Why does alcohol make stress and depression “go away” almost instantly but is making it worse in the long run?

There are multiple factors involved in this, but it comes down to neurotransmitter deficits, particularly your GABA system, and something called glutamate rebound. Searching for alcohol, gaba, and glutamate on YouTube will probably find a better video than I could explain.

In essence though, your feel good chemicals are being withheld because of imbalance or damage, alcohol actually dumps a lot of these chemicals into the brain but without properly priming the systems that are supposed to. Then, when the alcohol ceases to do the job, the reservoir is empty because you’re body is rebounding and trying to restore the neurotransmitters and glutamate it took to make you feel that good.

Over time, the problem is that the body stops producing that which it is having supplemented, so, if your neurotransmitters were already out of balance, then the alcohol makes it worse by giving your body another source of making this happen, so you just go deeper in the hole.

It’s very similar to how opioid abuse downregulates endorphins so your body stops producing its own. Endorphins literally means morphine produced inside – same principle – that which comes from external sources will eventually be outsourced entirely = no more natural happy chemicals. Alcohol is just extra destructive because it’s also hard on liver and kidneys which play a key role in balancing neurotransmitters in the first place.

This is why many people are turning to psilocybin (mushrooms), they can, in some cases, hack the internal system into producing more of the others because they mimic serotonin, BUT they carry high risks for paranoid disorders like schizophrenia and other disorders like bipolar can be exacerbated greatly.

Neurotransmitters like serotonin, norepinephrine, dopamine, gaba, etc. are an incredibly delicate balancing act.

Because it inhibits brain function. You literally don’t have the cognitive bandwidth to think about what’s bothering you. In short, it dumbs you down.

Why is that bad in the long run? Your problems are still there, and you’re poisoning your body. And the more you drink, the more you need to drink.

Hey, developing alcoholic here; when you drink to cope you sort of shut down some of your functions and it is easier to be in the moment.
So if you go to a party and drink, it isn’t the alcohol taking away the depression as much as it is giving you the ability to drown it out. Instead of thinking of what is going on in your life, you are in the moment, distracted from your issues.
It will also get you to fall asleep eventually, so less of lying down in bed ridden with anxiety.

What is the problem though, when this becomes your main coping mechanism, a few things start to happen.

• You don’t fix your problems, why would you if you can ignore them!

• You start drinking by yourself, isolating yourself instead of getting the benefits of a social situation and deep bonds with people, which is what actually made you feel better.

• It becomes more difficult to ignore your pain and problems, when you are used to drinking to cope, it stops working and your problems will come right back to the top of your head.

This would be bad enough by itself, but drunk sad still feels more manageable than sober sad, so it is hard to quit. Not to mention dependency will develop into addiction, and alcohol is incredibly unhealthy in the long term. It will hurt your nervous system, your ability to process toxins in your body, and even make you gain weight and maybe skin issues?

If you want to drink away your problems from time to time, and are an adult (super important, drink since young and you’ll have all of the cons with fewer of the benefis) then grab a friend and drink away your issues; forget about them and then cry about them, all good. Just do not make that a habit, do not make that your primary way to deal with issues. Resist that urge, never daydrink, never drink alone, try to keep it to less than once per week especially as you age past your early 20s.

The healthiest amount is 0 drinking, but if you need to, please keep it in check. The problem starts WAY before you realise you have a problem.

If you need to drug yourself to cope and there is no healthier option, prefer weed over alcohol (ideally ingested rather than smoked to avoid lung damage)

I’m going to try to cut back alcohol this coming week, wish me luck.

Alcohol increases the “slow down” pathways of the brain, while decreasing the “speed up” ones. Over time, your body adapts to this and if you stop immediately, the amount of the “slow down” chemical (GABA in this case) is not enough to do what it did before you drank alcohol. Also, the “speed up” pathway (glutamate) will be extra active since the brain is used to it being suppressed. The brain likes everything to be normal, and will change itself to that end. When you withdrawal from a drug, it’s because that “normal” involved having the drug in your system.

1. Alcohol trips your dopamine buttons a little more than usual : you feel good

2. Alcohol runs out, dopamine goes back down: anxiety, depression, regret

Over time, alcohol becomes the ONLY thing that can get you to even basic levels of dopamine. But you have to keep drinking more and more quantities to get you back to that high you felt in step 1. Eventually, even that doesn’t work, now you’re just drinking to forget about how sad and depressed you are. Or because you’re now physically addicted to it.

Source: am recovering alcoholic