Warning: The following contains mentions of alcohol that may be triggering to some audiences.

Any drinker knows that alcohol can exacerbate the experience of an emotion. Other times, it can numb a feeling entirely.

People with borderline personality disorder often experience intense emotions at one extreme, as well as numbness or “emptiness” at the other extreme. Do you see a parallel?

Alcohol can magnify BPD symptoms. Accordingly, it is especially important for people with BPD to be careful around alcohol.

Alcohol is physically addictive, like opioids. This means that your body craves the substance based on how much of it you introduce to your system. You can have physical withdrawal symptoms from ingesting a lot of the substance and then stopping (read: hangovers). Long-term use can require supervised “detox” in a clinical setting due to the severity of the physical withdrawals.

Alcohol is also mentally addictive, like gambling. This means that the mind irrationally craves the activity even when serious consequences like debt or health risks objectively outweigh the short-term gratification of the behavior. 

Mental addiction is fostered by a program of inconsistent reward: sometimes when you drink, you have a super fun night out on the town; other times when you drink, you fall asleep on the couch. This is the same mechanism that keeps people playing the slot machines, obsessively checking phone notifications, and “doom-scrolling” social media—sometimes, you get an exciting result; other times, you get nothing at all.

A person with BPD can be particularly vulnerable to this kind of mental addiction for two reasons. The first is that our positive experiences can be especially intense: experiences that are “pleasant” for others can be “euphoric” for us. This makes the potential short-term rewards of drinking even more enticing. 

The second reason is that people with BPD have especially intense negative experiences. This means that alcohol cannot be a once-in-a-while coping mechanism for us, as it is for some neurotypical individuals. Neurotypical individuals may use alcohol to numb negative feelings once they reach a critical threshold. Their emotions, however, are rarely so overpowering that they are inclined to use alcohol to escape them.

Contrastingly, individuals with BPD characteristically reach this same threshold much more easily and often than their neurotypical counterparts. This means that we are willing to “roll the dice” by binge-drinking much more often than neurotypical individuals. 

These two reasons may contribute to the finding that BPD is “highly associated” with alcohol use disorder. Individuals with BPD consume more alcohol than their neurotypical counterparts, and do so more quickly.

More consumption leads to a higher risk of becoming mentally and physically addicted to alcohol. As you may be able to see, a drinking habit naturally spirals toward a drinking problem. Why do so many of us risk it?

Many accept the costs of drinking because marketing has convinced them that alcohol leads to fun, friends, and an enviable lifestyle. Don’t be afraid to be a part of the counterculture that rejects alcohol and its damaging effects.

I encourage anyone interested in learning more about the true cost of alcohol use to read This Naked Mind. The author, Annie Grace, speaks from the perspective of a marketing executive who understands the techniques used by the alcohol industry to disguise the costs of drinking. 

I encourage everyone, especially individuals with BPD, to focus on what works for you—not what anyone else is doing!

About the Author: Saadia is a graduate student with lived experience of borderline personality disorder. She volunteers with the Lived Experience Committee because she wants to share the gift of recovery with others. You can find her on LinkedIn.