Change Your Brain Every Day - You Lied To Me: This Is What Alcohol Is Doing To Your Body, Anxiety & Health

Episode Date: December 9, 2024

You lied to me! Dr. Daniel and Tana Amen introduce a new miniseries of podcasts with a focus on misinformation. In this episode, the Amens discuss some of the truths (and misconceptions) of alcohol, including how it affects the brain. 00:00 Intro 00:40 You Lied to Me 02:53 Society Programming  8:46 Alcohol 11:10 Why Do People Drink? 14:19 Sponsor 14:42 How Alcohol Works 22:36 The Social Factor 25:37 Spiritual Connection 26:23 What’s the Trouble with Alcohol? 34:26 Alcohol Risk Factors 40:13 Alcohol Effects in SPECT Scans 42:08 Wrap Up

There is not a week that has gone by over the last 40 years where alcohol or other drugs hasn't hurt one of my patients. It hasn't caused a fight, an accident, poor decision-making. I know a lot of people go, come on, Dr. Andy, you need to lighten up, just go get high. You've heard that a lot. It's like, so which brain do you want? Every day you are making your brain better

or you are making it worse. Stay with us to learn how you can change your brain for the better every day. We are so excited to introduce a new series of podcasts with the title, You Lied to Me. Fortunately, it's not about us. It's not about us. Could be a new series on infidelity. Yeah, but it's not.

You lied to me. But you have been lied to. And in this series, we're going to talk about why people drink and use marijuana, psilocybin, nicotine. We may get to ketamine and caffeine. We'll talk about how they work. We're going to talk about their brain mechanisms, the benefits of them, because there's a reason so many people use them. And we're going to talk about the consequences. And we're going to do it in four circles. We'll talk about biological, psychological, social, spiritual reasons why people use and their consequences.

So I think one of the reasons you wanted to call it, you lied to me is because of the social conditioning and the industry and, you know, all the commercials and, and, you know, we, that people have been lied to about that. A lot of these things are health foods, um, that they are good for you or that they're at the very, at the worst that they're innocuous in some ways. Well, so you're absolutely right. Society is programming your subconscious mind to want these. Right. Or that you're going to look sexy, that you're going to look amazing if you do certain things. They're not telling you you're going to get cancer or you're going to get dementia or that you're going to get arrested. Well, and if you just think of the Carl's Jr. commercials of these incredibly beautiful women

like Charlotte McKinney eating one of their cheeseburgers, and you know if she was eating that cheeseburger, she would not have that body. Right. Right. In fact, during the commercial shoots, they have spit buckets where she takes a bite and then she spits it out. She takes a bite and then she spits it out. So how is our society programming us for alcohol? Well, besides, you know, using, like you said, very sexy images of people drinking and, and like nonstop, especially during football games and, you know, things like that. So during the world series and during the Super Bowl and during the NBA finals. So a lot of children are watching, like I have an eight who just obsessed with football. And he has been exposed to at least 30 beer commercials in one game. So there are commercials, there's celebrity brands.

So if he loves LeBron James, LeBron James has his own alcohol brand, billboards. Well, and people don't realize the power of suggestion in commercials. And, you know, if you've gone to college and you've taken a psychology class, you've heard of Pavlov's dogs. It's that conditioning, right? You ring the bell, you feed the dog. You ring the bell, you feed the dog. And people are conditioned just as easily. And so you, we still know the taglines from commercials from 50 years ago that we've,

well, I just aged myself, but we still know those taglines, right? Bet you can't have just one. Or, you know, we know those taglines because we are conditioned very easily. And when they include things like music, certain types of music, or, you know, a certain pitch or, um, whatever it is that they know exactly. People having fun. Right. They know exactly how to condition the human brain while they're doing this. So it's visual, it's audio, it's kinesthetic. They know exactly what they are doing. Right. If you look at virtually any television series, they're drinking alcohol. Even though it's not relevant to the plot, it's relevant to their advertisers. It's a sinister, there's a sinister component.

