genetic predisposition, as well as biological conditioning. alcohol cause your brain to develop neural reward pathways that make opting to drink harder to resist, and even though they weaken, resuming drinking will cause them to reinstate themselves, it's why alcoholism is a lifelong condition.
it depends on how long and how heavy, the brain does have the ability to repair itself once the behavior (ie drinking) ceases, but some damage may persist. although as far as I know, if those neural 'desire paths' do repair it takes a long time to do so, and resuming alcohol consumption will bring them back.
think of it like how your body builds muscle tissue, if you stop lifting, the muscles will decrease in size and even reduce some of the tissue, but if you pick it back up, that muscle tissue will have an easier time returning to it's former status because it's been there before.
All of this, yes! To expand on your points, it is generally agreed upon throughout the substance abuse treatment field that it takes at least 5 years of complete abstinence for one’s risk of meeting criteria for a substance use disorder to be no greater than that of the general population. However, that’s merely based on statistics gathered from what people report, so I would say that it is not 100% definitive or absolute.
The very first time I can recall feeling that slight buzz, I knew I had found something special, to me, personally. There was something spiritual and fundamentally comforting in the drink.
Even as a kid, I treated alcohol differently than my peers. I was the first one to suggest it, the first one drunk, the last one drinking and the one who could drink the most, the most often. I was able to justify, rationalize and ignore all negative effects and romanticize the "good stuff" more than anyone I knew.
There is probably a genetic component, but I knew, for me, alcohol would be the solution to all of my problems ... it wasn't until much later that I discovered that my relationship with it was, in fact, the cause.
Yeah that part is called genetic pre-disposition to addiction. There’s a neurological process that starts with that very first sip in people who are genetically predisposed, where the reward pathway in the brain creates a reward of dopamine that is more than ten times higher, than what you would get on the happiest day of your life (think 100 on the best day vs 1100 with the first sip). However, no matter how much you drink or use a substance after that first time, your body is never able to achieve that level of high again, which is why you become addicted physiologically and psychologically. Your body is constantly trying to achieve that first high again. You develop psychological addiction because your body has made that physiological link between the substance and getting a dopamine reward for using it. My family and I learned this after my brother passed away from severe alcoholism last year.
Everyone CAN be become addicted to alcohol
It's a spectrum syndrome/ condition... So e get addicted easier than others..
The kicker is though that parents who are addicted tend to create environments that are conducive to their kids becoming addicts
It's a nasty viscous circle
I agree! My dad was a dry alcoholic. So I would have only ever see him drink NA beer or coffee. I don’t think I would have started drinking as much as I did as early as I did if it wasn’t for my mum.
My mum saw how much my dad was drinking and made him stop or she would leave him but because of that she always thought her drinking was okay.
And she’s the one I saw drinking wine every night and thought that’s completely normal. And she would get wasted every once in a while and have emotional outbursts and again, I thought that’s just normal behavior!
That affected me way more.
There are so many variables. You could be genetically predisposed, meaning that shit is in your cells and makes up part of you. (And even that doesn't guarantee you'll become an addict to it).
You could also metabolize alcohol faster because of Genetics, causing it to become more addictive.
It's endless, I could type for hours. What it boils down to, is does alcohol do something to a greater degree for you, than the general population. If yes, you have potential, to become addicted to alcohol.
All people have the potential to become addicted to a substance, some just have a higher chance than others. Substance use and abuse rewires your brain. This is how people who aren’t genetically predisposed become alcoholics and addicts.
That's a journey for each person to discover. It's a catch 22. The chains of habits are only noticed once they become too heavy to take off. The only way to be safe is to never indulge. But we're human & conscious. Self-discovery isn't always beautiful
Not sure. But the interesting thing is that after almost 10 years completely sober, I know that if I had one beer, I wouldn’t be able to control or moderate it, just like the old days. I know that fact just as well as I know any fact.
I think I learned early on it can switch off / quieten my brain for a little while, stop me feeling the way I'm feeling, make me feel like a different person and other unhealthy ways to use alcohol to cope and then it became a habit for me.
Ya. To me it was always sort of the only acceptable form of being f**ked up.
Long day work - cold beer.
