Alcohol

Addiction: dopamine

The dopamine neurotransmitter system is stimulated by alcohol. A burst of dopamine flows to the brain’s reward centre, making you feel pleasant and euphoric. You want to experience that feeling again and again, and this can lead to alcohol addiction.

If you drink alcohol regularly for a long time, your brain adapts to it. It becomes less sensitive to dopamine, and it also releases less dopamine itself. In the absence of alcohol, concentrations of dopamine in the brain become too low, and that can make you feel depressed. You want to drink again to overcome this, and this, too, can result in alcohol addiction.