Alcohol

[Mal]

[Squatting Monkey]

Nothing soothes and clears the mind as a well stored St. Emillion wine. It clears the small intestine, which governs thinking and memory. And secondarily it affects the heart energy. And last but not least, the quality of life.

 

Might like to try this. It sounds interesting. I bet it isn't cheap though.

[Birch]

Love it!

 

Every drink is a different vibe?

 

My interpretation;-)

 

- A nicely aged, medium red (like St Emil) - in moderation, tends toward warmth and compassion - descending energy - overdone becomes fuzzy melancholic ego

 

- A chilled white with greenery (like a Entre Deux Mers) - in moderation, tends toward playful fresness- rising energy - overdone becomes wild sleepless racing mind

 

- A round, chubby pint of stout - in moderation, tends towards ground and fullness-sinking energy - overdone becomes sleeping heavy body

 

- A glass of good Scotch - in moderation, tends towards mixed ascending/descending energy - overdone becomes ? lesser Kan and Li;-)?

 

I would guess that the no-alcohol caveat for practice is related to its capacity to alter body/mind energy in ways that the practitioner may not be aware of AND that could be counter to the effects of the intended practice.

 

Oh, plus that practices themselves are often quite enough thanks;-)

[Deepbluesea]

Love it!

 

Every drink is a different vibe?

 

My interpretation;-)

 

- A nicely aged, medium red (like St Emil) - in moderation, tends toward warmth and compassion - descending energy - overdone becomes fuzzy melancholic ego

 

- A chilled white with greenery (like a Entre Deux Mers) - in moderation, tends toward playful fresness- rising energy - overdone becomes wild sleepless racing mind

 

- A round, chubby pint of stout - in moderation, tends towards ground and fullness-sinking energy - overdone becomes sleeping heavy body

 

- A glass of good Scotch - in moderation, tends towards mixed ascending/descending energy - overdone becomes ? lesser Kan and Li;-)?

 

I would guess that the no-alcohol caveat for practice is related to its capacity to alter body/mind energy in ways that the practitioner may not be aware of AND that could be counter to the effects of the intended practice.

 

Oh, plus that practices themselves are often quite enough thanks;-)

 

Wow, what a respectable piece of analysis! It sounds like you have done an extensive amount of research in measuring the moderate versus overdone effects of each. Perhaps the problem with alcohol is that since it tells you,"more, more, more" it is harder to stay moderate and easier to end up "overdone" ... or that is my experience. Alcohol makes it more difficult to say, "No."

[Birch]

Extensive research;-)

 

Not really. Just some ideas. Like coffee, for example. it's effects change over the course of a day and current energy levels. Or eating meat, or just veggies - although it seems hard to say what happens if you eat too much lettuce (for example;-))

 

Smoking is an interesting one to look at too (cigarettes, not pot). It totally screws with your reward system while poisoning your lungs.

 

The main idea is to look into what happens with all of those products if you can isolate them from their social/moral implications (the consideration of which also has effects so it becomes a very dirty experiment;-))

[contrivedname!]

I am under the understanding that Absinthe and Mezcal are considered sacred alcohols. Just what I've been told.

 

Love,

Carson

 

i could see how Mezcal could be precieved as a sacred liquor. it has an effect quite different from other liquors, even tequila (which it sort of tastes like). most i have seen have cacti eating worms in them, though i have seen a couple bottles with scorpions. it does feel very mildly psychadelic, if you dont go over board.

 

chris

[seadog]

Well one of the draw backs, if you can call it that, of acquireing a dergree of health is your bodies response to something it doesn't like.

If I eat crap food my body lets me know right away,ditto for ciggies,drugs of any descprition,alcohol,even coffee.

Basically I hate the feeling of poisioning myself so much now that anything more then a couple of drinks is out of the question.

Which is kinda of a bummer because it sure is fun to get drunk sometimes.

