We just received a question via email – Is alcohol a depressant? Here is our detailed answer.
Among the symptoms of alcohol depressant effects are often discussed. Depression has many causes that have an emotional basis, often related to private matters. Alcohol stands as one of the most tested and proven methods of causing an individual depression. It one from major social anxiety and depression triggers.
This means that a person suffers a mixture of emotions that include unhappiness, hopelessness, psychosis, hallucinations, sadness, anxiety, and a heavy heart. It may seem as if a dark cloud is hovering above your life. When you are a victim of depression, it is hard to concentrate on anything as your problems are always on your mind and they may seem bigger than they actually are.
You may feel weak and experience a withdrawal from your friends and family. A shorter attention span is another symptom of alcoholic depression. These symptoms also fall under the banner of “depression disease”. Manic depression can be added to this list as well.
Netdoctor.co.uk writes:
Up to 40 per cent of people who drink heavily have symptoms that resemble a depressive illness. However, when these same people are not drinking heavily, only 5% of men and 10% of woman have symptoms meeting the diagnostic criteria for depression – not that different from the rates of depression in the general population. About 5 to 10 per cent of people with a depressive illness also have symptoms of an alcohol problem.
Alcohol is a depressant because it causes the same chemical imbalance in the brain as depressants. The depression starts tackling a person on a physical level. It lowers the levels of norepinephrine and serotonin in one’s brain. These chemicals help you feel good in general and lead a normal life.
When you drink such beverages, activity in these chemicals declines. If you drink alcohol for a long period of time, you can expect these chemicals in your body to be less active. This can be problematic as restoring these good chemicals to normal levels is not at all an easy task. If you consume too much alcohol depressant effect will most certainly include a chemical imbalance.
An alcoholic depression also abolishes the stress hormones in the human body, and this is mainly the reason why you do not feel good after consuming these beverages. Your brain and nerves are damaged due to the depression.
If you want to try a test on your post-alcohol depression, try cutting down on your alcohol consumption and see how it affects your depression levels.
In addition to the above stated mental health concerns, it also washes away all the vitamins in the human body once you consume it. This is the reason why old people who drink may have dementia because the folic acid and vitamin c is removed from the body and depression settles in instead.
The antioxidants in your blood slow down and are completely washed out of your body as well because alcohol enhances their speed in this task. Since these antioxidants help your body fight against disease, your immune system is in more danger.
Lastly, it plays a huge role in triggering genes in the body that link together depression and other states of mind. As a result, you may be more prone to seizures, manic depression and other conditions as a drinker.
Even though the masses believe that consuming this type of beverages can help a person get rid of mental problems, the truth is that alcoholic beverages only contribute further to the depression.
Hope now you know the answer to the question is alcohol can cause depression or not. Yes, it can, and it can also lead to other mental diseases.
If you are drinking too much, alcoholic depression should be expected. Check out our new alcohol and antidepressants guide, which will explain to you all the dangers of depression, anxiety and alcoholism. It’s very important to understand this disease, because it can damage your mental and physical health and even lead to death.
