FREEDOM FEELS GOOD –
Oct. 20, 2023 – “So we work very hard to try to conceal the things we think might make us vulnerable, the things that people might think are wrong with us,” added Hendriksen, a clinical assistant professor at Boston University’s Center for Anxiety and Related Disorders. “We worry that those perceived fatal flaws will be seen and pointed out, and we will bear negative social consequences because of that.”
Alcohol may help quiet such insecurities – that would otherwise prevent us from having unbridled fun – by disinhibiting us and desensitising our senses, said Dr Jodi Gilman, associate professor of psychology at Harvard Medical School in Boston.
A 2008 study Gilman coauthored even found that when participants were intoxicated, MRIs of their brains showed they weren’t differentiating in their responses to the neutral or fearful faces of other people as they would when they were sober, she said. In other words, situations that would normally feel threatening weren’t during intoxication.
