Why are there withdrawal symptoms, what is the difference in bodily reactions when for instance an alcoholic and a non-alcoholic person drinks?
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Your body and brain have a bunch of locks/keyholes waiting to be filled by certain chemical “keys.” For example, there are keyholes in your brain responsible for making you feel happy when certain keys fill them.
Say you have 10 such keyholes naturally. On an average day, depending on what happens, you may fill 3-7 of them, and feel relatively sad or happy, accordingly.
But now someone gives you a substance that dumps 30 of those keys into your system. Suddenly you feel *real* good because all 10 keyholes are instantly filled. But your body also goes “Woah, I have 20 extra keys. Let’s make more keyholes so we can use all of them!”
So now you have 30 keyholes. As long as you keep using the drug that provides 30 keys, you feel pretty great. But say you stop using, all at once. You still have 30 keyholes, but are back to making only say… 3-7 keys. Now your body sees both cases as a *massive* deficit, and freaks out accordingly.
Depending on the keyhole being filled, this deficit can either make you super depressed, or feel massive pain. Or, if it’s a keyhole critical for normal biological function, it can even kill you.
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