How does alcohol affect your relationship w/your body?
Since my psychotherapy practice is in Austin, where it can be challenging to find social events that aren’t centered around drinking (the last running group I dropped in on had beer for everyone at the end), drinking and socializing are usually paired when we talk about alcohol in our body image group. For most, the reason body acceptance is hard is that either we tell ourselves other people have opinions about our bodies and/or other people have told us that they have opinions about our bodies.
But let’s zoom in on just the alcohol part. Not the socializing. Not what other peoples’ opinions or presence does to affect our relationship with our looks. Not even what other peoples’ looks have to do with our relationship with our looks.
How does alcohol itself affect your relationship with your body?
According to a 2015 paper, binge drinking in college students has been associated with poor dietary habits, unhealthy weight control, body dissatisfaction, and sedentary behavior (Laska, Pasch, Lust, Story, & Ehlinger, 2009). Hoping to avoid weight gain, students reported compensating for calories consumed by drinking with exercise and dietary restraint (Bryant, Darkes, & Rahal, 2012; Burke, Cremeens, Vail-Smith, & Woolsley, 2010). This is particularly dangerous: habitually restraining calorie intake to compensate for planned binge drinking is an eating disordered behavior (Khaylis, Trockel, & Taylor, 2009).
There is the stereotypical drinking, partying college-kid, but binge drinking is certainly not reserved for people in their early 20’s. Another study cites that people who are more vulnerable to binge drinking base their self-worth on outside appearances, rather than spirituality, academic success, or virtue. ***Question for reflection: What would happen if you based your self-worth on something like spirituality, academic success or virtue?
We know that girls who diet in the sixth grade are more likely to use and/or misuse alcohol as they get older. And, the more frequently these sixth-grade girls diet, the heavier they drink or do drugs as ninth-graders. The study goes on to surmise that: young women who accept and act on cultural pressures to be thin, may also cave in when their friends pressure them to drink or use drugs. So even though I tried, it seems we can’t completely separate alcohol from socializing…
What have you noticed about how alcohol affects your sense of self-worth? Do you feel differently about your body when you are under the influence of something mind-altering?
If you know a young woman you can talk with- either in her teens or early 20’s (even if you are also a young woman in your teens or early 20’s!) ask her what she thinks of this topic.
•How responsible does she feel for changing how her body looks?
•What goes in to her decision to drink at all? Or to drink more after she’s already had one drink.
•What role does her body image play in whether or not she drinks?
•How does her level of body acceptance affect her desire to compensate for drinking?
Can you relate to anything you learn from this young woman?