Why is alcohol withdrawal more deadly in comparison to “harder” drugs like heroin?
In: Biology
ELI5 our brain uses chemicals to work. Alcohol creates an imbalance of those chemicals. If your brain gets used to this imbalance you’ve changed the way your brain works. Quickly taking away alcohol means your brain no longer knows how to work without this imbalance and it can stop working very suddenly. These chemicals are specific to alcohol, but not all drugs.
Non-ELI5 but straight forward. Alcohol works on many neurotransmitters in the brain, but as a sedative it primarily targets GABA. As use frequency, duration, and quantity increases over time
these GABA receptors have become over stimulated, depressing your central nervous system.
If all of sudden, alcohol is removed these GABA channels are now closed, and replaced by glutamate, an excititory neurotransmitter to attempt to rebalance. However this sudden imbalance presents in severe anxiety, and physical symptoms such as tremors, racing heart, vomiting, sweating, insomnia, auditory and visual hallucinations, and seizures that can result in death.
Alcohol and benzodiazapines withdrawal are the two that will kill you if they are severe enough.
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