The Sacred Shift | Intuitive Guidance With Suzette Lindo

Depressants are drugs such as alcohol, barbiturates (tranquilizers), and opiates that calm (depress) neural activity and slow body functions.

Alcohol does more than lessen our normal inhibitions, however, It produces a sort of short-sightedness by focusing our attention on arousing situations (perhaps a sexually attractive person or some personal slight). This combination of lowered inhibitions and altered perceptions can reduce self-awareness and distract attention from future consequences (Giancola et al., 2010; Hull & Bond, 1986; Steele & Josephs, 1990).

The point to remember: Alcohol’s effect lies partly in that powerful sex organ, the mind. Expectations influence behavior.

Memory disruption. Sometimes, people drink to forget their troubles-a broken relationship, a lost game, a failed exam. And forget they do. Why? Because alcohol disrupts long-term memory processing. It does so in part by suppressing REM sleep, which helps fix the day’s experiences into permanent memories. Thus, people recovering from a night of heavy drinking may have blackouts, unable to recall who they met the night before, or what they said or did.

Heavy drinking can have long-term effects on the brain. In rats, at a development period corresponding to human adolescence, binge drinking contributes to the death of nerve cells and reduces the birth rates of new nerve cells. It also impairs the growth of synaptic connections (Crews et al., 2006, 2007).

Slowed body functions. Alcohol slows sympathetic nervous system activity. In low doses, it relaxes the drinker. In larger doses, it causes reactions to slow, speech to slur, and skilled performance to decline.

Paired with lack of sleep, alcohol is a potent sedative. Add these physical effects to lowered inhibitions, and the result can be deadly. Worldwide, several hundred thousand lives are lost each year in alcohol related accidents and violent crime.

BARBITURATES– Like alcohol, the barbiturate drugs, or tranquilizers, depress nervous system activity. Barbiturates such as Nembutal, Seconal, and Amytal are sometimes prescribed to induce sleep or reduce anxiety. In larger doses, they can impair memory and judgment. If combined with alcohol, the total depressive effect on body functions can lead to death. This sometimes happens when people take a sleeping pill after an evening of heavy drinking.

OPIATES The opiates-opium and its offshoots-also depress nervous system activity. Opiates include heroin and also medically prescribed pain-relief narcotics, such as codeine, morphine, and methadone (a synthetic opiate sometimes prescribed as a heroin substitute). As pleasure replaces pain and anxiety, the user’s pupils constrict, breathing slows, and lethargy (a feeling of extreme relaxation and a lack of energy) sets in.

Those who become addicted to this short-term pleasure may pay a long-term price: a gnawing craving for another fix, a need for progressively larger doses (as tolerance develops), and the extreme discomfort of withdrawal.

When repeatedly flooded with an artificial opiate, the brain eventually stops producing endorphins, its own feel-good opiates. If the artificial opiate is then withdrawn, the brain will lack the normal level of these natural painkillers. Those who cannot or choose not to endure this state may pay an ultimate price-death by overdose.

Source:Psychology in every day life.