30 years since I got drunk or more than a slight buzz.

Today I broke my record and stayed under a 62 fahrenheit shower for 2 minutes. I also took two of the hottest chilli species in my mouth before getting into the shower.

I believe that what I did this morning was genuine stress relief. I believe that it eased tensions inside me and made me more plyable emotionally and psychologically.

I don't deny that alcohol can provide an immense feeling of relief. After I had my money stolen one time about 13 years ago, I was working 3 jobs just to try get a bit of money back. Having a glass or two of whiskey and cola in the evening really helped.

The feeling of relief you get from alcohol isn't the result of a physiological, nor emotional process. When I recover a few minutes after eating chilli and feel the relief, or when I towel myself off after a cold shower, the way I feel is the result of what my body has just been through, my body's relieved that my mouth's no longer burning, my eye's are no longer watering, and my skin's not freezing. There's cause and effect there between the discomfort and the relief.

The stress relief you get from alcohol doesn't defuse the stress, it just brings you into a mindset of 'why bother regulating my emotions if alcohol can do that for me?'. Your mind knows that it can attain relief from alcohol, your mind begins to crave this convenience. Regulation of emotion becomes less important when you have an intoxicant.

I realise you're talking purely about the physiological/medical side of things, for example "Is the stress hormone cortisol more detrimental to muscle building than alcohol?"
I think what's really happening here is that your mind is craving the relief it gets from alcohol and so your mind is now coming up with 100 different excuses as to why you should ingest alcohol (even going so far as to suggest it might reduce the catabolism of cortisol).

I was at an Al Anon meeting lastnight, it's for the friends of people who go to AA. At one point during the meeting I raised my voice just a little and told them that I see alcohol as just another intoxicant -- and that there are consequences to deliberately intoxicating yourself (I gave them a list and I emphasised the loss of psychological resilience).

If you grow up in a culture where "your grandmother would take a drop of drink" then it can take decades to shake off all that grooming and realise that your family and all your ancestors were all, to some degree or another, alcoholics.

bodybuilders are some of the biggest abusers in the world.
alcohol, drugs, they abuse it all.

i guarantee having a drink or 2 a night is a so much better then constant stress from life and work. Stress is the silent killer, it destroys ur body from the inside out. i know first hand brotha

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Originally Posted by Cylon357

You aren't looking to learn how to fight here, you're trying to relieve stress, tire yourself out, and avoid reaching for the bottle every single night. This will do it.

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This sounds to me like good productive stress relief. Some people can get away without wrapping their hands and wrists but I always wrapped up.

If it’s doing more good than harm then go with what works for you.

Yeah I’m not talking getting drunk- 1-2 mixed drinks (jack and Diet Coke). I’ve gotten into the habit of having a drink at night after the baby goes to sleep… I just feel like it melts the worries away. I don’t really want to make it a habit though… when I was really into training I would stay away from it completely, especially when using orals. But I have been off aas for awhile (trying to have another kid) and out of the gym due to surgery on a tendon.

lmao @ cyclon... hittin a heavy bag lol.


Yeah man, stress creates cortisol, which is catabolic. I'd rather enjoy a glass of something or a toke of something and relax than lose sleep, feel depressed and have constant stress and anxiety. Stress is known to be harmful. A little something is not going to do any harm, as long as it doesn't become a lot of something.

Also, not all alcohols are created equal. I find I enjoy the a good gin and soda or whiskey/brandy over a mixed drink or something sugary.

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Originally Posted by Test Monsterone

Yeah man, stress creates cortisol, which is catabolic. I'd rather enjoy a glass of something or a toke of something and relax than lose sleep, feel depressed and have constant stress and anxiety. Stress is known to be harmful. A little something is not going to do any harm, as long as it doesn't become a lot of something.

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If you can't find anything that 'relieves' stress the way alcohol does, then I say okay fair enough ingest alcohol. But if you can find something else like cold showers, meditation, praying, eating chilli, etc., then you're way better off without the alcohol.

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Originally Posted by lovbyts

Having a drink or getting drunk? Nothing wrong IMO with having a glass of wine or even a mixed drink once in a while even if its to relieve sress or just relax. Kick back, have a drink and talk about something or watch some tv to get your mind off things.

Now if you are getting drunk to forget about whatever you need to look for another outlet IMO. I enjoy a good drink but its probably been 30 years since I got drunk or more than a slight buzz.

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^^^^^

There's nothing wrong with drinking in moderation. If you're finding yourself doing it everyday, you probably should look at getting a hobby to relieve some of your stress.

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Originally Posted by Honkey_Kong

There's nothing wrong with drinking in moderation.

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Depends what we mean when we say 'wrong'.

Just before I begin, I want to make a point:
I don't think it's very nice to set standards for other people and then to treat them less nicely when they don't meet your standard. But I think it's fine to set standards for yourself. Whether it's the time you get up at on weekend mornings, or how much sugar you allow yourself to eat, or how many miles you run per week, I think it's fine to check up on yourself like that and to try maintain a standard for yourself. That's self-discipline.

I've spent a few years trying to develop greater self-discipline, and I see the ingestion of an intoxicant as a step in the wrong direction. If you feel so stressed or distressed that you want to take the edge off with alcohol, then the thing that needs to be addressed is the cause of the stress/distress. The stress/distress isn't the problem, as alcohol would make you believe.

Alcohol doesn't eradicate stress. Alcohol takes your stress and stores it in a backroom where you can take your mind off it for a few days. If alcohol were really such a phenomenal stress reliever then it would be one of the primary wellness tools used by the most psychologically-resilient people in the world.

