Sensitivity and Alcohol

I think yoga may be making me more sensitive. That's supposed to be one of the things that happens, anyway. It's been about two months now that I've been pretty well engaged with frequent yoga practice and meditation and I think I am noticing a change in my level of tuned-in-ness. Of course, I am at leisure at the moment to pay attention to my feelings and all that stuff because I don't have a job. But I'm going to ignore that factor for a minute here.

I'm saying that I think I am more sensitive lately because I am feeling very much inclined to be more gentle with myself in a lot of ways. Like chewing more slowly. And I haven't over-done it with feeling full in a while, which is something I definitely tend to do (more numbing behavior). I've also abandoned the idea of ever being a jogger. It's too hard on me. I'd rather walk for an hour and a half and enjoy the fatigue that way, and clear my mind and breathe the air. It's just gentler. And this gentleness is in my yoga, too - I'm much more inclined to use props and blankets and bolsters than I used to be. I don't need to be hard-core or over-extend myself to have a credible experience in yoga - I used to really insist on a more intense experience for myself, with lots of push ups and handstands and back bends, but I'm only doing what feels good, and letting myself inch towards more advanced postures. It's more subtle than just getting exercise. And more rewarding, too.

But most noticeably, my jones for booze has been waning for a week or so lately. I spent a week in Brooklyn last week and had too much to drink one night and felt like hell. Every time I have done this I have sworn off booze to myself. But it never lasts and I'm not sure why. I really don't get anything good out of alcohol except for the feeling of escape. And that relief is so empty and meaningless, and impairs my physical self to the point that my mental well being is compromised. I think one expression of my sensitivity is that I get massive hangovers, like super horrible bad bad bad hangovers. Like way beyond what anyone else who drank the same as I did. (This is just how I am, though - my digestion is sensitive, mosquito bites turn into huge welts for me and one swelled my eye shut last year, I have to go to the hospital when I have poison ivy, I need to get 7-8 hours of sleep or things are bad, one cup too much of coffee can give me a full blown migraine.)

Anyway Iyengar in Light on Life says that when our bodies are impaired, we cannot move beyond the realm of the body; when the body is well, we can use our physical selves as the gateway to our more subtle bodies and selves. When I drink I am trying to escape my inner self by impairing my physical self. But what I really want is to access and master and engage my inner self. Alcohol does nothing to advance this for me. I would love never to drink again. I don't know if that is in the cards for me, but we'll see.

Here's the relationship I wish I could have with alcohol:
1) participation in general conviviality with friends
2) meal flavor accompaniment
3) a little warm buzz in my chest and tummy

Here's the relationship I actually have with alcohol:
1) fear and dread
2) passionate delight in the taste and feeling
3) a loosening of caution and sense of moderation
4) feeling of pressure to drink with friends
5) slipping into a sad hole of uselessness for an evening and premature fatigue
6) bad sleep, possible unanticipated barfing and shivering and headaches
7) resentment toward the expense
8) depleted serotonin and mystery blues

Here's the experience I have WITHOUT alcohol:
1) good sleep
2) higher productivity
3) happier digestion
4) steadiness of emotion and sense of wellness
5) highly conflicted feelings of social isolation for not participating in drinking
6) waves of anxiety in the evening filling in the hole where the alcohol would usually glaze over my agitation

Yeah so basically it's no contest. The gentleness I feel like offering myself lately doesn't have room for alcohol. It's not gentle. It's violent, and jarring, and incapacitating, and poisonous. It's an expensive, damaging poison. To me, not to everyone of course. The things that I use alcohol for I would rather use yoga for. Yoga is a calming, centering, rewarding, productive recipient of my energy. Not alcohol. This is how I want to be gentle with myself.