Ep29 – Doritos Made Me an Alcoholic: The Why, the How and the Stigma of AlcoholismEp29 – Doritos Made Me an Alcoholic: The Why, the How and the Stigma of Alcoholism
Untoxicated Podcast
Matt Salis explains how mental "gymnastics", sugar-fuelled dopamine and a chaotic mind fed into his alcoholism, and why he now proudly uses the word "alcoholic". He shares simple questions for self-assessing drinking and argues that owning the label can strip it of its power and shame.
46:34•3 Feb 2020
Doritos, Dopamine and Denial: Matt Salis on Owning the Alcoholic Label
Episode Overview
- High-functioning drinkers often hide behind comparison and denial, using stereotypes of "gutter" alcoholics to avoid facing their own reality.
- Complicated personal rules about drinking (only weekends, only beer, counting drinks) usually fail and drain huge amounts of mental energy.
- Two simple questions – whether you think about alcohol when not drinking, and whether it causes problems – can cut through years of debate.
- Sugar and simple carbs can prime the brain’s dopamine system so that alcohol later feels essential, especially when combined with anxiety or a chaotic mind.
- Openly using the word "alcoholic" can reduce stigma, build credibility, and turn a source of shame into a source of connection and honesty.
“"If I introduce myself to a group of people as an alcoholic, what are they going to do?"”
What makes a recovery story truly inspiring? Matt Salis answers that with humour, honesty and a bag of crisps. Yes, really. In this episode of the Untoxicated Podcast, Matt talks about what he calls the "mental gymnastics" of being a high-functioning alcoholic. He describes the endless self-arguments: "I haven't got a DUI... yet. I haven't lost my family...
yet," and the exhausting rules he tried to impose on his drinking – only weekends, only beer, counting bottle caps – and how those rules were "just made to be broken".
Matt then breaks his path to self-diagnosis down into two brutally simple questions: "Do you think about alcohol when you're not drinking?" and "Is alcohol causing problems in your life?" If the answer to both is yes, he argues, the situation is "far, far, far more likely to get much, much worse" than better. The episode’s title comes to life when Matt links his teenage Doritos habit to his later drinking.
He explains how simple carbs and sugar triggered dopamine in his brain, so when alcohol arrived, his brain treated it the same way, eventually reserving pleasure only for drinking. Mix in what he calls "chaotic mind syndrome", cultural drinking norms and using alcohol to temporarily ease darkness and stress, and he describes alcoholism as feeling almost inevitable. Matt also tackles stigma head-on.
He explains why he proudly uses the word "alcoholic", saying, "If I introduce myself to a group of people as an alcoholic, what are they going to do?" By owning the label, he argues, others lose the power to use it as a weapon, and he even describes how saying "I'm an alcoholic" in a writing group instantly gave his feedback credibility.
If you’ve ever spent nights bargaining with yourself about your drinking, this candid, slightly cheeky breakdown might leave you asking: what would happen if you stopped arguing and simply told yourself the truth?
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