Alcohol is everywhere. Tens of millions of human beings experience the consequences of alcohol addiction, from decreased job performance to liver damage, spouse and child abuse, to total breakdown of social concepts and constraints ending in the proverbial “skid-row bum” looking every day for his MD 20-20 - or even a can of Sterno .

That is just alcohol. We aren’t even going to list the details for other drugs as it would be tedious and pointless. You have the idea. Alcohol and other drugs have the ability to do what they do in our systems because they are “fixed”; they are synthetic ligands; they bind to our receptors and, in various ways, produce their effects.

In order to get an idea of how these fake ligands actually work, let’s take a look at caffeine. As our neurons process information, they produce cellular waste including a buildup of molecules of adenosine. Adenosine is a ligand that binds with the adenosine receptor sending a message deep into the cell that it is time to
sleep. You could say that adenosine is a sort of “warning system” that helps keep the body balanced.

As the production of adenosine continues throughout the day, as a byproduct of cerebral activity, more and more adenosine is produced, binding
with more and more receptors, sending more and more sleep messages into more cells. Little by little our brain cells become more and more sluggish until we just simply must go to sleep. We literally can’t remain conscious. We yawn; our eyes water and try to close, and we just want to curl up and let the lights go out.


Or, we have a cup of espresso.

The caffeine molecule just happens to be the right “shape” for the adenosine receptor. It hops on and binds. But, instead of doing what the adenosine does, it sends a different message or, at the very least, blocks the sleep message from being sent by the real adenosine. In short, it interrupts the natural sleep signal, allowing a lot more cellular waste to accumulate, putting the individual in a state of toxicity, which can eventually lead to a breakdown of health.
In general, this seems to be the worst thing that caffeine does - it simply blocks the action of the ligand adenosine which sends sleep messages.

Many people have been scared by incomplete research suggesting that caffeine does other deadly things, but additional studies have suggested that any consequences result merely from the disruption of the sleep cycle and a consequent break-down in the serotonin-melatonin cycle.

The important thing about this is, however, the comparison to information that is or is not accepted by the seeker which we will address more directly at the end of this volume.

What we see in the example of caffeine as an “imitator” of adenosine is that the natural ligand seems to have some very subtle property that is conveyed deep into the cell, and the caffeine either blocks this message by occupying the receptor, or perhaps sends a contradictory message. Because of the exactitude of the molecule, adenosine apparently does more than the “almost ligand”, caffeine.

Now, if we think of information as ligands, we can see that accepting as true something that is not, may not only block our ability to receive the proper messages of what IS true, it may even send contradictory messages. Spiritual experiences that are “induced” ritually, chemically or technically from “down
here” in order to change the spiritual state “up there”, operate in exactly this way.

It seems that what we accept as true or not affects our spirit and state of awareness, not to mention our potentials for soul ascension. We could even compare certain “all is love and light” beliefs to the action of caffeine: they prevent the natural warning system from operating which tells the spirit when it needs to withdraw from certain things and allow a period of “cleansing” to take place. Over time, this can result in serious breakdown of the spirit, even - it seems - ultimate subsumation into Non-being.

There is, however, a more serious problem we have to deal with: addiction.

Source: http://www.riseearth.com/2011/04/alcohol-and-caffeine.html