[Tokoyo Tama]

random point of info on spirits, I know brandy is preferred for making flower essences. As they're intended to be energetic the alcohol needs to keep it sanitary (hence spirits as opposed to lower proof) but not interfere with the transmission of the flowers 'energy'. The originator of this theory was name 'bach', for your googleing pleasure.

 

I tend to feel somewhat nourished if I drink a dark beer such as a stout, barley wines feel similarly nourishing but somewhat easier to process. I go for beers with high alcohol content so that even a fancy beer can be cheap, and I figure it's less and better beer for my body to handle. Red wine tends to put my head in a fog somewhat (better ones less so, but still...) so I've begun to tend towards whites even though they have less antioxidants etc (just drink some juice instead! or eat a mango .

 

the 'sacred' absinthe and mezcal are likely held sacred for their psychotropic activity as opposed to something more specifically related to their being a form of alcohol. Compare to the shamanic substance ayahuasca used in south (and central?) america.

 

a few outliers to consider-

moonshine or 140 proof+: a moonshine mixed drink v. vodka mixed drink, I'd go for the moonshine if equal alcohol content in drink

 

mead: someone mentioned it, and the few times I've had it I've loved it!

 

Midas touch by dogfishhead brewing co: based on the remnants of some ancient brewery, don't know how it would compare with other high quality beers as far as its effect on your energy though.

 

 

also don't forget context. Red wine will not always have an identical effect on your body, for example. If you drink a glass of red wine with red meat or other carcinogenic foods (fried foods etc) then some of the harmful molecules from the meat will be counter-acted in the stomach, so your body doesn't have to process as much of the junk from the meat. This might also mean your body, as a whole, gets less of the positive effect from the wine, aka fewer antioxidants. But this is a junk excuse to drink red wine when juice, tea and other things such as rosemary and garlic will also produce similar effects without the liver load.

 

We all know there are negative side effects to drinking and cigarettes, but often little about what these negative effects are. One of the effects I only recently heard of, and was quite taken aback by, is that they cause epigenetic mutations, or maybe disruption is a more appropriate word. This means that the functioning of your DNA and RNA is reduced, potentially leading to improperly created proteins (the things that DNA makes) amongst other things. I've probably already misconstrued info in this para, so I'll stop here, but this is what encouraged me to quit smoking and reduce drinking. I also suspect this is the effect closest related to the concept that alcohol [and cigarettes] 'creates holes and craters in the aura', as little1 said. If ppl want to hear more detailed info on this I could dig around.

[Birch]

That was a good one. Thank you!

 

I'd love for you to dig around and find something more about this stuff.

[mjjbecker]

..

Edited July 6, 2009 by mjjbecker

[gendao]

The funny thing is that beer is marketed as a very "manly" drink.

 

Yet, hops are potent phytoestrogens (although amounts in beer are negligible) and alcohol itself is estrogenic from lowering the liver's ability to metabolize estrogen due to ethanol toxicity.

Estrogen in our bodies makes us absorb alcohol more readily and break it down less. At the same rate, alcohol affects how estrogen is secreted and broken down. Thus, by drinking alcohol your estrogen levels will increase significantly both pre-menopausally and post-menopausally. As a result, after you drink you get spurts of estrogen that can be as high as 300 percent within 30 minutes of consumption. This is similar to the spurt of estrogen just prior to ovulation and may be responsible for a breast cancer-promoting effect.

So, higher estrogen could have some mixed results for women, but probably not much good for men at all.

[steve]

I'm partial to French and Spanish wines and Belgian beers and ales.

Lately I've been experimenting a bit with Italian wines - not bad - especially wines from the Piemonte!

+1 on St. Emillion but don't write off Pomerols either!

 

I used to drink quite a bit more but after starting to practice Dao meditation, I found that I no longer found much pleasure in the feeling of alcohol intoxication. Nowadays, I drink more for flavor and less for the buzz...

Edited May 28, 2009 by xuesheng

[Birch]

Same here.

 

I found the bit about hormonal modulation especially interesting.

 

I've tried Bach on a couple of occasions but really couldn't say what the vibe was from that.