Does alcohol worsen your stuttering?

[Aesop]

I stutter more after alcohol and the effect continues on the day after also.

How about you?

[Maverick]

Alcohol, like caffeine, also increases dopamine level.

[milknbutter]

my stuttering is reduced or even goes away when I am intoxicated.

[Aesop]

Isn't stuttering a complex affliction? :(

Same problem but different reactions.

[milknbutter]

That's why I asked my friends to notice my speech.

[Sulligogs]

Does it depend on what alcohol one drinks?

I drink mainly lager/beer and my fluency increases after the second pint.

Then again, I am a lightweight...

[Riverman]

I find that alcohol generally relaxes me and I do not stutter or worry about stuttering as much.

However, I do find that my stutter is bad the following day after drinking a substantial amount. I therefore am always aware of what I will be doing the next day and hence particularly try not to drink heavily during the week when I will be at work the next day.

Riverman

[hockeyman55]

My stuttering pratically disappears when drinking alcohol (any kind). I can feel that I am more relaxed and not as tense in my chest area. I also am not concentrating so hard on what I want to say, the words just kind of come out. So frustrating to be able to do that drunk and not sober... :mad:

[DonR]

hockeyman55 said "My stuttering pratically disappears when drinking alcohol (any kind). I can feel that I am more relaxed and not as tense in my chest area."
Riverman said "I find that alcohol generally relaxes me and I do not stutter or worry about stuttering as much."

And I think that is the way to go to overcome stuttering. Anything that causes one to relax and release the tension helps. In my case I used self-hypnosis to help me relax and to stop me worrying about my speech so much. It worked for me after nearly fifty years of stuttering.

[daveyduncan]

Yeh I agree that alcohol seems to help. When the negative voice in your head says 'dont ask that girl out, youll just stammer and make a fool of yourself', the vocal organs tense up and reduce your chances of fluent speech. Alcohol though is a mucle relaxant (hence people start slurring there speech after one too many), so can increase your chances of temporary fluency given your relaxed state.

[DonR]

It's the relaxing that helps, not the alcohol. Too much and you've just added to yor problems!

[daveyduncan]

I agree, it is the relaxing that helps. I was only pointing out that in my experience, a little alcohol often greatly helps me to relax, but I would never advocate the use of alcohol in this way.

[DonR]

You are absolutely right on both counts, Davey and I didn't mean to imply that you would advocate otherwise. On the other hand, a little of what you fancy does you good!

[mov]

Alchol (<spelt it wrong i know) :) helps me quite alot i dont want to sound like a alchaolic because im not, it makes me kinda forget about stammering and makes me do things verbally that i wouldnt do sober.
O and a great question by the way. ;)

[Theo Dreiser]

Alcohol is only a temporary fix.
My vision becomes blurred when I drink also, so there's no point in using that as a "cure".
The problem lies within, and therefore must be extracted from within, not without.

[Asif]

I rarely drink any more, but can remember that when I did, I had less trouble speaking. And the more drunk I became, the better my speech became, too. But I am one of those lucky drunks who just get nicer and nicer until they fall over.
Some people go the other way: more and more aggressive. I doubt that alcohol would help their speech much.
I sometimes eat psylocibin mushrooms (being an aged hippy) and find that they place me on a whole other level where such mundane problems simply go away for the duration. One can transport oneself into such a consciousness by meditation, too. And this is probably better than any kind of hallucinogen - natural or not.
Stutterers need a "conducive" environment more than other people. Living in a place like London, UK, is not what I would call "conducive". Living in the Sonoran Desert, Mexico, IS conducive. Take away as much stress as possible, and your speech is bound to improve. But for most, this is not practical.
But meditation is HIGHLY recommended, and so - too - perhaps the occassional tipple of alcohol :)

[Sam]

I havent really been intoxicated before, but sort of... I think.

and It does decrease the rate of my stuttering, because I dont give a damn about what other people think.

[Ivor Stutter]

Hi i find alcohol can help and can make me worse.

Lager/beer (Guinness hmmm) makes me alot worse where i litterally stutter on everything.
Strangely if i drink whisky and coke all night its not so bad and after a bit i enter this weird stage of drinking til im sober (this is mainly when leaving a loud club and im hammered) but i can talk absolutely perfectly. Its bliss for a while.

But right now im determined to 'self cure' myself by postitive thinking (i almost typed drinking then!! :eek: ) and NOT touching a drop of alcohol. If i stutter badly on a night out it effects me for days afterwards as i just simply feel so down becasue of it.

[Gary1450]

Most stutterers talk great while under the influence but the day AFTER is usually hell for me.

I stutter real bad after a night of drinking.

