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How is alcohol addictive?

C

cowardescent

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I don't mean this in a condescending way, I used to like alcohol until I got to opiates. First drank it at 18 and felt euphoria. It was okay until the massive hangovers when you wake up. Benzos though potentiated the effects and now I can only enjoy it with benzos albeit with beer not wine or spirits.

When I found codeine however, I think that was the biggest magic drug ever. Despite how ineffective codeine is said to be (and I have had times where I've taken it and nothing happened), 300+mg beats an alcohol experience anytime. The warmth, euphoria is something I can NEVER forget and get's me really excited when I take a few tablets of Nurofen Plus knowing how big the come up will be. Alcohol doesn't do that. My experience was even overwhelmed when i went to the states and took some of my aunt's oxycodone pills. Like codeine x 50 though with more stimulant effects imo

Now, I wonder why isn't Nurofen Plus more abused than alcohol at least in the UK/Ireland. In general, why aren't opiates more abused.
 
I think it all depends on psychological and physiological makeup really, some people take opioids, don't even notice it and go what's the point in this? Whereas others like you (and myself) take them and feel amazing. I am a person who has severe anxiety and depression and has always had a hard time feeling at home in my own skin. For me opioids completely 'fix' these issues and I'm left feeling fantastic. That's how I used to explain the effects of opioids to people, imagine the greatest day you've ever had, you feel happy, energetic, social, no pain or anxiety just everything is perfect and comfortable.

But some people just go huh, I don't get it!
 
If you have a compound that is a GABA agonist and a NMDA anjtagonist rolled into one, why would it not addict people? Especially if its use is ubiquitous and deemed socially acceptable.

T have one thing to say about alcohol: Alcohol converts in the body into Acetaldehyde, which is an alkylating carcinogen. as such, as is with formaldehyde, any exposure to acetaldehyde is undesirable.

If you are a drinker of "two glasses a day" that means that every month of your life, a liter/quart lab bottle of pure acetaldehyde passes through your system, adding to premature aging, attacking DNA, denaturing proteins and enzymes, wreaking havoc. A whole liter bottle of pure actaldehyde per month.
No amount of studies that this is OK will convince me that this is OK. It is an alkylator capable of crosslinking, used in great quantity, chronically administered. Just - No.
HARAM! You are as free to attack your body with alcohol as you are to attack it with razorblades, I just wish you wouldn't.

.
Acetaldehyde SDS.jpg
 
I don't understand the comparison between alcohol and opiates. They are very different substances.
People can get addicted because like any other addictive substance, it usually causes temporary relief from either a physical or a mental issue. Once people get this relief, some of them want to have this relief all the time and after some regular use, it becomes a dependency. It helps some with social anxiety, some with being to shy, another with easing back pain and it's always available no matter time or location. Hell, people drink it all together after burying a loved one to handle the pain of loosing somebody or to remember and laugh about the good times they have had with his person. I can't imagine too many instances (I've been in some though) when people start shooting up and snorting once they come back from a funeral.
Alcohol dependency is a serious problem which can take hold of somebody slowly without them even realizing sometimes. It's one of the mist physically and mentally taxing dependency which can be fatal if stopped suddenly or if attempted without utilizing medications (like benzodiazepines).
 
KS78 said:
I don't understand the comparison between alcohol and opiates. They are very different substances.
People can get addicted because like any other addictive substance, it usually causes temporary relief from either a physical or a mental issue. Once people get this relief, some of them want to have this relief all the time and after some regular use, it becomes a dependency. It helps some with social anxiety, some with being to shy, another with easing back pain and it's always available no matter time or location. Hell, people drink it all together after burying a loved one to handle the pain of loosing somebody or to remember and laugh about the good times they have had with his person. I can't imagine too many instances (I've been in some though) when people start shooting up and snorting once they come back from a funeral.
Alcohol dependency is a serious problem which can take hold of somebody slowly without them even realizing sometimes. It's one of the mist physically and mentally taxing dependency which can be fatal if stopped suddenly or if attempted without utilizing medications (like benzodiazepines).
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I must agree with the withdrawal. GABAergics have the WORST withdrawals ever, even worse than opiates I've been told. I was taking my aunts oxycodone pills for three weeks and didn't have any effects besides feeling really really low.

