13 - Alcohol

(Want to hear this post instead?  Less screen time!!  For audio, click here)

There are a lot of things I’ve needed to give up or significantly limit while recovering from this concussion: movies, rock climbing, travelling, working, reading, going to concerts… Slowly I can start to reintroduce these things back into my life, though perhaps in a modified way and maybe the modifications will become a long term new normal.  For example, I can’t remember the last time I’ve been to a movie theatre and I don’t see myself being able to go anytime soon.  I now watch movies only at home, sparingly, and I need to pause the movie multiple times to take breaks from the visual stimulation.  A two-hour long movie can take me three hours or longer to watch.

But, if we’re going to look at this in a “glass half full” kind of way, than these modifications do in fact have their own silver lining.  It’s kind of nice breaking up movies into segments.  I watch 20 minutes of a movie, then prep my first course of dinner.  I watch another 30 minutes, then I assemble my main meal.  I watch another chunk of the movie, then get me some dessert.  I finish the movie, then I wash the dishes…sometimes… Honestly, I’ve come to find this process quite relaxing, regardless of whether or not the dishes actually get washed.

Rock climbing I’ve been able to start again, but just at a slower and lower intensity than before.  This has actually allowed me to become far more mindful of how my body moves and how to coordinate movement and breath - I feel like I can appreciate the quality of movement more than I did before.  It’s also been a nice time to not only climb, but to really catch up with the friends who do join me.  Previously we might have focused our climbing time on training and levelling up.  My new pace now allows me to take the time for real conversations between climbs.

In regards to travelling, I’ve learnt from a recent trip home to Winnipeg that I can in fact fly on a plane without too much pain or brain drain.  An even more recent road trip to Toronto has taught me the importance of pacing and resting, not only during the visit, but also when I return home.  Again, it makes for a more relaxed time instead of my previous running from place to place, then coming back, hitting the ground running (or as I see it now, running myself into the ground…).

Working is, well, a working progress.  The same goes for reading for any useful amount of time.  If I try to sit down and read a number of articles or pages in a book, I get headaches and blurred vision.  It can be extremely difficult to concentrate; I find myself reading the same sentence over and over and over again, and it’s maybe only the second sentence of the entire text!  But, this has got me to discover the wonderful world of audiobooks and podcasts.  In truth, I’ve always preferred being read to, so the switch to audio may be a willing change for life!

As for concerts…well…I’m kind of afraid to even try that at this point in time (lots of people, loud noises, bright lights and typically at night, which tends to be one of the worst times of day for my brain…concerts, no thank you!).  If I never to get to see Radiohead live, then so be it.  I can still be a hipster, listening to their newest album on vinyl at home in the controlled comfort of my apartment…

But of the list of things I’ve had to give up or limit, one of the quirkiest is alcohol.  Yes…alcohol.  Now, it should be noted that I do not have, nor have l ever had, much of an alcohol tolerance in the first place.  Still, after I turned 18 years old (the legal drinking age back home in Manitoba), my drink of choice became tequila.  Yes…tequila.  I will defend myself here.  Yes, there were a few bad nights drinking lesser forms of that sweet sweet intoxicating agave serum.  The worst night being the time I thought it was a good idea to pre-game before going out with shots of a milky, fake strawberry flavoured tequila mix… I wasn’t the picture of sophistication in my early twenties, especially when I returned home that night with vomit in my hair and on my then brand new red corduroy shoes… But after that, I only drank the good stuff - pure tequila that had gone through more than one distillation; the official sticker on the bottle.  Now, the quality of tequila didn’t at all change my alcohol tolerance, but at least when it came back up it was more aseptic to my red corduroy shoes than the curdled milky stuff…

If I haven’t grossed you out and lost you yet, good.  I’ll get to the point.

All those times when we were young, we laughed at the idea of how many brain cells we were killing off on those whacky drinking nights.  Well, with the brain injury, I’m already down an important number of brain cells and really can’t afford to lose any more.

In my second blog post, I described PCS feeling like you’re constantly in that state of being both drunk and hungover.  Indeed, six years ago after I recovered from my first concussion, I think it took me about one full year to just be comfortable with alcohol.  When I had started to drink again, for me, the effects of the alcohol reminded me of PCS and so I would get really anxious.  It would remind me of the horrible times I was in pain and struggling to recover.  I would panic thinking my brain was injured again.  With time, I overcame this and was able to enjoy a glass of wine with a meal (in my later twenties I became more sophisticated, transitioning from tequila to whatever wine was on a good sale).

Being able to drink alcohol again, for me now, is again a slow process.  Though, before my most recent concussion in 2015, I wasn’t a super avid drinker.  Once a week I treated myself to cooking an elaborate meal for one (yeah, I’ll make a full recipe of beef bourguignon for myself, no special occasion needed!) then I watched crappy TV and drank two glasses of wine.  There was only one day a week I did this so my intake of alcohol (and crappy TV) was moderate to low.  But still, I do miss just that.

So last autumn, I talked to my doctor and pharmacist and decided I was doing well enough in my recovery to try some wine once more.  At the same time, I received in my mail one of the magazines I get from my local brain injury association.  The featured topic was alcohol and addictions in brain injury.  One part of the magazine article explained what I had suspected but had never known after my first concussion.  Essentially, an injured brain has less energy than it did before.  When alcohol is added, the brain doesn’t have enough energy or capacity to deal with it.  The result: a person with a brain injury may get drunker, harder, quicker, and the hangover can be worse and last longer.  This is definitely true for me.  Add that to the fact that I hadn’t drank any alcohol in years, I have medication that has side effects when combined with alcohol, plus my naturally low alcohol tolerance and last autumn, all it took was 1/4 glass of wine to get me hammered…

I’m glad to say though that this alcohol experiment last autumn was not detrimental nor traumatic.  I had anticipated a very low tolerance.  I took caution, sipping slowly with a meal and drinking double the amount of water along with it.  I was in a place of good mental health so I knew I’d be able to recognize and mitigate any anxiety… Wow, writing this out right now, I’m realizing just how much thought and effort went into drinking just a quarter glass of wine post-concussion, lol.  But, that’s how it is.  That’s life managing PCS.  This is the kind of process I’ve needed to take for everything tricky, or triggering, being reintroduce back into my life.