It's relevant to their sponsors. And in my book, The End of Mental Illness, I write about if I was an evil ruler and I wanted to create mental illness, what would I do? I is my choice. But sometimes I think people are making decisions where it's not always just that they made the decision. It's conditioning. Right. Right. So you see it in movies and TVs. You see it at parties. It's the first question at restaurants. Right.

Our daughter is a server and they're trained when they see somebody new is, what can I get you to drink? Well, and they make more money. And they make more money, right? The profit is in the alcohol. Also, marijuana is innocuous. It's not. In fact, during the 2020 presidential debates, they asked this question, should the federal government legalize marijuana?

And everybody goes, yes, yes, yes, until they got to Joe Biden. And he said, I don't think there's enough research. And Cory Booker shamed him. He said, man, are you high on national television? And the fact is, I just had a discussion with one of my patients this morning. And when she gave up the THC gummies, her anxiety went away. So it helps you in the short run, but it makes so many people more anxious in the long run. Well, we just had that situation with one of my dear friends, her son. His anxiety was out of control and he actually started smoking weed in order to manage his anxiety.

He had a lot of trauma. And so he started smoking weed in order to decrease his anxiety. He had a lot of trauma. And so he started smoking weed in order to decrease his anxiety. And it became this vicious circle because then he had to smoke weed to manage his anxiety. But what he didn't realize is that smoking weed actually increases your anxiety. And then it was, became this vicious circle. So it's a short-term fix that causes a long-term problem. We're going to talk about it. That vaping is a healthier form of smoking. Right before this podcast, there's a new article that came out that vaping decreases blood flow to important organs like your heart. Well, it also decreases sperm count. And we are having problems in this country with fertility.

I know. Mushrooms are in. That's the most common questions that I get. Now, I'm a fan of reishi, turkey tail, cordyceps, and lion's mane mushrooms. But as we'll talk about, we need to have caution around psilocybin because as our daughter often says, people aren't drinking as much, they're having mushroom parties. And it's not lion's mane parties, right? It's psilocybin parties, which then another brand new study that emergency room use of psilocybin has skyrocketed, especially with psychosis. Wait, help me out. You just said emergency room use or emergency room visits? Emergency room visits for psilocybin-related incidences. So as a psychiatrist, and I just can't say this any clearer,

there is not a week that has gone by over the last 40 years where alcohol or other drugs hasn't hurt one of my patients. It hasn't caused a fight, an accident, poor decision-making. It is rampant. And I know a lot of people go, come on, Dr. Raymond, you need to lighten up. Just go get high. You've heard that a lot. And it's like, so which brain do you want? The healthy one or the one that's not? And the one that's not often goes with bad decisions and so on. Now, as a trauma nurse, you saw trouble as well.

Yeah, and I should say, I'm not a person who never has a glass of wine. I, on occasion, will have a glass of wine, but I'm not a person who has ever had a problem with ever needing to have more than a glass of wine. So, and it's, it's not very often. But I will say that in my family and in my life, drugs have been so rampant. And when I worked as a trauma nurse, it was really out of control. So I'm, I'm very, um, I'm very anti-drugs. So, I mean, when I was growing up, you know, there was, my uncle was a heroin addict. I had another uncle murdered in a drug deal gone wrong. Um, meth was a big thing in my family, seeing meth related accidents in the hospital. And I didn't, there, there wasn't oddly enough, there wasn't a ton of alcohol related incidents in my family when I was growing up. So I didn't actually even know really problematic when someone is detoxifying from heavy amounts of alcohol.

That was crazy to me to see. 10% of people die. Yeah, it was nuts. The delirium tremens that when people drink a lot and get used to it, plus it causes something called Wernicke's psychosis, where they get B1 or thiamine deficiencies, and they lose their mind, literally. So today, we're going to talk about alcohol. Next week, we're going to talk about marijuana. And so the question really becomes, why do people drink?

