Alcohol is a drink, which, when used in excessive amounts can cause a lot of damage to many people’s lives.  Many people have dedicated their careers and energy to stopping drinking in order to get their lives back in order. One of the first steps to this is identifying and debunking myths about alcohol as listed below.

1. Coffee will sober you up

A common misconception that people are often told is the fact that taking coffee the next morning will sober you up. This is not true. Coffee contains caffeine which is a stimulant and is thus designed to make you alert or to jog up your senses the next morning. If you have had a night of drinking and you wake up the next day needing to go to work or school then coffee will only help in alerting your system enough to enable you to wake up and get the energy needed to go where you should. Going for a run or taking a cold shower will help you feel a bit freshened up but overall, the result of a hangover is the same the next morning.

2.    You can handle it

Often when we go out we tend to convince ourselves that we are only going out for a few drinks with friends then we will head back home. This is not often the case since we deceive ourselves and always end up drinking way much more than we had intended to. We humans often think that we have control in such situations and that we can handle ourselves. This is a lie and drinking almost always gets out of hand.

3.    You will not get drunk if you eat before drinking

People always come up with various “tips’’ that we should use when out drinking that will apparently help to prevent us from getting drunk fast. Some of these include the fact that if we eat a heavy meal before drinking, we will stay sober for longer. This is a major myth because biologically, the food just prevents the alcohol from getting absorbed quickly into our systems. Eventually, one always gets drunk and actually ends up taking more alcohol than they would have if they hadn’t eaten since they are not immediately feeling the effect that they desired.

4.    Drinking makes you cool

This myth applies mostly to the kids in college and high school who often get pressured into drinking. Most of their peers often convince them to drink as it will make them seem cool and more mature than all the rest. This deception causes them to go down a road that most of them are unable to come back from since a certain number end up being alcoholics.

5.    It will help you handle stress

People all to often turn to the bottle to drown away their problems, for instance, after a heartbreak or when they have been laid off at work. While these are definitely difficult situations to deal with, it is recommended to use alternative means of dealing with them, for instance, by talking to a friend or a loved one. Alcohol only momentarily helps you to forget your problems but in the morning, they will still be there. In a sense, you will not have solved anything.