This Naked Mind: Control Alcohol, Find Freedom, Discover Happiness / Change Your Life \u0026 The Alcohol Experiment by Annie Grace

This Naked Mind: Control Alcohol, Find Freedom, Discover Happiness / Change Your Life \u0026 The Alcohol Experiment Reviews

• 
  Hal Issen

  This book could have been titled “The Fox and the Grapes” because the author’s premise is that if you can’t have the things you crave, you should just tell yourself that you really don’t want them anyway. When it comes to alcohol, I think this is a dangerous fallacy, and I worry about the alcoholics who follow her advice and can’t comply. This Naked Mind is a concept for sobriety created by Annie Grace and based on her assumptions that:
  • anyone who drinks alcohol of any kind will eventually become an alcoholic, and therefore everyone is equally likely to become an alcoholic,
  • alcoholism is a habitual and emotional dependency as opposed to a chemical and physical addiction,
  • alcohol is pushed on the public in a capitalist scheme to create a market where none exists, and
  • once anyone realizes all this they will simply and easily give up alcohol once and forever and live an “incredible, amazing” life more meaningful and satisfying than anyone could ever imagine possible.
  
  It should be noted that Grace’s background is in marketing and she has absolutely no academic or professional credentials that qualifies her to provide mental health counseling services to anyone, let alone people with addictions. Her theories and her “research” are based on the experiences of herself and her father. She is like a former sinner who has an epiphany and earnestly sets themselves up as a religious leader, with no background in theology, no training in pastoral care, no skills in church administration, and no denominational affiliation to provide stability, resources or accountability. That always works out fine, right?
  
  But let’s look at her revelations one at a time. Her idea that everyone is equally possible of becoming an alcoholic, and that anyone who drinks will eventually become an alcoholic, flies in the face of genetic research, and of course she has no research to back this up. This also puts her in direct opposition to Alcoholics Anonymous, an organization exclusively for people who recognize that compared to the rest of the population, they have a weakness for drinking. It also defies anecdotal evidence that most people have of individuals who confine themselves to a glass of wine or two with dinner, but don’t require it, and never drink to excess. If I were capable of doing that I certainly would, but it just doesn’t work that way for me. We are not all the same. Grace profoundly under-emphasizes the brain’s chemical reaction to drinking, the “buzz” that alters the state of conciseness and provides the addictive sense of excitement. That buzz is why people drink to excess; she barely discusses it and dismisses it entirely too casually. As for capitalists creating a market for booze, I agree that the liquor market is exploiting the human desire for that buzz to the maximum degree possible, but people who can’t purchase alcohol will go through all sorts of creative measures to try to get it. Prisoners make raisin wine and submariners drank torpedo fuel, and capitalism has nothing to do with it. Her Marxist rant against capitalism is especially ironic in that she is attempting to set herself up as some sort of sobriety guru through her marketing of This Naked Mind.
  
  Along those lines, she uses the old sales tactic of Bait and Switch, proclaiming early in the book that you can drink as much as you want by using the This Naked Mind technique. In the closing pages of the book she reveals that you can drink all you want because if you embrace all her tenants, you won’t want to drink at all! And your life will be so amazing and incredible! Curing the craving for an alcohol buzz by telling yourself that it is poison is about as effective as trying to suppress sexual urges by telling yourself about the possible dangers of sex with others (STDs, unwanted pregnancies, emotional damage to others, etc.). The craving for alcohol and sexual urges act on the brain through hormones, and a lot of people can’t easily just rationalize them away. I am in my third sobriety; I was a chronic pothead from 1975-1985 and quit pot cold turkey. I quit alcohol six years later and stayed sober for 20 years, without AA, treatment or therapy. I tried drinking again after my children left my house, and I drank for 6 years, and goddamn it was good and I had a lot of fun. But I realized that I was jeopardizing my health and marriage and had to put the alcohol aside, and I’ve been sober for 15 months now. It may seem that I could be an example of using rational thought process to stop drinking, but where I differ is that I don’t pretend that I don’t want to drink anymore. There is not much amazing or incredible about my life now, sobriety is very hard work and not much fun. Even though I don’t go into The Rooms, I respect AA because they acknowledge how difficult it is to become and remain sober, along with recognizing that some people can drink responsibly and moderately, and other people shouldn’t drink at all. Of online discussion groups and journaling about how incredible and amazing your life is without alcohol, if it works for you, bless you and may you stay strong. But for me, sobriety is no gift, a genetic disposition to alcoholism is a differentiating weakness, and fools like Annie Grace who tell me to just pretend otherwise can eat my shorts.
• 
  Sue

  Some good information, however ---- the author comes across as insufferably smug for a good portion of the book. It was very off-putting when trying to absorb some of the excellent data.
  