What's the benefit of it? There's actually the first story of alcohol in the Bible is Noah. After the flood, Noah planted a vineyard and then got intoxicated with it. And it caused all sorts of generational family trauma. And so I imagine if you just finished the flood, there was a fair amount of stress with that. And it's one of the reasons why people drink is they feel like it lowers their stress. People drank for pain relief. That's very common. Many people drank because they believe the health nonsense around alcohol. Oh, alcohol is a health food. I should have a glass or two a day that it's good for my heart well they found that is in fact not true

um they drank that that that study was sponsored by mondavi so well you always have to ask yourself when something comes out money who's sponsoring it and we'll talk more about that um people drink for relaxation they drink just because it's a habit that i think that's a big one they had dinner so they drink they had dessert so they drink celebration celebration commiseration uh reward it just and the most common reason people drink is it prevents withdrawal that a day later you're actually more anxious than the day before you drank so you drank and 24 hours later you just feel uncomfortable because it's the effect fully wearing off. So it's like, oh, well, I have to drink. And you're thinking you're drinking to cause relaxation when you're really drinking to prevent the feeling of withdrawal.

I think that's, yeah, for people who are drinking, you know, if you're having more than a glass, that's more likely to happen. And for people who are drinking every day, for sure. So we should probably talk about that at some point, like what is causing that withdrawal feeling? Because if you, some people think that, oh, it's going to be hard for me to quit. But the truth is, if you're a person who can go three days with like, you're only drinking once a week and you're wanting to quit drinking, but you're like, Oh, you know, it's hard for me to, to not have a couple of drinks a week. If you can go three days without alcohol, you can go a month. Like, that's not the issue for you, for you. That's a habit, right? For you, that's like, there's another reason. And you want

to assess what the reason is. This podcast is brought to you by the Change Your Brain Foundation, dedicated to ending the concept of mental illness by creating a revolution in brain health. Go to changeyourbrain.org to learn how you can support our mission. So how alcohol works, it actually increases two important neurotransmitters. One is GABA. GABA is the most prevalent inhibitory neurotransmitter. What does that mean? Settles things down. And so if you're anxious, if you're stressed, what we see, I was on a show called The Truth About Drinking that actually won an Emmy a long time ago. And what we did is we took someone who

was drinking a lot, had him stay without alcohol. So we got him sober, scanned him sober, and then we got him drunk, just like he got drunk. And it crashed his brain when he drank. But at baseline, his brain was really busy. And another guy, such a crazy story. Ever tell you this story? Um, he got arrested multiple times, but only when he drank. And the last time he'd been sober, like six months, he went to a program and then his girlfriend broke up with him. And he's like, okay, tack with this, got drunk on 40 ounces of St. Ives malt liquor and a fifth of peach schnapps. And I'm like, how do you drink this stuff?

That sounds miserable. And then he got in a car and actually he flagged down a cab driver, got in the cab, drove around San Francisco. And as he begins to sober up, he's like, man, am I in trouble? So what the heck? He takes a gun from his pocket, puts it to the head of the cab driver, steals $25. That's all the cab driver had. Left. And the next morning, he knew he was in big trouble because he was on parole.

And he turns himself in. And John Starr, who was an attorney in Northern California, calls me up and says, can you help me with this guy? And I'm like, only if you let me scan him drunk. So I scanned him sober and then I got him drunk, just like he got drunk on the night of the crime. In fact, you know, I don't go to liquor stores. So I went to the liquor store and I said, I need 40 ounces of Sainide's malt liquor and fifth of peach snubs. And so I just, I don't know, I felt weird going into the liquor store. And he comes into our clinic in an orange jumpsuit and shackles and handcuffs. And

we scanned him and he has the ring of fire. And interestingly, he was diagnosed with ADHD as an eight-year-old at Stanford, but put on stimulants and they all made him worse. And so they're like, oh, he's treatment resistant. So explain to people, he has a ring of fire, which means his brain is really busy and hot and on fire. And then they put him on stimulants, which was like putting gasoline on fire. Correct. Made him much worse. Right. And so he doesn't know what to do. And every bad thing that happens to untreated ADD happened to him. And so at rest, without alcohol, because obviously he's not getting alcohol in jail, hopefully, ring a fire.