I sometimes think of early twenties me, putting back without hesitation that milky, fake strawberry tequila garbage.  A version of me that could binge watch animated movies, go out hiking and rock climbing for ten hours of the day, on vacation somewhere far away in the world.  A past Krystal that could take on more than one job and multiple projects, who earned a good income.  A former me that plunged into that last Harry Potter book the day it go delivered to my doorstep.  That person I once saw in the mirror who also saw the Matthew Good Band, Our Lady Peace, the Tragically Hip, Foo Fighters, Weezer and Björk at outdoor summer music festivals, and often from the thick of the pit… I know, these are very privileged things of a charmed life I lead.  I’m privileged even now though I sometimes struggle to send an email, go for a walk, watch just one music video… But, did twenty-something year old me know I was taking these privileges for granted?  I’m pretty sure the answer is no.

Between recovering from my first concussion and sustaining my most recent brain injury, my alcohol consumption had significantly decreased.  I may sound old or prude saying this, but I do truly now see alcohol as part of a good time instead of the focus of the party.  Indeed, the first time I got loopy drinking my quarter glass of wine last autumn, I took advantage of the happy drunk state by calling a bunch of friends and leaving them funny voice messages.  The one friend that did pick up the phone suggested I do something creative in that moment.  “That’s a great idea!” I happily replied.  Within five minutes, my table was covered in paint and I made my first “Loopy” painting.

I call it: Loopy #1!

It’s now a ritual and friends have gotten in on it too. I post pictures of the “Loopy painting series” on my personal social media the day after my drinking and painting adventures.

Loopy #2...

Many people “like” the paintings, but only a handful have known that such a post means Krystal drank one quarter to half a glass of alcohol the evening before.

You guessed it: Loopy #3 :)

Despite this fairly pleasant drinking and painting experience, alcohol has some real drawbacks for me.  Like I said above, alcohol’s effect on me post-injury is getting me drunker, harder, quicker.  Many people have said to me that that’s a “good thing,” being a “cheap drunk.”  But what they don’t realize is that it’s a gamble for me to even have just ONE drink.  Just one drink out at a meal (in a restaurant or at a family gathering) could render me socially unacceptable; I’d worry about my ability to take care of myself and my safety in an uncontrolled environment.  Plus, the hangover can last me a full day or two and it can really slow me down for an entire week afterwards.

This may not be everyone’s experience.  In fact, one of my friends whom I met through the brain injury community once said to me that a bit of alcohol seemed to actually help them in loud, social environments.  They wonder if the alcohol helps dull their usually overstimulated senses, or if it helps “take the edge off” (as people say), being in a space that would usually be quite anxiety-provoking…  Now, I should state here that this isn’t backed up by science.  I’m not sharing this as a recommendation to go out and drink alcohol, lol.  There are after all a lot of problems with this theory if a person with PCS is not cautious.

Other than the effects I listed above from my own personal experience, we can’t forget that in everyone alcohol impairs balance, coordination, thinking, concentration and judgement - people are more likely to do risky things, fall over and hurt themselves, potentially hitting their head or sustaining whiplash.  After a brain injury, our brain takes much longer to recover than we think - it’s still not healed after we’ve stopped having symptoms.  So, anyone who has had a brain injury is more at risk of having another.  Adding alcohol is yet another layer of risk for brain re-injury.  Further, there is some research to say that alcohol post brain injury can slow recovery; alcohol can also be involved in causing a brain injury and some people with brain injury may be more likely to drink heavier than people without.  Drinking alone and using substances to escape reality are warning signs for addiction, which can also be a problem in the brain injury survivor world.

So, even though alcohol can be a risky choice post concussion, I shared my friend’s experience above because it’s just interesting to me how different people with PCS might experience alcohol in different ways.  Even for me, the effects of alcohol this time around, compared to my first concussion, seem different.  If things continue to improve, then there’s likely a place in my life to savour a good wine vintage, in the company of good friends and a good meal (I’m becoming even more sophisticated in my thirties…).

But I’ll admit, of all the things I’ve had to give up or limit, alcohol is a tough one to wrap my head around.  It doesn’t seem the benefits outweigh the consequences and so I’m conflicted as to whether I truly want to spend my energy working to reintroduce this back into my life.  So for now, what I’ve decided is this:

Regardless of my most recent happy drunk state painting adventures, it’s been months since I’ve had any alcohol.  I rarely drink because I rarely find my consequences justifiable.  This will hopefully change with time as my brain continues to heal.  But for now, I at least try to stay away from alcohol when I’m not in a “good head space.”  Dealing with the reality of PCS day in and day out is hard; many of us want an escape.  I do not want to use alcohol, or any substance, as a coping mechanism for this.  Yeah, it kind of sucks to order a water when I’m finally out with friends or at a fancy restaurant.  I mean, I could always order a mocktail (Shirley Temple anyone?).  And there is a silver lining to not drinking: I save a ton of money! (Alcohol is a hobby far more expensive than painting on it’s own, lol.)

So of all the things I’ve had to give up, even if I do miss my one night a week of cooking an elaborate meal with a glass of wine in hand, alcohol is one of the things in my life I need the least.  Well…next to crappy TV, of course.

- Krystal