However last week I got some €60 and bought enough beer to drink for the whole day, every day for three weeks. Wasn't worried because people said alcohol withdrawal takes long but oh boy, I had my second panic attack in my life. Not an anxious person by any means but it was like when I took nutmeg and had a full blown psychotic attack in my bed.

I was on the bus and got really anxious along with very angry for some reason due to it raining outside. Then I felt my body shake a bit but there's was this indescribably feeling of panic and wanting to shout. Never experienced that before besides the time when I took a shitload of methanol/antifreeze and got fomepizole which is known to worsen withdrawal symptoms. Doctor told me the back pain/dizziness was most likely my adrenal glands going into override from alcohol withdrawal.
 
Noticing a lot of alcoholics tend to have an affinity towards opiates. It's common for them to entirely switch off drinking straight into pills/heroin. Some start to do both at the same time. I think both are pain-numbing substances, so people experiencing mental pain seek out the two. Benzos are somewhat similar to alcohol, but something about them just doesn't seem to dull the pain out unless anxiety is a major issue for you.

I agree with you OP, I don't see the appeal of alcohol and I've come from a family with a large history of alcoholism. The side effects make me feel like absolute crap, so I always associate alcohol with that "oh my god I want to die" hangover feeling. Brain chemistry could be at play. Maybe drinking releases more dopamine and stress for some over others. I also find that alcohol is one of the strongest drugs out there despite being so socially acceptable. It's hard to get hammered off of opiates, stimulants, coke, etc. like one can with booze.
 
^Ah, but a true alcoholic doesn't have hangovers, because they drink 24/7, therefore bypassing any miserable withdrawal stage. It's just like a bzd or opioid or any hard drug. I've seen it before, it's ugly.
 
nuttynutskin said:
Everyone's doc isn't the same so why would everyone's addiction be the same?
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Because the effect of alcohol is a universal fact, like the fact that putting a 12-gauge shotgun against your temple and pulling the trigger can be defined as "a bad idea" and is generally fatal. Scientific, biochemical fact.
 
Your brain chemistry adjusts over the years too. My brain now reacts much differently then it did 15 years ago. Honestly, alcohol is the one drug I wish I'd avoided.
 
speculative really, i was 'addicted' to it i suppose at one point, i got used to loving the physical feeling you get from the alcohol, especially the rush from taking a couple back to back shots, and literally feeling the booze coarse through my veins annnnnd reading what i just typed is exactly why i try to stay clear of the stuff, but once in awhile i'll pretend that rum bottle is just a water bottle

it can become a very habitual thing, like most drugs, but when you enjoy that relaxed feeling which is basically the same feeling and effects of benzos minus the drunk stumbling, yet i've taken some hefty benzo doses and stumbled, hell, the first time i took stupidly high doses of gabapentin i couldn't fucking walk straight, so alcohols effects on the gaba section of the brain also plays its part, but lets just accept it as no different than other drugs, it is a drug afterall, just because its widely accepted and not frowned upon makes it no different, the drug war will end eventually, maybe not for 100 year but eventually, and people will realize how fucking stupid this 'war on drugs' was and is, if there wasn't a drug prohibition you wouldn't have people overdosing because they don't know what the fuck theyre taking, just like folks did during prohibition, with bathtub gin, they'd go blind, die of alcohol poisoning, and a whole bunch of different shit because the stuff wasn't regulated. canada's coming around with pot, they thought legalizing it would entice people to buy from the gov instead of the street which was laughable, although they do have nifty oils/sprays to use orally that are rediculously strong to go along with their stupid prices, a bottle of the oral oil goes for about 80 bucks, fuck i can get a half o of dank for that price on the street, it has made street prices fluctuate now though, either much lower or slightly higher but i'm not a daily smoker anymore, thankgod, but thinking back, i think i fucking spent as much on good hash as i do on good coke nowadays, fuck drugs why do u gotta be so expensive

high as shit on amps. dunno how i wrote a paragraph.
 
I always said I wasn't an addict because I didn't 'need' to have that drink, never had physical withdrawals. But no matter how you slice it, if you're taking down 40+ drinks every week, you're an alcoholic no matter if you get withdrawal symptoms or not. I quit alcohol fairly easily for 2-3 month periods of time but always come back to it - simply because it's the only legal substance that I can purchase. I'd much rather take a xanax and fall asleep early after playing some videogames, but no, alcohol is the easily available drug.
 
psychetool said:
Honestly, alcohol is the one drug I wish I'd avoided.
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+1

It's a hell of a drug.

