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Renewal Lodge is an extremely rare environment in which the staff embodies the very mindfulness and 12-step practices and skills they offer their clients. It is an honor to be here and I treasure my personal time with every client I meet. My name is John Bruna, co-founder of the Mindfulness in Recovery® Institute, and more importantly, a grateful member of the recovery community. Of course, I did not achieve continuous recovery through willpower or my own efforts, but through the guidance and caring support of countless others that selflessly taught me how to live through the 12 Steps. With the acquisition of each new coping skill and the evolution of emotional maturity, your brain builds new connections and creates pathways for healthy interactions in the future.
By the way, many rehab centers offer exercise therapy, which is an experiential approach that boosts feel-good neurotransmitter release. Basically, dopamine is what teaches your brain that alcohol equals reward, making you naturally want more alcohol. Especially if you’re feeling low and have learned that alcohol can numb or remove that pain, even if temporary, you’re more likely to go for it. Just like chocolate cake, your brain can easily get addicted to the rush of dopamine that comes with alcohol.
Your Brain on Alcohol
Also, thinking takes much more effort than we realize, with our brains using about 20% of our total calories consumed. If you’re not eating well and getting enough nutrition for your body and brain, you’re going to have a much harder time concentrating and feeling inspired or rewarded. No matter how much you drink, adding whole nutrient-dense foods to your diet is going to help your body and brain work better. Before we dive into alcohol’s impact, it’s important to remember that the amount you drink completely changes its overall effect on your brain health.
The current study indicates that long-term alcohol consumption decreased dopamine release in the putamen of male rhesus macaques (regardless of abstinence status) and in the caudate of the multiple abstinence monkeys. Interestingly, we found an increase in dopamine release in the caudate and no change in the putamen of female macaque drinkers. The effects of these alcohol-induced changes in dopamine release must be considered with other factors contributing to dopamine signaling (e.g., dopamine uptake/transporter activity). Indeed, our analysis of dopamine transient dynamics revealed faster dopamine uptake in caudate and putamen of alcohol-consuming female, but not male, macaques. Thus, any apparent dopamine uptake differences in the male macaque groups presented here are a function of faster clearance times due to decreased dopamine release and not faster dopamine clearance rates per se.
Ways to Improve Your Dopamine Levels
But over time, alcohol can cause dopamine levels to plummet, leaving you feeling miserable and desiring more alcohol to feel better. When we drink, the brain’s so-called reward circuits are flooded with dopamine. Dopamine release in the NAc shell may be instrumental in the development of alcohol dependence. Psychological dependence on alcohol develops how does alcohol affect dopamine because alcohol-related stimuli acquire excessive motivational properties that induce an intense desire to consume alcohol-containing beverages (i.e., craving). As a result of this intense craving, conventional reinforcers (e.g., food, sex, family, job, or hobbies) lose their significance and have only a reduced impact on the drinker’s behavior.
In addition the researchers noted that that dopamine activity was higher among those with a history of alcoholism in their family. These include your age, gender, overall health, how much you drink, how long you have been drinking and how often you normally drink. “We are the first to show that KCNK13 is a primary, direct target of alcohol and that this channel is important for regulating alcohol consumption. KCNK13 represents a novel target for the development of alcohol use disorder drugs, of which we have relatively few today,” Brodie said. When the potassium channel gets blocked, the neurons increase their activity and release more dopamine. It can increase your heart rate, aggression, and impulsiveness, as well as cause a surge in dopamine levels.
How Alcohol Impacts the Brain
So the healthier your brain is, the better it can use dopamine effectively and communicate messages between nerve cells and the rest of your body. That means you can go after your goals much more easily, without losing motivation. Into Action Recovery Centers provides an abstinence-based program and all of our staff members have a strong understanding of the recovery process through personal experience. We are passionate about sharing the process involved in living a drug and alcohol-free life. We offer free aftercare for the men who complete our program and have a strong alumni network that remains active in the community. We also offer other amenities such as dietician-prepared meals, mindfulness-based meditation training, outings, and fitness training.
