Alcohol Causes Depression

It has been confirmed that alcohol causes depression. Depression is an enduring feeling of hopelessness, sadness, unhappiness, and causes a bleak and dull outlook towards life. And when we are suffering from depression we cannot be at the top of our game. It is hard to function at our best when we are fatigued and are experiencing a general lack of interest, also caused by depression. It may also be important to point out here that depression causes anxiety. So people who suffer from depression will also have episodes of anxiety.

Since alcohol is a recognized depressant, it stands to reason people with depression should not drink. This applies to people suffering from manic depression as well. Studies have revealed that doctors do not diagnose correctly for almost 65% of people who are depressed.

The depression caused by alcohol actually starts with our physical body. First, alcohol lowers the serotonin and nor epinephrine levels in our brain. These chemicals are the chemicals that give us a element of good feelings: a feeling of well being, and they help us to feel normal. The anti-depressant drugs were intended to build these chemicals back. After a long drinking session, since alcohol can take these brain chemicals down to ground zero, it can take a long time for the anti-depressants to bring these brain chemical levels back to where they need to be.

Alcohol also temporarily nullifies the effects of stress hormones. This is why after drinking we feel worse than ever, because alcohol depresses our nervous system and our brain. A study was done that followed people who were only drinking one drink a day and after these people stopped drinking for 3 months, their depression scores improved. And that is only at one drink a day, so it is easy to imagine the impact the kind of volume an alcoholic takes in every day can have.

Alcohol wipes out every vitamin in our system after a drinking session. A folic acid deficiency will contribute the brain aging and in older people, dementia. The folic acid deficiency also contributes to overall depression. Further, the alcohol in our body also breaks down and speeds the elimination of antioxidants in our blood. Antioxidants are critically important to our health because antioxidants fight free radicals and free radical damage causes diseases and aging. Our immune system actually creates the antioxidants which then neutralize the free radicals.

Alcohol can activate a gene that has been linked to depression and other mental problems. The result of this activation can cause not only depression, but seizures, and manic depressive episodes as well. Although the majority of problem drinkers associate depression with their mental and emotional states, the fact is this kind of depression originates in our physical body's response to drinking alcohol.

An important characteristic of the disease of alcoholism is that it is progressive. Most people only think of the progression of the disease in terms of quantity and frequency consumed. But it is also progressive in the severity of the consequences incurred from continued use. Alcohol affects health, psychological and cognitive functioning, social and relationship problems, and moral and spiritual problems.

• Juliana Breckinridge
• 10/04/2009, 8:59 AM
• 0 Comments