  Ms Grace clearly has a MyersBriggs Personality type that skews HUGELY towards a "Thinker". Every argument she makes to quit alcohol resides in her own bias that logic, information, data and a reasoned approach will (and this is where she pisses me off....) just *UNPAINFULLY AND WITHOUT EFFORT* cure you of the need to drink.
  
  Every recommendation; every tip; every story; every piece of research or data, supports this approach. That it's your lack of information at an unconscious level that makes you drink. Never - not once - does Ms Grace address the fatal flaw in her theory: that the unconscious mind is, by definition - UNCONSCIOUS ! Even if you know what you know.... the unconscious may not absorb it. And that has nothing to do with logic / reason / data.
  
  She also clearly believes that her role as a marketer gives her magic bullet insights.
  
  While the power of the human mind is indeed remarkable, I found her parroting of this approach by the 75% mark of the book to be less about helping others, and feeling and sounding more like she was looking for accolades for "discovering" such a unique, utterly mind / logic based approach.
  
  If this works for some - great. However, her continued assertions seem to ignore huge swaths of human experience - not the least of which are emotions. Yes, emotions stem from the brain. But again, her bias regarding 'INFORMATION WILL SET YOU FREE ! AND IT WILL BE *PAINLESS!' just comes across as so smug. Plus as a marketer -- you'd think she'd understand the concept of "Under Promise / Over Deliver".
• 
  Lauri Baird

  This amazing book could change your life if you are ready to stop drinking or understand why you drink. I would highly recommend it.
  
• 
  Matthew

  It will definitely get you to cut back on drinking. But I seriously drank the kool aid.. I feel like they use the same tactics as a cult. So much hate for alcohol. But they are trying to sell you the naked mind cult at the end of the book. I did not like that. But it also fucks you up, cause now I question everything I eat or do! Thanks assholes!
• 
  Stacy Anderson

  I have a lot to say about this book.
  It started off very interesting. I read through the sample before I even knew it. I was intrigued with how Grace depicted our conscious vs unconscious minds and I don’t disagree. Everywhere around us is subconsciously telling us to drink and that it’s ok, and normal. Which I don’t think it is abnormal.
  However, as I continued reading, I almost became annoyed at some of the comparisons and way she described alcohol. She used the comparison of cigarettes and how now a lot of people don’t smoke them because they are so bad for you. She said alcohol is the same, a poison we put in our body. But in all honesty, how much “poison do we already put into our body and continue to even though we know it’s harmful: soda, processed foods, fast foods, sugars. Not just alcohol. At one point she described giving up alcohol and how it made you feel. If you were asked to give up alcohol would it be the same as if someone told you apples were bad for you? Poor comparison. I get what she was trying to convey, but everyone has their different triggers.
  I think overall it can make you aware of how alcohol can effect you, but regardless of what she says in the beginning, she thinks everyone should abstain from alcohol forever. And it may be completely my misunderstanding, but I gathered that she thinks it’s completely mental, and that programs aren’t needed for people to quit, but may possibly need a detox program. (Again I could be wrong, but that’s how I took it).
  
  All in all...I think every single person has a “vice” and it’s just a matter of knowing when you no longer have control over whatever it is that’s controlling you.
• 
  Mindy

  Picked this up from the library after an NPR segment on pandemic drinking. I’m a sucker for NPR recommendations.
  I enjoyed the beginning, which challenges the reader to pay attention to alcohol advertising and the implicit messages/ myths we receive about the positives of drinking. There were also a few interesting science tidbits about dynorphin, dopamine, and loss of pleasure when drinking.
  I was ultimately disappointed in the way the author deliberately uses more emotional language as the book progresses in order to sway the reader on an unconscious level against alcohol consumption altogether. She’s up front about her intentional style here, but the writing is hard to consume as it gets more extreme and judgmental.
• 
  Rebecca Matchette

  This book could have easily been an essay in the New Yorker, et.al. Every chapter basically saying same thing. Simplistic solution for complex problem. Author has a one-size-fits all approach which does not take into consideration the myriad of situations and complexities that go into addiction. Author references her father as an example of 'just say no' success story. Never mind he had to get on a snowmobile to go get booze. Or maybe he just matured. Only vague science referenced..This is another younger person speaking from her own experience. More like a memoir. Nothing helpful if you at a different life stage or have a serious addiction problem.
• 
  Rayfes Mondal

  Confirmed a lot of thoughts I've had about alcohol but I learned a lot of new things as well. Promotion of alcohol is everywhere and only limited messages about its dangers and drawbacks.
  
  Alcohol doesn't make me a better person or make my life better. I realize I don't need it but it's hard to break habits.
  
  I definitely recommend the experiment / challenge that Annie suggests. There's also a great podcast.
  
