When it comes to addiction, people who are struggling with an alcohol addiction need stronger and larger quantities of alcohol to feel normal, and this leads to detrimental behaviors. If you don’t have any experience directly with addiction, or even in some cases if you do, it can be difficult to understand how this works on a biological level.
At its core, the science of addiction has to do with the way different chemicals interact with the brain.
The Neuroscience of Alcohol Addiction: How Chemicals Change Mood
In the brain, there are individual brain cells called neurons.
Neurons typically communicate using chemicals called neurotransmitters.
In between your neurons, there are small spaces called synapses.
When a brain cell is activated, it generates electrical potential that travels to the synapses between nearby neurons. This causes the cell to release neurotransmitter molecules, which move across the synapses to the neighboring neurons. In this way, a neural signal can move from one neuron to another.
How does this work?
The neurotransmitters bind to what are called receptors placed on the outside of nearby neurons. When they are turned on, it can trigger the neuron to turn on and do something important.
Some receptors are called inhibitory receptors and these are designed to inhibit or stop a certain action within the neuron when they get triggered.
When a neurotransmitter binds to a receptor, it works like a key that turns it on. Just as keys only fit specific locks, neurotransmitters only bind to certain receptors. For example, dopamine only binds to dopamine receptors, and serotonin only binds to serotonin receptors.
Alcohol can bind to receptors in the brain that are intended for other natural neurotransmitters and, in so doing, turn on or off certain functions. One of the most common is increasing the attachment to things like dopamine receptors and releasing higher than normal quantities of dopamine for a small amount of time, creating the initial drunkenness or high.
In this way, alcohol imitates natural brain chemicals, but it produces different results than normal transmitters because it can activate neurons more or less strongly than normal.
The Science Behind Alcohol Addiction: The Relationship Between Strength and Effect
The strength of the effects of alcohol is based on how much is taken and with what regularity.
The drug molecules that you consume move around in a random way, called stochastic. As they move around randomly, a neurotransmitter might connect with a receptor, turning it on and then reverse itself, detaching from that receptor immediately after which another one might bounce into place and activate it and then detach.
The more drug molecules you have in your synapses, the more likely/frequently the molecules are to attach to your receptors and trigger them.
In this regard, the science behind alcohol addiction is that the more you drink, the more intense the positive feelings you get, but by the same token, when you stop drinking, the more intense your withdrawal is.
Addiction Biology: Alcohol Dependence
As you use more, you become dependent. Your regular neurotransmitter production becomes ill-equipped to generate the same feelings that your drug or alcohol molecules were generating. This means you not only need alcohol to start to feel normal, but you need a higher strength of alcohol to get that same positive feeling.
And again, the higher the strength, the more intense the feelings and subsequently the more intense the withdrawal.
Getting Help for Addiction with Ritual Recovery
At Ritual Recovery, we provide comprehensive care for those who are struggling with addiction. You don’t need to understand the neuroscience of alcohol addiction to get help for alcohol dependence.
In fact, as part of your recovery process, our team will incorporate group therapy and individual therapy focused on providing additional education about the science behind alcohol addiction or addiction biology and what you can do to overcome things like cravings.
With our alcohol rehab in Asheville, NC, you can start a partial hospitalization program or intensive outpatient program, after which we can help you find sober living if necessary. As part of our alcohol recovery program, we combine medication, therapy, and other support modalities tailored to your needs and history so that you can reduce your cravings and prevent a relapse long-term.
Let our team help you understand the science of addiction and get the help you need. Call us today.