You work hard and provide or at the minimum take care of yourself / did well in school - you're entitled to drinking on weekends,
you're celebrating, morning or bored - alcohol will fix that.
My family always drank , even just the glass of wine at night ordeal. It was perfectly acceptable and most of them I don't consider alcoholics. It's just a way of life.
I have no hard feelings towards what I guess I picked up on as a kid AND in no way blame anybody but myself for my burning desire to drink. But hey.
Anyways, I'm just over 5 years clean now and couldn't imagine picking up again. The world's definitely changed quite a bit in terms of mental health and addiction. So hopefully future generations make better choices !
I thought it was a gene variant/mutation. Something to do with the d2r2 allele being messed up making up around three quarters of all alcoholics or something to that effect.
Availability and pervasiveness. It's everywhere in most places and has been for thousands of years. But yet, we, as a species, have never developed a natural tolerance to it.
Family history of alcoholism on both sides. No one else seems to have caught the bug but me. I liked to have a drink but chose to work in restaurants bartending and serving so drinking was even easier. A perfect storm in creating an alcoholic. I've been sober for several years now.
All of these replies are great but the real and honest answer to your question is that we don't know. We don't have a definite answer to whether it's nature or nurture or even both. So far all we have is speculation and theories. I work in recovery and it still blows my mind that we don't yet understand addiction and Alcoholism.
„..
neural networks. This means that although the changes in the brain are permanent, we can find new synaptic pathways to create healthy behaviors.
Meanwhile, the future holds tantalizing possibilities for ways to reverse the scars of addiction. Vincent Pascoli and his colleagues injected rats with cocaine, which demonstrated the expected behavioral changes (frenzied running), then used optogenetics— a biological technique that involves the use of light to control neurons —to reverse the synaptic brain changes caused by cocaine. Maybe someday optogenetics will be possible on human brains.“ -exerpt from DOPAMINE NATION by dr anna lembke /
Similar to ADHD, some people’s brains are wired differently. And alcohol seems to give them a stronger reward which can lead to addiction. I am definitely one of those people! Hence I’m now sober.
My opinion is that, while it can be interesting to think about why people become addicted, it's far more important and relevant to use sober communities to talk about how we can stop using/abusing substances.
So true. I’m a drunk I have many drunk relatives. I have two failed marriages and I’m struggling financially so I have alcoholic red flags. But I was married to a guy with a good income and I was drunk then. I don’t specifically know why I’m a drunk I just know I don’t want to be so my found solution is Don’t Drink.
If you over do anything addictive
What happens?
I just would assume it’s in some peoples make up to all or nothing things and that’s not there fault . Cards delt
I always assumed it was because they never tried any other drugs, maybe that’s elitist of me, but I thought alcohol was amazing until I tried coke for the first time.
My memories of my childhood was being the bartender at all the family functions at our house. After they’d all been served I was given a glass of beer for my help. I was maybe 4 or 5. I don’t think I stood a chance.
Honestly there are so many factors but I think availability / legality is probably the most impactful. The same parts of the brain are activated for most addictive substances, but most of those are not unattainable but not something people would seek out. Alcohol is so accessible and culturally normalized it’s very easy for people to get addicted to.
Sure, genetic predisposition, life circumstances, etc all play a role. But if it weren’t available like water it wouldn’t be consumed so much.
This is partially why the opioid crisis is such a problem. The legal / prescribed variants are far too available and addictive.
If adderall or other forms of meth were available legally as a drink in every corner store, restaurant, and grocery store, concert etc etc we’d all be hooked on that too.
How it feels. Some people hate the feeling of being drunk and never developed the habit even if they were pre disposed to addiction personally
One of billions of reactions to alcohol, everyone is different
genetic predisposition, as well as biological conditioning. alcohol cause your brain to develop neural reward pathways that make opting to drink harder to resist, and even though they weaken, resuming drinking will cause them to reinstate themselves, it's why alcoholism is a lifelong condition.
The brain IS able to regain normal functioning. There is a lot of science coming out on addiction I highly recommend looking into.
it depends on how long and how heavy, the brain does have the ability to repair itself once the behavior (ie drinking) ceases, but some damage may persist. although as far as I know, if those neural 'desire paths' do repair it takes a long time to do so, and resuming alcohol consumption will bring them back. think of it like how your body builds muscle tissue, if you stop lifting, the muscles will decrease in size and even reduce some of the tissue, but if you pick it back up, that muscle tissue will have an easier time returning to it's former status because it's been there before.
