ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the possibility that at least some drinkers perceive alcohol as a “magic elixir” capable of transforming emotional states. A prior paper on this topic (Marlatt, 1987) argued that the immediate effects of alcohol consumption often enhance mood or improve affect, a reaction described as “arousal enhancement.” For those who are dependent on drinking to enhance pleasurable arousal, alcohol takes on transformative properties:
Alcohol, viewed from this perspective, takes on the properties of a magic elixir, a substance that can enhance arousal, mood, or affect. Just as the alchemists of centuries past sought out an elixir that would transform lead into gold, so do many of today's problem drinkers turn to alcohol as an elixir to transform negative motional states into positive ones. (Marlatt, 1987, p. 303)
