Many of us can run a business, handle pressure, make difficult decisions and keep promises to everyone else.
But alcohol can still leave us completely confused by our own behaviour. We wake up saying we’re done with it and find ourselves opening the bottle again that evening.
How could we mean it so strongly in the morning and do the opposite a few hours later? And why does alcohol still look like the answer when we’ve seen what happens afterwards?
That’s why the old description of alcohol as cunning, baffling and powerful has stuck around. Alcohol isn’t sitting in the bottle making plans. Those words describe what drinking can look like when all the different parts of the pattern are happening at once.
What cunning, baffling and powerful means
Cunning is the way the drinking pattern keeps changing its argument. Baffling is knowing what alcohol is doing to us and still wanting it. Powerful is the pull created by repetition, belief, tolerance, withdrawal and changes in the brain.
When we only look at the final moment when we pour a drink, our behaviour can look ridiculous. But by then, the usual time has arrived, the old thought has come up, we’ve remembered the promised relief and our body might feel unsettled as the last alcohol wears off. The decision has more behind it than we realised.
Why alcohol feels cunning
Alcohol doesn’t keep using the same reason. The reason changes to fit the day.
We drink because work was stressful. Then because work went well. Because it’s Friday. Because it’s Monday. Because we’re celebrating, bored, tired, socialising or staying home.
The explanation usually turns up afterwards and makes the drink sound reasonable.
And once the same situations have led to alcohol enough times, the thought often arrives automatically. It’s an old thought pattern doing what it has practised.
That’s what can feel cunning. The pattern hides inside normal life, sounds like our own reasoning and uses whatever is happening today. It doesn’t feel like a drinking problem. It feels like a normal reason to drink.
Why our own drinking can feel baffling
We know alcohol is affecting our sleep, mood, health or relationships. We know we’ll probably regret it tomorrow. We might even be thinking about those consequences while we’re pouring the drink.
And yet another thought is there as well: “I need this tonight.”
Both thoughts can feel true at the same time. That mental clash leaves us arguing with ourselves until drinking feels like the quickest way to make the argument stop.
Then the next morning we’re looking at the decision without the same pressure, routine or drinking thought in front of us. We’re not dealing with two different people. The situation has changed, so a different thought feels more important.
Where alcohol gets its power
There’s a physical side as well. Heavy and repeated drinking can change what’s happening in our brain and body.
The same amount might start doing less, so we drink more to get back to the same feeling. That’s tolerance. The more the amount rises, the more our body has to adjust to alcohol being there.
If dependence develops, we might start feeling anxious, restless or shaky when alcohol wears off. Another drink can ease that feeling for a while, which creates the drinking and withdrawal cycle.
Heavy drinking can also change the parts of our brain involved in reward, stress, habits and decisions. Over time, drinking can move from chasing a good feeling to trying to escape the low feeling alcohol helped create.
So the pull could be coming from several directions at once. We’ve got the familiar routine, the belief that alcohol will help, the automatic thought and a body that might have started expecting it.
So calling this a simple failure of discipline misses nearly everything that’s going on.
It creates the problem and then offers relief
Alcohol can leave us sleeping badly, feeling flat, anxious or restless. Then later in the day, a drink changes the feeling quickly.
The relief is real. But we give alcohol credit for fixing a feeling that alcohol caused or made worse in the first place.
So we remember the relief and overlook where the discomfort came from. Alcohol starts looking useful because we’re only judging the few minutes after the drink, not the whole cycle.
The phrase shouldn’t make alcohol sound unbeatable
There’s one problem with calling alcohol cunning, baffling and powerful. We can make it sound almost supernatural, like it’s always one step ahead and we don’t stand a chance.
That isn’t the point.
Alcohol is powerful, but the pattern isn’t magic. We can look at every part of it: the routine, the thought, the belief and the physical side.
And instead of expecting willpower to fight the whole pattern every evening, we start removing the things that keep giving the drinking thought its strength.
The more clearly we see how the pattern works, the less baffling it becomes. And once it stops feeling mysterious, alcohol starts losing some of the power we gave it.
Once we see the pattern, it makes sense
If we’ve kept drinking after promising ourselves we wouldn’t, that doesn’t mean we were lying in the morning or that there’s something wrong with us. The evening drink had more behind it than one bad decision.
There was repetition, belief and familiar situations behind it. There could also have been tolerance, withdrawal or other physical changes making the pull stronger.
So yes, alcohol can feel cunning, baffling and powerful. But once we can see what’s happening, it stops feeling like some mystery we can’t solve.
We can notice when the excuse changes. We can see why both thoughts feel true. And we can work on everything behind the drink instead of blaming ourselves for the final decision.
That’s when we stop asking, “Why do I keep doing this?” and start seeing exactly what needs to change.
— Brent