So already bad. Already busy. And then I got him drunk. And halfway through getting him drunk, he's starting to slur his words. And he said, Dr. Amon's the worst experience, the weirdest experience of my life. My doctor's getting me drunk, and these goons prison guards are watching and when he drank it calmed down his brain but it completely crashed his frontal lobes so it calmed down his emotional brain but dropped his frontal lobes no break right and we got the judge and the prosecutor to come to my office.

We had a case conference. I showed them the brain. And rather than send him away for 11 years, which is what they wanted, they sent him away for three, honoring responsibility. But they sent him to a place who would do my recommendations for his medication. And I thought that was a beautiful intervention. So one of the reasons people drink is their brain is busy and they feel terrible. Yeah. I think a lot of people I know, especially women. So if you think of PMS, when do women want chocolate and wine? They want chocolate and wine when they have PMS. Why? Because your brain gets really busy

because it gets, you get really anxious and you get busy and it increases serotonin and GABA and settles you down, right? So it gives you this like settled feeling. And so that is, that's a big reason when, why women that time of the month, well, that's what they want. And that's a biological reason. So we talked about the biological reasons like pain relief, and it's a habit. There are psychological reasons. I think the most common one is stress relief. It also suppresses emotional pain. It lowers anxiety, takes the edge off.

They feel numb. They also drink to be more creative and in fact creativity goes with lower frontal lobe functions really yeah because you're not seeing things the way everybody else sees them so creativity is being able to see something routine in a new or different way. They drink to have fun, to help support them. It's a habit. And there's rebellion in it. I mean, this is like going to be the whole part of this series that's a problem.

I think that's a big one. Don't tell me what to do. I think that's a big one. I think it starts when you're young. I think it starts with, you know, I can do this. I'm, you know, it's like, I'm going to do this. You're not going to tell me what to do. And then it's really interesting because that is with food too.

I remember doing that, having that thought with food. Like, I don't want people, like, I don't want people telling me what I can and can't do. I remember this like many years ago, going through that and talking to an NLP coach. And they're like, he goes, well, so what are, who are you rebelling against? You're rebelling against you. No one's telling you what to do. And I was like, oh my goodness, it's me I'm rebelling against. Like there's no one else really in charge of me. Or the voice in your head. Right. But there's this four-year-old in you that like wants to rebel. And so I think that's actually a big one.

So you don't want someone else telling you. So it's got to become your decision. I think agency is a big one there. So you've got to reframe that and make it your decision. Well, and ultimately what I do with my patients, the first exercise I do with almost all of my patients is the one-page miracle. On one piece of paper, write down what you want. Relationships, work, money, physical, emotional, spiritual health. What do you want? Not what I want for you. What do you want? And where does alcohol fit on what you want? Because if you don't deal with the rebellious piece, and all of us are,

don't tell me what to do, you won't be very successful. Talk about some of the social reasons people drink. Oh, interesting. I think it starts young, peer pressure, but it doesn't end. I think there's a lot of peer pressure with adults, especially like holidays or special events, you know, sparkling water with lime or something. If you're holding something, people will stop doing that. But peer pressure is a big reason. Marketing, we talked about the conditioning of commercials. You know, I want to talk about this for a second. The difference between I don't drink and I can't drink. Because when people ask me if I want to drink, I go, I don't drink. And it's clear when you say I doesn't drink because I don't.

