Effects Of Alcohol Have Changed. What Is The Significance?

TheSir

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I used to enjoy drinking a couple of beers every now and then. Lately getting even mildly buzzed makes me VERY depressed. I feel sad, hopeless, even moving is physically hard. Then once I sober up I feel normal again.

What could be causing this change? Could I be repressing some emotions that come to surface when my inhibitions loosen, or is there something wrong with my metabolism?
 

Inaut

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@haidut mentioned that 1-2 drinks are beneficial for removing iron and lps but it’s a thin line. I think it was mentioned in the interview with mr. buttersworth
 
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I have no experience with your specific problem, but the more evenings/nights in a row I used to drink the more crippling my anxiety became the day(s) after. Alcohol is very capable of causing what you describe as well. For a long time I allowed social pressure to pull me into the usual Fri-Sun pastime. Gonna post an excerpt from a rare useful article on the Guardian that accurately describes what occurs: ‘Hangxiety’: why alcohol gives you a hangover and anxiety.


"David Nutt, professor of neuropsychopharmacology at Imperial College, London, is the scientist who was fired in 2009 as the government’s chief drug adviser for saying alcohol is more dangerous than ecstasy and LSD. I tell him I have always assumed my morning-after mood was a result of my brain having shrivelled like a raisin through alcohol-induced dehydration. When Nutt explains the mechanics of how alcohol causes crippling anxiety, he paints an even more offputting picture.
Alcohol, he says, targets the Gaba (gamma-aminobutyric acid) receptor, which sends chemical messages through the brain and central nervous system to inhibit the activity of nerve cells. Put simply, it calms the brain, reducing excitement by making fewer neurons fire. "Alcohol stimulates Gaba, which is why you get relaxed and cheerful when you drink,” explains Nutt.

The first two drinks lull you into a blissful Gaba-induced state of chill. When you get to the third or fourth drink, another brain-slackening effect kicks in: you start blocking glutamate, the main excitatory transmitter in the brain. “More glutamate means more anxiety,” says Nutt. “Less glutamate means less anxiety.” This is why, he says, “when people get very drunk, they’re even less anxious than when they’re a bit drunk” – not only does alcohol reduce the chatter in your brain by stimulating Gaba, but it further reduces your anxiety by blocking glutamate. In your blissed-out state, you will probably feel that this is all good – but you will be wrong.

The body registers this new imbalance in brain chemicals and attempts to put things right. It is a little like when you eat a lot of sweets and your body goes into insulin-producing overdrive to get the blood sugar levels down to normal; as soon as the sweets have been digested, all that insulin causes your blood sugar to crash. When you are drunk, your body goes on a mission to bring Gaba levels down to normal and turn glutamate back up. When you stop drinking, therefore, you end up with unnaturally low Gaba function and a spike in glutamate – a situation that leads to anxiety, says Nutt. “It leads to seizures as well, which is why people have fits in withdrawal.”

It can take the brain a day or two to return to the status quo, which is why a hair of the dog is so enticing. “If you drank an awful lot for a long time,” says Nutt, “it might take weeks for the brain to readapt. In alcoholics, we’ve found changes in Gaba for years.”

To add to the misery, the anxiety usually kicks in while you are trying to sleep off the booze. “If you measure sleep when people are drunk, they go off to sleep fast. They go into a deeper sleep than normal, which is why they sometimes wet the bed or have night terrors. Then, after about four hours, the withdrawal kicks in – that’s when you wake up all shaky and jittery.”

Imbalances in Gaba and glutamate are not the only problem. Alcohol also causes a small rise in noradrenaline – known as the fight-or-flight hormone. “Noradrenaline suppresses stress when you first take it, and increases it in withdrawal,” says Nutt. “Severe anxiety can be considered a surge of noradrenaline in the brain.”

Another key cause of hangxiety is being unable to remember the mortifying things you are sure you must have said or done while inebriated – another result of your compromised glutamate levels. “You need glutamate to lay down memories,” says Nutt, “and once you’re on the sixth or seventh drink, the glutamate system is blocked, which is why you can’t remember things.”


Btw, I don't support Nutt's initial nuance-free framing of alchohol as more dangerous than ecstasy or LSD (and I'm suspicious that this line of reasoning leads to more regulation and higher taxes).

The supplements that I believe have played the most important roles in eliminating alcohol craving have been decaffeinated coffee, lithium, manganese, molybdenum, riboflavin, methylfolate, phenylalanine, tyrosine, gelatin, and methylene blue (which is humorous because the motivation for taking many of these was to improve alcohol tolerance).
 
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