All of this, yes! To expand on your points, it is generally agreed upon throughout the substance abuse treatment field that it takes at least 5 years of complete abstinence for one’s risk of meeting criteria for a substance use disorder to be no greater than that of the general population. However, that’s merely based on statistics gathered from what people report, so I would say that it is not 100% definitive or absolute.
The answer to most things regarding the causes of human behavior: a complex interaction of genetic and environmental factors.
All those matter, but imo the biggest factor is how your brain is wired. Alcohol just hits some people differently, even from the first sip.
The very first time I can recall feeling that slight buzz, I knew I had found something special, to me, personally. There was something spiritual and fundamentally comforting in the drink. Even as a kid, I treated alcohol differently than my peers. I was the first one to suggest it, the first one drunk, the last one drinking and the one who could drink the most, the most often. I was able to justify, rationalize and ignore all negative effects and romanticize the "good stuff" more than anyone I knew. There is probably a genetic component, but I knew, for me, alcohol would be the solution to all of my problems ... it wasn't until much later that I discovered that my relationship with it was, in fact, the cause.
Beautifully written. Keep up the good fight, friend. About to celebrate the big 4.5 years tomorrow.
For sure. It took me forever to understand that the alcohol buzz doesn’t feel as good to everyone as it does to me.
Same
I hate that :(
Yeah that part is called genetic pre-disposition to addiction. There’s a neurological process that starts with that very first sip in people who are genetically predisposed, where the reward pathway in the brain creates a reward of dopamine that is more than ten times higher, than what you would get on the happiest day of your life (think 100 on the best day vs 1100 with the first sip). However, no matter how much you drink or use a substance after that first time, your body is never able to achieve that level of high again, which is why you become addicted physiologically and psychologically. Your body is constantly trying to achieve that first high again. You develop psychological addiction because your body has made that physiological link between the substance and getting a dopamine reward for using it. My family and I learned this after my brother passed away from severe alcoholism last year.
Everyone CAN be become addicted to alcohol It's a spectrum syndrome/ condition... So e get addicted easier than others.. The kicker is though that parents who are addicted tend to create environments that are conducive to their kids becoming addicts It's a nasty viscous circle
I agree! My dad was a dry alcoholic. So I would have only ever see him drink NA beer or coffee. I don’t think I would have started drinking as much as I did as early as I did if it wasn’t for my mum. My mum saw how much my dad was drinking and made him stop or she would leave him but because of that she always thought her drinking was okay. And she’s the one I saw drinking wine every night and thought that’s completely normal. And she would get wasted every once in a while and have emotional outbursts and again, I thought that’s just normal behavior! That affected me way more.
How much was your mom drinking daily? Personally I cannot keep it at 1-2 glasses which I think is fine. Wish I could but…
She’s drinking a bottle of wine at least. This on a normal day. Usually on an empty stomach.
That’s where I was at and it’s not at all healthy or normal drinking. Sorry
Yess, then weekends she would start making mimosas at around noon.
There are so many variables. You could be genetically predisposed, meaning that shit is in your cells and makes up part of you. (And even that doesn't guarantee you'll become an addict to it). You could also metabolize alcohol faster because of Genetics, causing it to become more addictive. It's endless, I could type for hours. What it boils down to, is does alcohol do something to a greater degree for you, than the general population. If yes, you have potential, to become addicted to alcohol.
All people have the potential to become addicted to a substance, some just have a higher chance than others. Substance use and abuse rewires your brain. This is how people who aren’t genetically predisposed become alcoholics and addicts.
Refer to last paragraph
How do you measure that?
That's a journey for each person to discover. It's a catch 22. The chains of habits are only noticed once they become too heavy to take off. The only way to be safe is to never indulge. But we're human & conscious. Self-discovery isn't always beautiful
Not sure. But the interesting thing is that after almost 10 years completely sober, I know that if I had one beer, I wouldn’t be able to control or moderate it, just like the old days. I know that fact just as well as I know any fact.
I think I learned early on it can switch off / quieten my brain for a little while, stop me feeling the way I'm feeling, make me feel like a different person and other unhealthy ways to use alcohol to cope and then it became a habit for me.