  AA was never going to be the right approach for me but this resonates well.
• 
  Nathaniel Delano

  A little self help-y for me (prefer the Huberlab Lab podcast on alcohol), but whatever gets you thinking about this stuff is a good thing.
• 
  Aurimas Strikaitis

  Good book easy to read. I've never realised that people struggle with alcohol, so much. I used to smoke cigarettes and hated it. This book brought memories back of how I was struggling with it and how much I hate it. Probably addiction is an addiction. There were a few points that I didn't know. All in all, I enjoyed this book.
• 
  Bridget Kruszka

  I picked this book up because, since moving to Chicago, I've developed anxiety over going to events and there being an expectation of drinking/wondering if events can still be fun without alcohol. I love Chicago, but am not fond of the alcohol-centric life here.
  
  That being said, I would recommend reading this book, as I think parts of it were incredibly nice to see in writing. Annie Grace does a nice job of compiling certain concepts in one place. I shared certain aspects with my friends and loved that she said that stopping will happen in our own time.
  
  I do think she should've stopped the book after the liminal points. She seemed to switch tone and jumped on a preachy pulpit in such a way that I was sure I'd have to fact check some of the latter argument points in the book. And it wasn't the inclusive book it was during the liminal points.
• 
  Kate

  Just a lot of redundancy. Interesting content especially in beginning. Then she gets smug and arrogant about not drinking. Even says that her friend who drinks 1 beer Friday and 1 beer Saturday likely wants more bc he is addicted. She claims that anyone who drinks is addicted and I just don’t think you can make a blanket statement like that.
• 
  Bernadette Mills

  After not drinking alcohol for a year, due to a medication conflict, I decided to read this book. I've experienced life differently since giving up alcohol and I was curious if this book could help explain why.
  
  It delivered everything I was hoping it would about the chemical changes in our bodies and even the changes to our brain we experience in the absence of alcohol.
  
  I never intended to give up alcohol forever, but I am pretty sure, after the peace I've found, that I won't go back to drinking alcohol again.
  
  It is an easy book to read, informative, and interesting as the author shares her own experiences. I found it fascinating and highly recommend it to anyone that has found themselves wondering what effect alcohol has on the body and mind.
• 
  Alice

  Possibly the best book I’ve ever read.
  
  I took many lessons from it without feeling I was being preached too. I now drink A LOT more tea than I did before reading this book. I’m also feeling better, looking better, have lost weight & am generally just more happy in myself. I also don’t dread doing my glass recycling.
  
  I don’t want to be 100% alcohol free & I didn’t feel that that was pushed on me at all.
  
  It did make me seriously look at and consider some of my views along with decisions I have made. I honestly think I’ve used alcohol as a crutch for far too long & am infinitely grateful to now be able to see that.
• 
  Sonja Bates

  An enjoyable and interesting read. A little hyperbolic at times and some comparisons to marriage and the diet culture were dated and sexist - not as 2021 as it could be. Nonetheless, the author opens the reader’s mind to the toxic culture of drinking. Why do we really drink alcohol? Are we more addicted than we realise? Does it really bring us the happiness we think? A thought provoking manifesto.
• 
  Sally Ann

  I only read one of the two and although it was targeted at all drinkers and I do drink my drinking is not excessive and has not escalated. In fact during Lockdown when people have drunk more I drink less. I got it as I work with people who do drink excessively and I wanted to understand their world a little more . Which this book gave me.
  Towards the end I found it a little too evangelical and nearly stopped but I can understand why it too this tone.
• 
  Ann Sumner

  This book underpinned the reasons I have stopped drinking. I don’t want to be a slave to poison anymore, and Annie Grace makes her case for this idea of poison very clearly and conversationally. There’s no hectoring or shaming in her voice at all, just empathy and straight facts, appeals to our bodies and our minds rather than tsking at her readers. This is a serious subject, discussed in a serious manner. I wish all my drinking friends would read it.
  
• 
  Jeannette

  Powerful book that will lessen your urge to drink alcohol. It was rather repetitive, over and over again, anecdotes about drinkers and quitters and all the bad stuff that drinking does to your body and relationships. Despite this, I skimmed through the book and ended up avoiding wine, hard liquor, and even cutting back on beer. So its an effective tome to tone your drinking down - or out. Read it.
• 
  Paul Lutz

  A wonderfully helpful and healthy alternative to the Alcoholics Anonymous approach to reexamining one's relationship with alcohol. I recommend it to anyone exploring the role of alcohol in their life and especially those who have struggled with the assumptions and recommendations of AA. Let's talk, if you wish to know more.
• 
  Karen Rust

  Been thinking about how alcohol pervades Btitish life for a while. Saw a few reviews of this book in magazines, so had a read. Confirmed everything I'd been thinking and more. Haven't had an alcoholic drink for over a month and not sure if I'll ever go back to it.
• 
  Victoria

  Comprehensive and detailed information about the true harm of alcohol, backed up by science and explains why so many people find it difficult to live a life of sobriety. Great for anyone interested in leading an alcohol free life.