Have you ever heard the phrase “Don’t shoot the messenger?” The nervous system is just that, the messenger between a person’s body and their mind. When a person takes alcohol, it can wreak havoc with a person’s central nervous system. It can cause the nervous system to send mixed messages to the brain and vice versa.
Because the central nervous system is responsible for primarily all body functions, it can be a nuisance and a problem to have it affected by 
alcohol, especially on an ongoing basis. When alcohol enters the nervous system, it can cause a person to become incoherent, off balance, unable to think properly and unable to reason, walk or talk like he normally would. It changes a person’s perception of time, vision, hearing and can lead to physical problems with the heart and circulatory system in the short term as well as the liver and cancer problems in the long term.
While it seems that temporarily alcohol can make a person feel good, in reality it is actually depressing the central nervous system. This is part of the mixed message problem associated with drinking. A person thinks he is partying when he is drinking, right? However, his body is getting weaker and feeling sluggish; it is breaking down in the sense that it just wants to go off somewhere and go to sleep. Unfortunately, sometimes this happens when a person gets behind the wheel of a vehicle or tries to stumble home and ends up walking out into the road.
Alcohol in small doses can be okay but it can still very much affect a person’s central nervous system. In excessive or large doses, it can cause alcohol poisoning. While a person is indulging, he is feeling like he is having fun. The brain thinks so at times and hungers for more. The rest of the body is thinking “oh, no!” and trying to shut down. The nervous system itself is confused by all these mixed signals till it finally just “runs to its room” like a teenage girl wanting to be alone.
So the next time you hear the phrase “don’t shoot the messenger”, consider the truth behind the context. The messenger is the central nervous system. Life is a lot brighter and grander when seen without the inhibition of alcohol colored glasses.
Nick Hayes is a graduate of the Narconon drug rehab program in 2005. Nick takes much enjoyment in writing, and feels there needs to be more information about drugs and alcohol provided to the people of the world. He believes nobody should have to go through an addiction.