why is it that when an alcoholic stops drinking alcohol they become sick even though alcohol is incredibly bad for us, what is happening in our body that makes us sick for not having it?
In: Biology
Imagine your brain is running a stadium. There’s two teams playing in it: the red team and the blue team. Those teams have more or less the same amount of fans – let’s say 100 to each side – and the games are pretty evenly matched. As long as things remain that way, you feel pretty good. You don’t mind who wins or who loses, because what you really appreciate is the excitement of the match itself.
One day a blue van (alcohol) comes to town, and it brings another 100 blue fans. When the game starts, the blue crowd is a lot bigger than the red one, and so blue wins. You’re not feeling normal when that happens and your brain sees that, but doesn’t really mind – sometimes there are blue vans and sometimes there are red ones, but as long as the teams are more or less balanced, things are all right.
But you realize you really like it when the blue team wins, so you start sending those vans more often. Now the blue team keeps winning, over and over, and your brain notices that and goes, “Hey, this isn’t fair”. So it starts taking measures to bring more red fans to the stadium: the tickets are more expensive for blue fans. As a result, when the next game happens, the crowds are pretty even: there’s 200 blue and also 200 red. It’s not a loss, but it’s a tie. You feel normal, which is not at all what you wanted – the excitement of the match isn’t enough anymore. You wanted the feeling of a blue victory.
You decide that if one van won’t do the job, then you’ll send two, and if two won’t cut it, then you’ll send a whole bus. You do that. Blue wins. Your brain is getting really frustrated at this, and so it brings more red fans. It starts giving them houses in the city, so they can come to games more often. This escalates more and more. At some point you get 1000 fans to each side, which is much more than what the stadium was meant to handle. It starts to break down. The excess of fans in the city begin to really damage it.
So you decide it’s time to stop. No more blue vans. When the next game comes, you send no one to the stadium. But the chairs won’t just stay empty – two thousand red fans fill them. The red team doesn’t just win, it’s a complete massacre. You hate the feeling of a red victory – you cheer for the other team, damn it! The next game comes. You send no one, but the red fans have cheaper tickets, and so two thousand fans show up again. Another loss. Your brain realizes that things are unbalanced again, but the red fans have houses in the city now and it’s gonna take a while to relocate them. The next game comes. You send no one, but 1800 red fans still show up.
Red wins. You feel pretty miserable when that happens, but red will keep on winning for a long time, until your brain can finally balance the crowds again. Eventually you get back to where you started – a hundred fans to each side. You’re a blue fan. Most games are ties. It’s not a win, but it’s not a loss either.
You’ll probably always get a bit giddy when blue wins, but you can learn to just enjoy the matches again.
(hope this wasn’t too far fetched)
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