The Psychological Effects of Alcohol Abuse

Although having an alcoholic drink on special occasions can enhance your mood and add to your enjoyment, heavy alcohol use has been linked to a variety of problems. While moderate drinking of wine may even have benefits for the heart, according to the Institutes of Health, heavy alcohol use carries numerous risks. People who abuse alcohol can harm their health, interpersonal relationships or face problems at work.

Memory

• According to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), drinking alcohol impairs memory and learning. Specifically, alcohol seems to impair a person's ability to form new memories but does not interfere as much with memory recall or with holding a piece of information in working memory for a few seconds. Both men and women have similar learning and memory problems, but women seem to be more sensitive to alcohol's effects. Alcohol's effects also seem to be more severe in adolescents than in adults.

Executive Control

• Alcoholics have some diffuse damage in the brain, affecting a number of brain regions at once. However, according to the NIAAA, the prefrontal cortex, located in the frontal lobes of the brain, is particularly susceptible to alcohol's effects, because it is connected to all the other lobes of the brain. Because the prefrontal cortex is responsible for what's known as "executive control" -- judgment, planning, goal-striving -- when alcohol disrupts executive function, the drinker can experience a variety of behavioral, cognitive, emotional and social problems. Drinkers are less likely to inhibit their behaviors and more likely to act impulsively, lose control of their emotions and behave inappropriately.

Depression

• Alcohol abuse and depression often go together. According to a review by John S. Baer, PhD, described on the College Drinking website, drinking is associated with negative emotional states, such as depression. However, the relationship is complex, and it is difficult to tease out whether drinking causes or increases depression or whether people who are depressed are more prone to drink heavily. Research published in 2009 in the "Archives of General Psychiatry" sought to understand this relationship in a 25-year study of a large sample of children. Authors of the study, Fergusson, Boden and Horwood, followed the children from birth to age 25 and measured alcohol abuse and depression at different ages. The researchers concluded that the best explanation is that alcohol abuse leads to increased depression.