The link between alcohol and mental health doesn’t only go one way. Yes, drinking too much can damage your mental wellness, but mental health problems can also cause you to drink too much – which can result in a vicious cycle.
But some drinking is good for your wellbeing, right? Some studies have shown that light drinking can improve health. If you drink one to three units a day, you may be protecting yourself against heart disease, dementia and Alzheimer’s disease, and a small glass of red wine daily may reduce your risk of stroke if you’re a woman. However, there is far more evidence which proves that excessive alcohol consumption leads to serious physical and mental damage.
At a very basic level, one of the main reasons we drink is to change our mood or mental state. How often have you come home stressed or depressed and thought ‘I need a drink’? Some people choose to drink because it helps them to experience temporary relief from more serious mental health problems, which is why alcohol problems are so common among mental health patients. In the medical field, drinking to deal with difficult feelings or symptoms of mental illness is sometimes called ‘self-medication’. However, drinking can make existing mental health problems worse.
As you’re probably aware, when there’s alcohol in your blood, this changes your mood and, in turn, your behaviour. How this happens largely depends on the amount of alcohol you drink and how quickly you drink it. Alcohol works by depressing your central nervous system, which is why you can become less inhibited in your behaviour. This process can help to ‘numb’ your emotions, which allows you to avoid difficult issues in your life, but alcohol can also reveal or magnify your underlying feelings, which is why many people become angry or aggressive when drinking.
Not only can alcohol elevate your feelings of anger, depression or anxiety, but one of the main problems associated with drinking too much is that you feel much worse when the effects have worn off. Your brain needs a certain level of neurotransmitters to ward off anxiety and depression, but alcohol is thought to use up and reduce the amount of neurotransmitters in the brain, which is how a dangerous cycle of dependence can develop. It is currently recommended that you only drink two to three units a day if you’re a woman, and three to four units if you’re a man.