Detoxification Through Avoiding Alcohol – Step 2

Detoxification Through Avoiding Alcohol – Step 2

Do I hear some people asking if alcohol is really a toxin? I can hear someone saying that alcohol can’t be toxic because “I’ve been drinking it for years and it’s never done me any harm!”. Oh, how we can fool ourselves. Just think for a second. When someone has drunk too much, why do they say they are “intoxicated”?  Ah, it’s because alcohol is toxic. No question about it.

It’s true that sometimes alcohol occurs naturally, and even a little can be created from the digestion process. But it’s just a little and it can be easily handled by the liver. All of the alcohol in our system has to go to the liver (the organ that handles a lot of the detoxification of our body) to be processed and removed. When the liver gets overloaded, the body uses our breath, sweat and urine to get some of it out our system. In fact, our body goes on red-alert to get the nasty toxin out. This post looks into the stress the body is under from an invasion of alcohol;

• Alcohol Invasion and Detoxification

Do we have reason to fear alcohol?

Imagine that there was a new teenage drug on the scene and you read the following in the newspaper;

Symptoms of intoxication from this drug include flushed skin at lower doses, with larger doses producing progressively severe impairments of balance, muscle coordination (ataxia), and decision-making ability (potentially leading to violent or erratic behavior) as well as nausea or vomiting from the drug’s disruptive effect on the semicircular canals of the inner ear and chemical irritation of the gastric mucosa. Sufficiently high levels of this drug in the blood will cause coma and death from the depressive effects of drug upon the central nervous system.

This sounds pretty scary and we’d have every right to fearful for the wellbeing of our teenagers. Actually, this is a paraphrased section of the description of alcohol intoxication as described in wikipedia – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcohol_intoxication – I’ve just replaced the word “alcohol” with “drug” and made a few minor changes to the wording.

I don’t think there’s any doubt that we should fear alcohol as a potentially dangerous toxin.

More reasons to worry about alcohol

Unfortunately, we’re pretty accustomed to alcohol and we think it’s normal and even “good”. But let’s think a little. Would we consider giving alcohol to babies? No, it would be too dangerous. When a woman is pregnant she should definitely stop drinking, right? That’s because it’s toxic and dangerous in general. When children become teenagers we start thinking about exposing them to alcohol (or they experiment themselves). At first they always hate it, hate the taste, but we say things like “it’s an acquired taste” and “when you get older you’ll like it”. I think the kids are right. Their bodies tell them that it’s not a good thing. We should listen to the kids. Unfortunately, the pressure of excepted social norms tends to make most people keep at it until they start to tolerate the effects of alcohol and believe that they like it.

Should we eliminate alcohol all together?

I’ve certainly drank quite a bit of alcohol in my life. I’m not going to deny that. I’ve enjoyed parties and meals with friends and having quite a few drinks. Alcohol can obviously be an effective way to temporarily reduce stress and relax. However, I now feel it in my body that the overall effect of alcohol is negative. It’s a toxin to which it would be better for my body not to be exposed. I’m not going to say that I’ll never drink again, I will and I’m sure I’ll enjoy it, but I am going to significantly reduce the amount of alcohol to which I expose my body. A few weeks ago I wrote this post;

• Too much alcohol??

where I discussed a strategy of trying to limit my alcohol intake to just one drink per day, maximum. Well, without really trying to do so, I’ve found that I’ve had only two occasions where I drunk alcohol in the past three weeks. It seems that the desire for it has waned. I’ve realized that I don’t need it to have a good time.

I’m going to avoid alcohol whenever I can and enjoy it (a little) when the time is right.

Certainly, if you plan to detoxify your body (and that’s a really good idea for your whole wellbeing, both body and mind) then reducing your exposure to alcohol down to insignificant levels is one of the best things you can do. And it’s easy and cheap. Good luck!

More small steps towards detoxification

Future posts will cover the following methods of detoxification. As the posts become live, the links below will become active.

• Detoxification Through Organic Food – Step 1
• Detoxification Through Avoiding Alcohol – Step 2 (this post)
• Detoxification Through Natural Personal Care Products – Step 3
• Detoxification Through Natural Cleaning Products – Step 4
• Detoxification Through Water – Step 5
• Detoxification Through Eliminating Medications – Step 6
• Detoxification Through Eliminating Mercury Fillings – Step 7

I’d love to hear you thoughts and experiences on avoiding alcohol. Please leave a comment. Thanks.