Having a drink :icon_roll


I still drink fairly heavily - lighter by my standards. . . But, I average I would estimate 3-5 shots daily < for two decades


I just started talking to a neighbor & would consider him a friend now. The guy looks like your average tweaker - but, one day we started talking. This guy is the most sober person in my life, hasn't touched drugs in years upon years & only tried a few things(zero major drug use) - only smokes cigarettes fairly heavily. . . . .So, we finally started talking - the guy is suffering from serious stomach & esophagus erosion - when we first started talking he refused to go in & get imaging. After a few months he actually went in & got a endoscopy done - FUCK! His whole stomach & GI tract is fucked & bad. . . . . All from stress - well, stress & smoking - - - Oh yeah, he's a decade younger than I am


Fuck stress - shit, I'll go with substance abuse 1st < unfortunately that's how a lot of us wind up doing some form of self medication

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Originally Posted by < >

Having a drink :icon_roll


I still drink fairly heavily - lighter by my standards. . . But, I average I would estimate 3-5 shots daily < for two decades


I just started talking to a neighbor & would consider him a friend now. The guy looks like your average tweaker - but, one day we started talking. This guy is the most sober person in my life, hasn't touched drugs in years upon years & only tried a few things(zero major drug use) - only smokes cigarettes fairly heavily. . . . .So, we finally started talking - the guy is suffering from serious stomach & esophagus erosion - when we first started talking he refused to go in & get imaging. After a few months he actually went in & got a endoscopy done - FUCK! His whole stomach & GI tract is fucked & bad. . . . . All from stress - well, stress & smoking - - - Oh yeah, he's a decade younger than I am


Fuck stress - shit, I'll go with substance abuse 1st < unfortunately that's how a lot of us wind up doing some form of self medication

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Damn that’s wild! Crazy what stress can do, I’m sure the cigarettes didn’t help either.

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Originally Posted by yeahbuddy289

Damn that’s wild! Crazy what stress can do, I’m sure the cigarettes didn’t help either.

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He’s the 2nd one I met like this - sorta

The other guy was 51 I believe & had a real gaunt look - so we start talking, guy had chlorosis of his liver - didn’t drink, didn’t smoke - I asked him what he thought about his situation & possibly what was his opinion on what brought it on - he said stress, two decades as a finance pusher at a car dealership right by my house

So yeah

Stress ain’t gettin me down, I’ll let the booze do its work

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Originally Posted by < >

After a few months he actually went in & got a endoscopy done - FUCK! His whole stomach & GI tract is fucked & bad. . . . . All from stress - well, stress & smoking - - - Oh yeah, he's a decade younger than I am

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This actually reminds me of a guy I was in rehab with. He must have been in his late 20's or early 30's, but he looked like death. I'm going to try find a similar pic to him on Google Image Search here now:

Attachment 181352

That's what he looked like, all dry and red all over his face and neck. I remember after we'd been in the rehab together for about 5 or 6 weeks, we were sitting in the canteen and I asked him, "is that a skin condition?", and he replied "stress".

Up until now I suppose I never really gave much consideration to the medical consequences of mental stress -- probably because I myself never suffered these consequences even when I was acutely stressed -- but it looks like this is a big thing for other people. For a short time when I was about 18 - 20, I had high blood pressure, which could have had an emotional root, but anyway it wore off after a while.

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Originally Posted by Cylon357

I've never been able to REALLY let it rip in anything other than 12oz or heavier gloves. The only time I tried, years ago, my hands ending up looking like they had been painted black and blue for two weeks.

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I always got on fine with 'bag gloves' so long as my hands and writs were wrapped (I was most concerned about my wrists). One or two guys in the gym used to hit pads with 10oz gloves instead of bag gloves, they said it made you hit harder in the ring, but I never really looked into it.

I just read this today:

Ethanol is a potent AMPK inhibitor and therefore can cause significant disruptions in the metabolic state of the liver, including halting of ketogenesis, even in the context of hypoglycemia.

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Originally Posted by yeahbuddy289

Let’s say someone is constantly stressed out from life and work, and having a drink at night would calm him down and help take the stress away. What do you think has a more negative impact on hormones/muscle building- alcohol or stress?

Obviously using drinking as a coping mechanism is unhealthy but I’m strictly talking from a bodybuilding stand point. I know alcohol is one of the worst things we can put in our body but, can stress be equally destructive?

I am not a big drinker and hardly ever have a drink but this crossed my mind the other day and wanted to see what everyone’s thoughts were. My theory is the relaxing, de-stressing effect alcohol has in moderation (1-2 drinks) will offset the negative effects it has on your body, as you would be relieving stress, which can be pretty harmful as well.

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If it's just a couple of drinks that's great but you're going to have to keep an eye on yourself and make sure you don't go over that because if you're drinking to relieve stress or pain it's the most Surefire way to come up with severe alcoholism like I did. I used to have a few beers before I went to bed and it turned into three fifths of whiskey per day starting at 4 a.m. and not ending until I went to bed.

I did other hard drugs along with once in a while but I never had no problem with them like I did alcohol. The alcohol just led me faster down a path of mental breakdown. Nowadays I usually have to knock myself out with anxiety medication because there's no other way I'm going to sleep.

I started drinking at the end of the day to numb pain and stress because I was having trouble sleeping. I wish I had done anything else now but I honestly needed to get to the spot I'm at to learn a bit about life.

I don't believe the stress can affect someone nearly as much as alcohol if it gets out of hand but as far as just a couple of drinks go it's not going to being a burden on muscle gain or retention in my opinion but a couple means two not two dozen.

Everyone deals with stress in different ways. I stress eat and stress and stress gamble.