This article might make you re-think about taking up that bottle of so-called spirit when you feel terribly horrible.


The Straits Time, 01 March 2008, p21

Drowning Your Sorrows is No Fix
Agence France-Presse

The age-old belief is that alcohol helps people drown their sorrows, but in truth the bottle only makes bad memories linger, a Japanese study said yesterday.

Researchers at the University of Tokyo concluded that ethanol – an intoxicating agent in alcohol,- does not cause memory to decrease, but instead locks it in place.

The researchers, led by pharmacology professor Norio Matsuki, gave mild shocks to laboratory rats to condition them to fear. As a result, the rats would freeze in terror and curl up the moment they were put in their cages.

The rats were then immediately injected with ethanol or saline.

The researchers found that rats with alcohol in their veins froze up for longer, with the fear on average lasting two weeks, compared with rats that did not receive injections.

‘If we apply this study to humans, the memories they are trying to get rid of will remain strongly, even if they drink alcohol to try to forget an event they dislike and be in a merry mood for the moment,’ the study said.

‘The following day, they won’t remember the merriness that they felt,’ it said.

Professor Matsuki said the findings offered lessons for people living with bad memories.

‘To forget something you dislike, it’s best to overwrite the negative memory with a positive memory at an early stage and leave out drinking alcohol,’ Prof Matsuki advised.

The study was published in the United States academic journal Neuropsychopharmacology.