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hollywood_court

I agreed with all of that except for fat. You need fat. You don’t need any of the others.

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I need alcohol to be sociable.

Hello, Mr. Koothrappali :)

> I need alcohol to be sociable

I always laugh when I see this. Alcohol turns me into an introvert.

It has different effects on people, some even turn violent. But a large group report being less inhibited in social settings. Thing is even a glass does it but few know when to stop, especially when young. Id get drunk sometimes when I was in my 20s and after being sociable for an hour or so I’d get giddy drunk.

Glad to know there are other people with this tendency.

I'm usually a good conversationalist but stop talking as soon as I've had a couple.

Yup.

That's right.

Okay then.

Have a good night!

you too

We assume that the loss of inhibition will automatically make people more likely to interact. But what if a person would like to interact less in the moment, but feels compelled to do so via social rules? In this case, being less inhibited would make them less sociable, not more.

The loss of inhibition is culturally learned, not biochemical. You can relax and let loose because society judges you less harshly when drunk (and, if you have internalized it, you judge yourself less harshly too). In some cultures it's not present at all, and even in some you may visit it's much weaker. Be aware of this if you get drunk as a tourist.

This doesn't make sense to me.

Alcohol binds to the GABA receptor mimicking GABA, hence providing a calming feeling. It allows people to feel less anxious in situations they might normally feel awkward. That is definitely not cultural.

Drinking regularly may desensitize your GABA receptors and hence cause a person to end up with more anxiety as a result of drinking. I rarely drink because I found it was exasperating my mental health issues.

That binding to GABA receptors "gives a calming feeling" is at best vaguely accurate. And even if it was accurate, there is in any case a mile from that to reducing social anxiety. Other "downer" drugs don't make people more outgoing, despite binding to GABA receptors, because we don't ascribe those qualities to them.

Even emotional states such as happy, calm, afraid etc. are higher level phenomena that don't map nicely onto hormones and neurotransmitters. The same low-level signal may even be interpreted in different ways depending on circumstance. There's a classic experiment with niacin demonstrating this, but like so many old behaviour experiments, it's ignored in favour of more "white coat" neuroscience these days.

Cannabis turns me into an introvert, but I can't make conversation without alcohol.

So do many people! There’s a reason why it has been a staple of many societies for thousands of years!

Drink, drink!

So I in fact need alcohol chemically, like psychiatrically, under limited conditions. Limited. I payed for and received medical advice, that when I went out and partied, make sure to take my medication with me and take it then too, alcohol is too risky for and deficit too much downside. It's synergistic sometimes.

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