Numbers by the UK parliament show that 56 percent of adults in England reported drinking alcohol in the past week. Considering how alcohol consumption is the highest on the weekends and during the holidays when we’re with family, it’s the last thing people would associate with the word ‘depressant.’ However, alcohol is a central nervous system depressant that has lasting effects on your brain chemistry and subsequently, your mental health. Here’s what to know about why alcohol is classified as a stimulant, how it affects your brain, common side effects, and what you can do about it if you struggle with addiction.
Understanding Depressants VS Stimulants
To start off, let’s look at how depressants and stimulants are different. Stimulants increase your energy levels, making you feel alert and attentive. Some common stimulant substances include caffeine, nicotine, methamphetamine, and cocaine. When prescribed by a medical professional, stimulants can help someone stay awake and focused on a task, which is why they’re used to treat conditions like ADHD and narcolepsy.
Depressants, on the other hand, slow down brain activity, causing your muscles to relax and your mood to feel calm. Alcohol is a depressant but other common depressants include barbiturates and benzodiazepines. While medical professionals do prescribe depressant drugs to manage certain conditions, misusing them can lead to side effects and long term risks for your mental health.
How Alcohol Affects Your Brain and Central Nervous System
As a depressant, alcohol works by altering the levels of neurotransmitters in your brain. These chemical messengers affect your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. Alcohol also affects the part of your brain that’s responsible for inhibition, which is where it gets its ‘feel-good’ factor from. This effect occurs because drinking alcohol increases the levels of dopamine, which is often called the ‘happy hormone.’
As a result, you feel less anxious and more confident after a few drinks. Naturally, experiencing these positive effects are bound to make people drink more. Unfortunately, these effects don’t last and can cause negative feelings like depression, anger, and anxiety. People who use alcohol to cope with mental health problems find that they need to consume even more of it to feel better, causing an alcohol dependence. But there’s more to alcohol’s effect on the brain than how it alters dopamine.
Alcohol’s Effects on Dopamine, Serotonin, Glutamate, and GABA
In addition to dopamine, your brain’s reward system is made up of serotonin. When dopamine and serotonin are released, it makes you feel good, and it’s why people associate alcohol with feeling better. However, heavy drinking and binge drinking can trick the brain into thinking you need alcohol to be happy.
Another neurotransmitter affected by alcohol is glutamate, an excitatory neurotransmitter that increases brain activity. Alcohol reduces the release of glutamate, slowing down your brain functions. At the same time, it increases the release of GABA, an inhibitory neurotransmitter that reduces brain activity. By decreasing and increasing the release of glutamate and GABA, alcohol slows down the parts of your brain responsible for making decisions. It reduces your inhibition and makes you less likely to think about the consequences of your actions.
Side Effects of Alcohol and Other Depressant Drugs
There are other depressant drugs besides alcohol, some of which are prescribed to people struggling with panic attacks, excessive anxiety, and sleep disorders. Such medications include Valium, Xanax, Ativan, Halcion, and many others.
Alcohol abuse and misuse of depressant medications can lead to short and long-term side effects.
- Reduces blood pressure
- Slows heart rate
- Causes fatigue and loss of energy
- Feeling light-headedness
- Feeling dizzy
- Experiencing nausea and vomiting
- Poor motor skills
- Slurred speech
Some of these side effects can escalate into irreversible physical health problems, which is why it’s recommended to seek professional help for alcohol abuse.
Short-Term Effects of Alcohol: From Increased Confidence to Alcohol Poisoning
The effects of alcohol on your brain and body depend on how much alcohol you drink. If you’re used to moderate drinking (this means one and two standard drinks per day for women and men respectively), you can expect the following short-term effects from alcohol according to the NHS website:
- After consuming 1 to 2 units of alcohol, your heart rate will go up and your blood vessels will dilate. This gives you the increased confidence and warm feeling that comes with moderate drinking.
- When you’ve had 4 to 6 units of alcohol, your nervous system and brain start experiencing negative effects. It especially affects the part of your brain associated with decision making, causing you to become reckless.
- Having 8 to 9 units of alcohol can slow down your reaction times and cause slurred speech. It can also affect your vision and you’re likely to wake up with a hangover.
- Once you’ve had 10 to 12 units of alcohol, you’ll experience poor coordination, which puts you at a higher risk of having an accident. You’ll also feel very drowsy and dehydrated in the morning, which can result in headaches.
- If you consume more than 12 units of alcohol, you’re at a much higher risk of experiencing an alcohol overdose. It’s especially common if you’ve had several units in a short timespan because your liver needs about an hour to remove one unit.
Long Term Risks of Alcohol Misuse
When you drink large amounts of alcohol for several years, it’s bound to have lasting effects on your body. Long-term alcohol misuse can damage your brain, liver, heart, and the rest of your nervous system, causing health issues like:
- cardiovascular problems like high blood pressure and stroke
- Liver disease such as liver cirrhosis and liver cancer
- Brain alcohol issues like dementia
- Various types of cancer, such as mouth cancer, breast cancer, bowel cancer
Besides health issues, it can have social implications like unemployment, divorce, homelessness, and financial problems.
Alcohol Consumption and Effects on Mental Health
For years, mental health professionals have tried to understand the complex relationship between alcohol and mental health issues, There’s evidence that people who regularly drink too much alcohol face an increased risk of developing mental health problems. The National Institute of Mental Health has also found a correlation between people with severe mental disorders and those with poor drinking habits. This cold be because many people with depressive or anxious symptoms may self-medicate using alcohol.
Alcohol and Depression
Long term alcohol misuse is linked to depressive symptoms because your brain is dependent on the substance to feel happy. When this is the case, experts recommend stopping drinking to relieve symptoms like low mood or a lack of interest in activities you previously enjoyed. If you stop drinking and feel better a few weeks later, it proves that the alcohol was contributing to your depression. However, it’s also common to experience relapse and emotional setbacks during recovery.
Alcohol and Anxiety
If you struggle with anxiety, alcohol can induce short lived feelings of relaxation but these disappear quickly. Relying on alcohol to reduce anxious feelings could lead to a dependence and possibly an alcohol addiction. This is when you need more and more of it to stay relaxed.
Alcohol and Self-Harm
Because alcohol slows down neural activity in the brain, it weakens your inhibitions, causing you to act impulsively. This reduced self control exposed you to a greater risk of self harm or suicide. Research shows a correlation between drinking heavily and experiencing suicidal thoughts.
Alcohol and Psychosis
Alcohol problems are also linked to psychosis because if you have a habit of drinking regularly and stop suddenly, painful withdrawal symptoms can occur. Alcohol withdrawal typically includes restlessness, irritability, and poor sleep, but can also escalate into hallucinations and delusions.
Getting Help For Alcohol Abuse
Health guidelines by the UK government advise against drinking more than 14 units a week for men and women. If you’re concerned about the effects of your alcohol use , you can seek alcohol support services from a rehab center. The right facility can provide mental health services like cognitive behavioural therapy, as well as medical treatment to address physical symptoms.