If I said, well, I can't drink, now that opens up a different discussion. And in your head, you're already uncertain. And you're depriving yourself. You're depriving yourself. And I think socialization, we talked a little bit about that. But this cultural idea of what we do when we're out, it's just a cultural thing. And it's, it's a cultural thing almost in every, almost everywhere. I mean, maybe Muslim countries, it's not, but it's almost everywhere else. It's, it's a social thing that we do. It's a social

norm. Um, lowers inhibitions for sure. I've, you know, I've often said, um, your twenties, wow. Um, tequila should come with a warning label, right? May cause pregnancy or dancing on tables. So yeah. So that's one reason. Um, and we've just been taught celebrations and toasting and things like this. This is what we do. It's just a norm. And I think a lot of people have social anxiety. I think that's a big reason is social anxiety. And I know I'm not, I'm an introvert. You're an extrovert. I don't really like being in large crowds for many reasons. And it's not just because I don't really like being around a ton of people anyways, but crowds in general make me anxious. And I think a lot of that has to do with the trauma I experienced as a

kid. I don't trust large crowds. So I think there are a lot of people who are like that and they're like, well, if I have a drink, it's going to take the edge off. It's going to, it's going to make me less anxious in this crowd. And I've heard many people say that it makes other people more interesting. I've heard a lot of people say, I don't really like being around a lot of people because they're not interesting. And if I drink, they become more interesting, which I think is hilarious. Yeah. But when you're sober, they're not interesting, which should tell you something. Right. You should probably be around other people, right? So choose different people to be around. And then, you know, as we talk about biological, psychological, social, spiritual reasons, people drank. It's symbolic. So growing up Roman Catholic,

they would have wine during certain parts of the mass. In Jewish faith, it's part of sanctifying the Sabbath. In other faiths, it induces an altered state of consciousness which it certainly does so sort of like kava kava or what's the other one um they would drink you know they drink kava kava but what's the other one that i ayahuasca ayahuasca like they'll do certain things like this because they want an altered state that's it's an interesting concept. So there are positive reasons why people drink. So what's the trouble with alcohol? It's addictive. And we've already mentioned you can have life-threatening withdrawal. It increases every single one of the bright mind's risk factors. We're going to talk about that. It dumps dopamine.

What does that mean? So dopamine, you have stores of this very important neurotransmitter called dopamine. And when you dump it, well, when you stop drinking, it's not there anymore. And you feel flat. You feel sad. You feel depressed. and it sort of makes you want to drink again. And if you do it over and over and over, it begins to wear out the pleasure center in your brain. It's actually called the nucleus accumbens, which it stops responding at

the same level of happiness and joy. And if you've drank for a couple of years, it actually takes about six months for the nucleus accumbens to begin to repair itself. And that's assuming you're actually putting your brain in a healing environment. Too often, people go to AA to stop drinking and they pick up sugar and nicotine. So you're not really putting your brain in a healing environment. Alcohol damages white matter in the brain, which are the nerve cell tracts. It decreases myelination in teenagers and young adults. What does that mean? It actually delays or stops development. That's a big problem. It increases cancer risk. The American Cancer Society came out against anti-alcohol, that anti-alcohol is associated with an increased risk

of seven different cancers. And it messes with your coordination, speech, creates confusion. Interesting. So as someone, as a nurse, who dealt with patients pre, post-op, whatever, there are a lot of surgeons who, especially for big surgeries, they will not operate on someone who doesn't stop drinking for a significant amount of time before a surgery because the body doesn't heal. So. So talk about some of the psychological consequences of alcohol. Well, the psychological addiction or habit forming, I guess is what you'd call it, right? We've talked about that. It's, it's a habit that people have trouble breaking. Um, and the problems that you're trying to escape, I think remain if you haven't figured

out another solution and usually magnified. Well, yeah, especially if your frontal lobes drop and you're getting in trouble, then they're going to have trouble. Um, you already talked about increases your risk of dementia. So it's one of the risk factors is, you know, as your body doesn't heal from other things, it also, your brain is being affected in the same way. I think it's one of the most common causes of dementia. It can also, just like with, we talked about marijuana, it can increase anxiety, depression, other, you know, mental health issues, mood swings, aggression. We see all the time, probably more so than some of the other drugs. I mean, obviously meth and things like that.