Biggest lie: "I'm never drinking again", said in the throes of yet another life-altering hangover.

Now that I've quit smoking, I'm going to boot alcohol as well. The two go hand-in-hand and are both toxic as fuck, doubly so when used in conjunction.

Fuck it, mushrooms love me, unlike those two.

I've been preaching about acetaldehyde as @Asante mentions above for a good two years now. Sounded like a right twat when going on about it to friends in the middle of a two day binge at some camping trip or music festival hahaa.
 
Nurofen plus IS that addictive.
It’s been taken off the shelves here and can only be prescribed now (absolute pain in the ass) because almost a third of our country were found to be abusing it haha

I put alcohol right up there with opiates too.
I watched my aunt die from alcoholism and it was the saddest thing I ever saw.
She couldn’t operate in the morning without a drink, her hands would shake so much.
Her liver took almost 15 years to give out but we could see it getting worse that entire time.
It’s a miserable miserable death, but I think the addiction side of it is genetic.
Some people can drink with no problems, others can’t.

I’ve been a problem drinker in the past, tho not physically addicted.
Imagine you’re trying to quit opiates and you get in your car, go for a 20 minute drive.
Every shop sells opiates, every street sign advertising the latest yummy whiskey.
I would see no less than 15 references to alcohol on my short drive to work each day.

It’s crap. And too socially acceptable.
It also has the highest cause of violent crime.

Personally I think it should be illegal and we should be allowed to do recreational drugs with medical supervision. It’s safer
 
OP you sound like an ultrarapid metaboliser of codeine. Basically codeine's effects come from it metabolising into morphine. For most people only a low percentage of the codeine is converted, making it a mild drug. It seems you have a lot of the CYP2D6 enzyme which is what converts codeine to morphine in your body. Therefore you convert a large percentage of codeine into morphine and get a proper high from it.

To state the obvious... morphine highs are of course very enjoyable. Morphine absolutely feels much nicer than alcohol at least to me. Alcohol is a dirty, nasty drug in my opinion, while opiates feel nice and clean and warm, especially the pharma grade shit.

I can even quote Friedrich Nietzsche on this one:

“Perhaps Asians are distinguished above Europeans by a capacity for longer, deeper calm; even their opiates have a slow effect and require patience, as opposed to the disgusting suddenness of the European poison, alcohol.”
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However with Nurofen Plus I have to warn you of two things: first, using it daily is addictive; and second, if you take too much ibuprofen especially on a daily basis, you are at risk of causing stomach ulcers.

Now today I took four 8/500 cocodamol and two Nurofen Plus (12.8/200) for a total of just under 60mg codeine while keeping the doses of the NSAID's below the safe limit. This isn't much codeine at all quite frankly, but I am still on the tail end of oxy withdrawal and having a low level of a weak opiate in my body seems to help even if it's mostly psychological or even plain old placebo.

I recommend either doing a CWE with cocodamol (paracetamol is easier to separate from codeine in a CWE) or buying codeine linctus if possible, to avoid any damage the NSAID's may be doing in the high doses you need to get a proper codeine high from those OTC combos.

Codeine abuse is common in the UK hence the recent restriction on codeine linctus sales which comes from the pharma regulator and is enforced on the wholesalers. Generally cocodamol and Nurofen Plus (along with Paramol which even contains DHC) are left alone, or have been so far, simply because most people cannot get a serious high from them without taking a dangerous amount of NSAID's.

As for how people get addicted to alcohol... it's socially acceptable, legal, cheap, and we live in a society where everyone goes down the pub at the end of the day so it's so fucking normalised no one thinks twice about it. And not to mention university where binge drinking is the norm. It ultimately comes down to social acceptability. It's far more acceptable to down shots all night than it is to pop a few codeine pills.
 
GetMeOutOfThisCRAP said:
Noticing a lot of alcoholics tend to have an affinity towards opiates. It's common for them to entirely switch off drinking straight into pills/heroin. Some start to do both at the same time. I think both are pain-numbing substances, so people experiencing mental pain seek out the two.
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Indeed I know someone who quit opiates and just ended up hooked on booze instead. Far worse habit to have for many reasons. Any downer will numb emotional pain... until the tolerance kicks in.
 
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