I’ve seen several pieces of advice saying to avoid alcohol as it contributes to depression and anxiety. I believe it’s true, from experience. Just wondering why it’s true- what mechanisms are impacted by alcohol that contribute to depression and anxiety.
Only request: please don’t say ‘alcohol is a depressant.’ unless explaining how that makes alcohol contribute to depression/ anxiety (depressants are a completely different thing to depression)
In: Chemistry
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We don’t actually know with any degree of certainty what mechanisms in the brain alcohol interacts with to produce the effects that it does, similar to anesthesia
As far as an actual reason for why it can make you feel that way, alcohol impairs your judgement, which can either make you extremely overconfident or extremely paranoid as you lose the ability to adequately judge things.
And as far as I am aware Alcohol doesn’t increase depression. It numbs pretty much all of your emotions, which is why miserable people drink to take the edge off of the pain both physical and emotional. If you’re already suicidal, it can numb your inhibitions stopping you from doing that, and the cycle of addiction itself can make you more miserable, but that’s addiction as opposed to the effects of the drug in the system
a lot of times (well, maybe just *me*), I used alcohol to cope with anxiety and depression. It worked well at first, but then once you get acclimated and it becomes your new “normal” now you need alcohol just to feel normal. When you stop drinking, you feel depression/anxiety, so of course you’ll drink because it gets rid of it. Treating anxiety/depression with alcohol (or any recreational drug for that matter) is just as effective as satiating thirst by drinking salt water. It feels good at first, but in the long term, it’ll make it worse.
Depression and Anxiety are caused by the chemicals and connections in your brain not working like they normally should. Alcohol fucks around with those chemicals and connections even more, which doesn’t exactly improve things up there in the noggin, especially as alcohol tends to have a variety of potential effects on people compared to some other drugs, and you also get the psychological impacts of knowing that you are now coping with your depression or anxiety with substance abuse, and that said relief from being intoxicated is only temporary.
The primary method by which alcohol exerts its effects is believed to be as a positive allosteric modulator of GABA. To put it short, it slows down neurons by making the “brake” chemical in our brain work better. Since the brain attempts to maintain a certain baseline, it increases its activity in response to something slowing it down. Once the alcohol wears off, you are left with an overactive brain that can burn out its neurons like forcing too much current through a lightbulb.
Enough cumulative damage over time will worsen any psychological conditions one might have.
Alcohol partly removes the inhibitions and boundaries we have set for ourselves. As so, it does not really cause anxiety and depression, but frees the already existing feelings from the boundaries they normally have.
It doesn’t. It just amplifies what’s already there.
If you’re sad, you get really, really sad.
If you’re happy, you get really, really happy.
If you’re a little bit depressed, you get very depressed.
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