But compared to weed, people get way more aggressive. Domestic violence is way more associated with alcohol and methamphetamine abuse than marijuana. Yeah. I can't say I saw a lot of people coming in, you know, from aggression related accidents in the, in the hospital from weed, but alcohol and meth a lot. A lot of accidents from weed because they're cognitively impaired. Yeah. I didn't see as much of it. People back then, it wasn't legal. So people weren't getting in their cars and driving. Now you see people driving down the road smoking. So that's really interesting. Back then you didn't see as much of that, right? Poor decision-making. I mean,

we know that if it's decreasing your frontal lobes, it's causing you to make poor decisions. Poor focus, judgment, empathy. If it's affecting that part of your brain, that's the executive functioning in your brain. Guilt and shame, because that's a cycle. And we saw that, I saw that in my own family, lots of alcohol abuse on my dad's side of the family. And there's, it's like you make bad decisions when you're drinking. And then there's this cycle of guilt and shame. And then you, it's almost this vicious circle because the guilt and shame causes you to drink more. So when you, when you get really drunk and you make bad decisions, it's just this perpetual cycle that people go through.

And there's actually a very high incidence of suicide when people are drunk. And a lot of times, actually having suicidal thoughts is not that uncommon. There's actually a study out of Washington State that 55% of the population at some point in their life had significant suicidal ideation. Now, that could have been because of seasonal affective disorder, which is much more common the more north you go. But having a suicidal thought is not that uncommon. But if you have the thought and then you take the break off of your judgment or forward thinking, if I do this, what's going to be the impact on my children? If I do this, what will be the impact on my spouse or my parents? You don't think about those things when you're drunk. And a very high percentage of people who die by suicide do it when they're drunk.

And I guess one of the things that's interesting is people begin to bargain with it. So it's like, I'm only, I'll only drink during X times, you know, during the week, or I won't, I'll never drive, or I'll never get in a car, you know, if I've been drinking, or I won't drink at home, or I won't drink when I'm out, or whatever it is that you're bargaining with. And then that begins to, then it's like, well, I'm going to compromise that one thing just this one time. And you begin to, you see people start to change the bargaining. They move the bargaining chip. Their social consequences to alcohol kills 3 million people globally a year. It's the number one cause of death on highways. And what I've seen as a psychiatrist, it devastates families. There's a higher incidence of job loss, school failure, incarceration, relationship problems. It erodes trust. And it's a social drug that actually makes many people antisocial. Are there spiritual consequences? I think so. I think for a lot of people,

you know, if it's causing you to make bad decisions, I think that, you know, we already talked about shame and guilt, but maybe it's, if it's causing you to do things that are against your spiritual beliefs, if it's interrupting your morals or disrupting your moral beliefs, that's a problem. Um, if it's disconnecting you from what you believe in your higher power or God, that's, that's problem. You know, that, that's, that's a spiritual consequence. Um, or if it's for some people hindering what they believe their purposes, because you know, you're, when you're, when you're drinking a lot and you're getting, if and it interferes with your sleep, it interferes with your decision making, it's interfering with your energy, that's definitely going to impact your purpose, what you believe your purpose is, right?

So you don't have the energy to do the things that you were put on the planet to do. That's going to change. I think, you know, that's a spiritual, that's a spiritual consequence. So in my work with patients, uh, our work in general at Amen Clinics, uh, what we write about in our books, you want to keep your brain healthy or rescue it. You have to prevent or treat the 11 major risk factors that steal your mind. And the mnemonic we created, I guess it's the acronym we created, is called Bright Minds. And that helps you remember the 11. So for example, B is for blood flow.

Very clear to me. Alcohol lowers blood flow to the brain. The R is retirement and aging. It prematurely ages your brain. I want to add to that. So under the retirement and aging, I am dealing with a whole host of my friends right now going through empty nest syndrome. And I think that fits into that category. We talk about it. I've had a couple of my friends call me very sad, feeling like they're lacking purpose. And that is sort of what happens in that retirement and aging. So I think it's really important to figure out what to do with yourself in these periods of time, you know, to figure out your purpose, to reassign purpose.