[mos]

ive never drunk alcohol.

it may work for some or it wont.

guess i'll stick to the squash

:D

[Perad]

Alcohol makes my stammer go away by about 90%, for a while i used to get away from my speech but now its just for nights out.

[superman]

Here something i noticed. I i drink a couple of beersm, the next morning my throat is very thick, i can feel my vocals much more easily and speak rather well as my voice is now naturally deeper. After a few hours the effects starts wearing off. Anyone else notice this?

[Matthias]

when drinking alchol statering seems to disapear but only for a short time . this also makes me more confident and helps me meeting new people and not shy of anyone including girls

[Bobby]

when drinking alchol statering seems to disapear but only for a short time . this also makes me more confident and helps me meeting new people and not shy of anyone including girls

problem is, is that when u do something with this new friend/girl uv meet that does not invlove alcahol, then ur basicly screwed.

[Matthias]

that is a different story . but when i meet a girl which i already know . it is not sever especially if she knows my name . when she does not know my name i get scared she will ask me whats my name and i stammer even more . ( i stammer to say my name Matthias )

[Nicholas]

Just don't start taking drugs to solve the problem. I unfortunately for a time took Dramamine to make my speech flow easier. It worked at first, but it could lead to depression and addiction. Alcohol I'm sure is just as potentially bad.

My brother has the same problem as I do; he once stopped sleeping to keep his problem at bay. He told me your too damned tired to even think about your problems, let alone stuttering. I wouldn't advise that either.

[Matthias]

i dont think i will go to that extreme well i hope i wont go through that extreme

[LIfE]

problem is, is that when u do something with this new friend/girl uv meet that does not invlove alcahol, then ur basicly screwed.
EXACTLY. There's this girl i've been trying to talk to, but the only times i've seen her were during parties where we both got completely drunk. We were pretty much all over each other and i even got her number, but i'll probably never call her or even meet her outside a party setting. For now, i'm sticking to Myspace and text - we'll see where it goes from there.

[emily445455]

Wouldn't know...I don't drink :)

[mo885]

Alcohol lessens my stuttering a lot. I guess it makes me worry about stuttering less and then because of this I stutter less.

[LIfE]

I'm usually pretty fluent the morning after a long night of boozing, too. It's probably because i drink so much that i wake up tipsy. I talk pretty clearly when i'm tired, too.

[maxamillion]

I used to use alcohol fairly often to help manage my stuttering. After a few drinks I don't scan ahead looking for words or situations that I may stutter on. When i'm drinking I don't think about my speech nearly as often has when i'm sober. I believe the alcohol loosens up my vocal cords which means that it takes more pressure and anxiety to block or stutter.

I believe pagoclone basically mimics the effects of alcohol without the actual intoxication and nasty hangover. So if your one of those stutters who becomes more fluent while drinking then Pagoclone might be something to look into. . . . . in a couple of years of course:D

[Derek181]

i found that drinking alcohol in my younger teenage years helped big time. i used to love drinking because then i would be fluent and talk perfectly but that lead to me always over drinking because i wanted to get drunk to talk fluently. but now even if i drink it doesnt matter.... the effect wore off on me i think. pagoclone seems like a neat thing to try.... what other things do they perscribe it for?

[Asif]

i found that drinking alcohol in my younger teenage years helped big time. i used to love drinking because then i would be fluent and talk perfectly but that lead to me always over drinking because i wanted to get drunk to talk fluently. but now even if i drink it doesnt matter.... the effect wore off on me i think. pagoclone seems like a neat thing to try.... what other things do they perscribe it for?

When I was in my 20s, alcohol did make a difference, some anyway.
But that was probably because my stutter was soooo bad.
In later years, well, I get drunk maybe once every two years, and only on Tequila, it does help once I get to the point where I love everyone I meet.
My wife says I am the nicest drunk she has ever met. I get friendlier and friendlier until I fall down. Which is interesting in itself: most drunks seem to get more belligerent.
Could it be that stutterers wear a spiky suit of armor sober, but start taking it off when drunk?

I have found that drugs make it worse, with the sole exception of Psilocybe mushrooms - a hallucinogen. Taken in an underdose quantity, I would actually seek out social contact rather than trying to avoid it, which was mostly the case before.

But honestly I could never recommend either drugs or alcohol. At best they may hide speech dysfluency, which isn't really helping it.

[DKoz]

Drinking itself does not make my stutter worse. But if I do drink too much and they next day I have a hangover, then the stutter hits harder with a vengeance!

[Zachary]

I experience something similar. My fluency increases greatly while intoxicated. However, it worsens the morning after. I don't drink much anymore due to this, I figure it is affecting something and can't be healthy whatsoever.