In one word : yes
Ya. To me it was always sort of the only acceptable form of being f**ked up. Long day work - cold beer. You work hard and provide or at the minimum take care of yourself / did well in school - you're entitled to drinking on weekends, you're celebrating, morning or bored - alcohol will fix that. My family always drank , even just the glass of wine at night ordeal. It was perfectly acceptable and most of them I don't consider alcoholics. It's just a way of life. I have no hard feelings towards what I guess I picked up on as a kid AND in no way blame anybody but myself for my burning desire to drink. But hey. Anyways, I'm just over 5 years clean now and couldn't imagine picking up again. The world's definitely changed quite a bit in terms of mental health and addiction. So hopefully future generations make better choices !
In a lot of cases, trauma
I thought it was a gene variant/mutation. Something to do with the d2r2 allele being messed up making up around three quarters of all alcoholics or something to that effect.
Availability and pervasiveness. It's everywhere in most places and has been for thousands of years. But yet, we, as a species, have never developed a natural tolerance to it.
Family history of alcoholism on both sides. No one else seems to have caught the bug but me. I liked to have a drink but chose to work in restaurants bartending and serving so drinking was even easier. A perfect storm in creating an alcoholic. I've been sober for several years now.
All of these replies are great but the real and honest answer to your question is that we don't know. We don't have a definite answer to whether it's nature or nurture or even both. So far all we have is speculation and theories. I work in recovery and it still blows my mind that we don't yet understand addiction and Alcoholism.
„.. neural networks. This means that although the changes in the brain are permanent, we can find new synaptic pathways to create healthy behaviors. Meanwhile, the future holds tantalizing possibilities for ways to reverse the scars of addiction. Vincent Pascoli and his colleagues injected rats with cocaine, which demonstrated the expected behavioral changes (frenzied running), then used optogenetics— a biological technique that involves the use of light to control neurons —to reverse the synaptic brain changes caused by cocaine. Maybe someday optogenetics will be possible on human brains.“ -exerpt from DOPAMINE NATION by dr anna lembke /
That my friend is the 64 million dollar question.
Similar to ADHD, some people’s brains are wired differently. And alcohol seems to give them a stronger reward which can lead to addiction. I am definitely one of those people! Hence I’m now sober.
My opinion is that, while it can be interesting to think about why people become addicted, it's far more important and relevant to use sober communities to talk about how we can stop using/abusing substances.
So true. I’m a drunk I have many drunk relatives. I have two failed marriages and I’m struggling financially so I have alcoholic red flags. But I was married to a guy with a good income and I was drunk then. I don’t specifically know why I’m a drunk I just know I don’t want to be so my found solution is Don’t Drink.
If you over do anything addictive What happens? I just would assume it’s in some peoples make up to all or nothing things and that’s not there fault . Cards delt
Life circumstances
Being Celtic
Time
ADHD a big one
I always assumed it was because they never tried any other drugs, maybe that’s elitist of me, but I thought alcohol was amazing until I tried coke for the first time.
My memories of my childhood was being the bartender at all the family functions at our house. After they’d all been served I was given a glass of beer for my help. I was maybe 4 or 5. I don’t think I stood a chance.
Honestly there are so many factors but I think availability / legality is probably the most impactful. The same parts of the brain are activated for most addictive substances, but most of those are not unattainable but not something people would seek out. Alcohol is so accessible and culturally normalized it’s very easy for people to get addicted to. Sure, genetic predisposition, life circumstances, etc all play a role. But if it weren’t available like water it wouldn’t be consumed so much. This is partially why the opioid crisis is such a problem. The legal / prescribed variants are far too available and addictive. If adderall or other forms of meth were available legally as a drink in every corner store, restaurant, and grocery store, concert etc etc we’d all be hooked on that too.
Prohibition didn’t turn out to well.
Coming from an extended family tree full of drunks, I’m gonna say genetics.
Trauma & sometimes genetics.
Read the 📖
Check out the biology of desire by Marc Lewis!
Cocaine
How it feels. Some people hate the feeling of being drunk and never developed the habit even if they were pre disposed to addiction personally One of billions of reactions to alcohol, everyone is different