We should do a whole podcast on emptiness syndrome because you have experience with that. I was sort of like, go, go, go. Yeah, no, women are not typically, most women are not like that. The I in bright minds, the first I is inflammation and alcohol increases brain inflammation. The G is genetics. It actually alters gene expression. H is head trauma. Alcohol dramatically increases your risk of head trauma in so many ways. But let me ask you a question. It increases your risk of head trauma, but does head trauma increase the risk of drinking more?

If you have untreated head trauma, your chance of having an addiction just went up threefold. That's what I was thinking. Yeah. And then T in bright minds is toxins. Alcohol is a known toxin. It's actually a fat solvent. And 60% of the solid weight of your brain is fat. If somebody calls you a fathead, say thank you. That's why alcohol is not a great thing for the brain. And I see the impact. We'll show you in just a second that it just has this toxic look for people who are drinkers. One of the things I thought was really interesting is that the feeling you get, that little bit of euphoric feeling when you start to drink, when you've just started to drink a little too much, that point where you start to drink a little too much, where you get that eu that's that's because it's the toxic effect your liver's having trouble detoxifying and i'm like oh oh that's why you're starting to feel drunk is because it's actually toxic like that's what that is m in bright minds is mental health

issues uh alcohol increases depression it's a depressant. It increases your risk of dementia. And the withdrawal, even if it's minor, increases anxiety. Plus, you're much more likely to have PTSD if you're drinking because you're likely to make a bad decision. Immunity and infections, that's the second I. It alters immune function and disrupts the gut-brain axis. And I often say, my wife, who's a nurse, why do you put alcohol on someone's skin before you give them a shot? To kill the bugs and bacteria. And how many bugs and bacteria do you have in your gut? Trillions. A hundred trillion. And drinking something that is a disinfectant. You know, during the pandemic, Jim Beam turned its whiskey plants into hand sanitizer. Well, historically we've used,

like people have used alcohol to disinfect before they did surgery, right? If they didn't have, they weren't in an unsterile environment, they've used alcohol. They'd get them drunk and then disinfect the wound. With the alcohol, right. With the alcohol. Right. So it alters your immune system and is neurohormones. It dysregulates your hormones and increases cortisol, which is a stress hormone. It increases diabesity. So D is diabesity, empty calories. And it actually makes you forget that you've eaten because it messes with your epistat. And so more likely to have more calories and it decreases sleep. In fact, it lowers REM sleep, which is dream sleep.

So the average, I just had my sleep study. I was talking to Dr. Criato last night and I have perfect REM sleep, about two hours a night. Two drinks, your REM sleep goes to one hour. Four drinks, your REM sleep goes to 30 minutes and six drinks less than two minutes. And REM sleep is very important for the health of your brain. And why do I care about alcohol? It's like, why is Dr. Amon so passionate about it? It's because I look at people's brains. So here, healthy scans. You'll cut the one on the left. It's the outside surface of the brain. It should be full, even, and symmetrical. And here are five patients who have alcohol-affected brains. And people watching this podcast, well, we just recently released Jonathan Kane's podcast, who is in the band Journey, who wrote some of their most iconic songs, like Don't Stop

Believing. He's amazing. And Faithfully. And he was drinking too much. And when he saw his scan, it's the top left one, he's like, no, I don't want to have dementia. And I actually made him a poster. Here's a healthy brain. Here's your brain. Here's your brain five years from now if you don't stop. Much worse. Here's your brain even five months from now if you do stop. And he stopped. I'm so proud of him. And he feels sharper. He said the bags under his eyes are gone, right? So a little

bit of plastic surgery from stopping. He said his baby beer belly is gone. And he's just so excited that at 74, he can still stop being bad to his brain, have a better brain and a better marriage and more creativity and a better life. And he's not done, which I just turned 70 this year. That makes me so happy. And the ultimate question is, which brain do you want? And if you want a healthy brain, does alcohol get you what you want? Or maybe not.