Why Alcohol Causes Depression and Suicidal Thoughts (E63)
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Gill discusses serotonin and dopamine. She explains what serotonin is, how serotonin and dopamine work together, and how they are affected by alcohol. You’ll learn why alcohol causes depression and suicidal thoughts, and a fun fact at the end of the episode about serotonin, dreams, and psychedelics.
What to listen to next:
E13: Alcohol, Serotonin and Depression
E19: Alcohol Use Disorder and Psychiatric Comorbidities
E62: Dopamine and Addiction
Serotonin is a chemical that is responsible for our emotions, reacting to conditioned cues, impulsivity, anxiety, aggression, and judgment. It controls our mood, and alcohol affects the balance of serotonin in our brain.
Alcohol causes a big boost in serotonin, eventually causing the brain to become dependent on alcohol to release enough serotonin. Drugs that affect serotonin will affect our mood, so someone could be extremely happy or they could fall into a deep depression, or both depending on their drinking. Maybe you’re reading this because you start off very happy when you’re drinking, but by the end of the night you cry, fall into a deep depression, or maybe even feel suicidal.
As the alcohol wears off your serotonin levels drop below baseline levels because alcohol isn’t stimulating serotonin anymore and your body doesn’t remember how to regulate serotonin levels on it’s own. This is why the depression hits, and depending on your genetics and how slowly you process alcohol this depression could hit at the end of the night, when you wake up in the middle of the night, or the next day. Since our serotonin levels have dropped below baseline, we believe we’re depressed people and alcohol is the only thing that makes us happy, so we drink again to get that boost of serotonin we crave.
People struggling with addiction will feel such extreme feelings of sadness that they may even consider suicide. In fact, people who struggle with alcohol are up to 120 times more likely to commit suicide than someone who does not struggle with alcohol. We have higher rates of both attempted and completed suicides than people who do not abuse alcohol, and more than one third of suicide victims had alcohol in their systems at their time of death.
Our brains can always adapt though, so in sobriety the brain can learn to produce the correct amounts of serotonin, but it has to learn that alcohol won’t be around anymore. That adjustment takes time, but it will happen if you continue not to drink. This is why early sobriety can be so difficult, because your brain depends on alcohol to function correctly, so it’s going to send you cravings to drink so it can get what it needs.
Sources
How Drug Addiction Affects Serotonin And Dopamine. Rehab Center. 2014.
The Role of Serotonin in Drug Addiction. UK-Rehab. 2018.
Kirby LG, Zeeb FD, Winstanley CA. Contributions of serotonin in addiction vulnerability. Neuropharmacology. 2011;61(3):421-432.
Serotonin: The Role it Plays in Addiction and Withdrawal. Northpoint Seattle Blog. 2017.
Pompili M, Serafini G, Innamorati M, et al. Suicidal behavior and alcohol abuse. Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2010;7(4):1392-1431. doi:10.3390/ijerph7041392
Alcohol and Suicidal Thoughts. The Recovery Village Drug and Alcohol Rehab. 2014.
Cite this episode
Tietz, G. Episode 63: Why Alcohol Causes Depression and Suicidal Thoughts. Sober Powered. 2021.
