Here's Why We Don't Associate Drinking With Increased Stress Levels

Why isn’t it common knowledge that drinking increases stress levels and zaps joy? 🤯🤯🤯

Well, because the chemicals that cause these reactions stick around a lot longer in our brain and body than dopamine does.

Here’s what I mean. When we drink, we get the 20-30 minute buzz (dopamine spike) that night, and we feel irritable, more stressed and anxious the next day. Sure we may logically associate drinking with the hangover, but we don’t associate stress levels with drinking. We associate the buzz with drinking, and the stress levels are just life we must drink to de-stress from.

Because these other chemicals hang around a lot longer; we don’t link their effects with alcohol.
Cortisol levels after drinking, for example, can be raised for several days, if not weeks after drinking, increasing our stress and anxiety.

The same goes for dynorphin- the downer/buzz-kill hormone. It hangs around a lot longer, and if you’re a regular drinker, the body keeps pumping it out even on days you’re not drinking because the brain is desperate to get back to homeostasis.

When dynorphin was being produced regularly in my brain, I was sad and depressed and didn’t find anything that didn’t involve alcohol enjoyable. But I never associated the sadness with drinking because when I was drinking, I was focused on keeping that high going.

I think it’s vital that we look at how drinking makes us feel, not just at night but throughout the next day and days to come.

When we look at the whole picture, we can see how it’s so easy to get trapped in the cycle of drinking to relieve stress and make ourselves happy- but in reality, we are increasing our stress levels and zapping our joy altogether.