Alcohol doesn't actually help you have fun or loosen up.
It limits your ability to connect actions to consequences, so you go ahead and tell that racist joke that you normally wouldn't, and the people around you who are drunk aren't connecting actions to consequences either, so they laugh at it.
Drinking alcohol and drink aren’t the same thing. A moderate amount of alcohol causes your body to release dopamine which makes you happier which, in many people, makes situations more fun because of their mood.
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· 5 years ago
There's a new book by Malcolm Gladwell where he covers the current research which finds that drinking doesn't improve your mood unless you're in a situation that would improve your mood anyways.
If you're sad and you go have a drink alone, you will get more sad because an impaired prefontal cortex becomes even less able to see that in the long term things will get better.
A drink with friends helps you feel better because your impaired PFC can only see the current good times and can't predict that they'll end.
Alcohol also gradually turns off your hippocampus, which regulates memory. An inability to remember getting fired that morning makes beer with friends way more fun.
Mood intensifier is a great way to think of it. The inhibitors alcohol puts on your PFC and your hippocampus lead you to be unable to think in past and future terms, leaving you completely and utterly in the present.
It limits your ability to connect actions to consequences, so you go ahead and tell that racist joke that you normally wouldn't, and the people around you who are drunk aren't connecting actions to consequences either, so they laugh at it.
If you're sad and you go have a drink alone, you will get more sad because an impaired prefontal cortex becomes even less able to see that in the long term things will get better.
A drink with friends helps you feel better because your impaired PFC can only see the current good times and can't predict that they'll end.
Alcohol also gradually turns off your hippocampus, which regulates memory. An inability to remember getting fired that morning makes beer with friends way more fun.