The best magazine
Alcohol and Depression
Every alcohol beverage varies in type, brand and flavor, not to mention, the kick.
For most people who love to hang out at the coolest bar, drinking is a way to escape reality.
Drowning the stress away is the easiest way out as you let your problem drench.
But what happens when this gets out of hand? Sad to say, the number of people seeking treatments for depression is increasing every year.
It is quite alarming that anti depressant are becoming the drugs of choice in every stressful situation people struggle with.
You will be alarmed to know that majority of people unable to cope with these problems often end up committing suicide.
Others, if they are not resorting to pharmaceutical means to combat depression would find "temporary relief" through alcohol.
The chronic use and dependence of a user to any form of alcoholic beverage would eventually lead to addiction and self-destruction.
How does alcohol influence the minds of depressed people in the first place? Depression is a maladaptive state of mind that results from the inability to cope with loss.
Normally, people grieve over their losses for about two weeks or so.
After this period, people usually bounce back to a normal state since a healthy person should have the ability to cope.
However, if a person is unable to get over a loss and grieves for a long period of time, this would eventually lead to a case known as depression.
In a state of depression, a person might manifest a wide variety of symptoms that would include the feelings of hopelessness, worthlessness, inability to feel pleasure and may have tendencies for suicidal ideation.
While having these manifestations, he might resort to other means to temporarily ease his mind from the underlying cause of maladaptive grieving.
Alcohol plays a major role when it comes to depression.
More often than not, depression is linked to the abuse of substances and it's no surprise that alcohol is top of the list.
Alcohol itself is a depressant.
This substance is known to contain ethanol which is potent enough to lower the levels of serotonin and nor epinephrine (which are known to influence mood and normal affect) thus, resulting in depression.
With this, you might begin to ask yourself questions like "why do most people under depression would resort to consuming substances that further agitates depression?" or "how can people find satisfaction in alcohol while they are depressed?" The answer is simple.
Alcohol blunts mood affect and it also lowers the stress once you're drinking it.
Typically it would leave a drinker feeling a lot more depressed than usual because it slows down brain activity and nerve response.
Which is why someone who just had too many would have slowed reactions and impaired motor activity.
At the same time, this is used by depressed people to temporarily block the underlying loneliness and stress they feel.
A study indicated that men who drink would be depressed and that women who are depressed drink.
In simple terms alcohol and depression goes hand in hand.
Some people who have these problems would often rationalize the reason why they drink or might say that they can stop drinking if they wanted to.
However, its chronic use would lead to a bad habit difficult to change.
If left untreated, this would lead to a downward spiral that could potentially be life threatening.
Source: ...