Reality: A study in Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research showed why alcohol doesn’t work very well as a stress relief strategy. In the study, University of Chicago researchers first put men under stress with a public speaking task. Then they gave the men either the equivalent of two drinks of alcohol or a placebo by IV and measured the results. Although alcohol dampened the men's hormonal responses to stress, it actually prolonged their subjective feelings of tension.
To make matters worse, the same study showed that stress could reduce the pleasant effects of alcohol or increase the craving for more of it. In the real world, this might encourage drinking too much—and that can lead to a whole host of bad choices that only multiply stress.
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