Self-help: Alcohol and street drugs

Alcohol and street drugs

If you're suffering from depression, whether or not you're on anti-depressant medication, it's important to understand the effects that alcohol and street drugs can have on you.

Alcohol: Alcohol is a complex drug. It can produce feelings of pleasure and remove inhibitions in some people, while in others it can lead to increased aggression and to maudlin, negative emotions. As such, taking alcohol while suffering from depression is a gamble that it's probably not worth taking. Certainly if you're on anti-depressant medication, or if you're seriously depressed and undergoing cognitive therapy, then alcohol should be avoided entirely. If you're mildly depressed, a single drink in the company of good friends may allow you to relax slightly and gain more from the experience. But on balance, we'd recommend avoiding alcohol entirely until the depression has passed.

Cannabis/Marijuana: You might think that smoking a joint in pleasant surroundings will help alleviate your depression, but using cannabis to control moods in this way can be dangerous. Cannabis is widely held to be harmless, and certainly its physical effects on the body are far less damaging than alcohol, leaving aside the tobacco content of most joints. On a psychological level, however, cannabis has been known to cause trauma, chiefly in users with existing - albeit sometimes deeply buried - mental health problems. It can also affect sleep patterns, exacerbating the sleep problems (see below) caused by the depression itself. Paranoia, an accepted side-effect of cannabis use, will also contribute to the depressed user's discomfort. In our opinion, it is unwise to use cannabis during depression.

Ecstasy: One of the most commonly-used street drugs in the UK is ecstasy ('E' or 'pills', chemically MDMA or more commonly MDA), with millions of pills consumed every weekend. Ecstasy imparts a feeling of euphoric happiness, empathy and well-being in the user; basically the exact opposite of feelings of depression. There's a good reason for this apparent coincidence - ecstasy acts on the same neurological areas of the brain as depression. Ecstasy affects the production of serotonin in the brain, and an unstable serotonin system is a cause, or at least a symptom, of depression. Regular ecstasy users will know that the comedown from the drug often leads to a day or two of mild depression, as the serotonin system in the brain fluctuates and finally returns to normal. For this reason, taking ecstasy while depressed is potentially extremely dangerous. The initial high may, or may not, temporarily alleviate the symptoms of depression, but the resultant comedown is likely to make things much worse, and there may be longer-lasting damage.

Cocaine, heroin and other Class A drugs: It's the comedown that's the big problem here. The initial high feelings from cocaine, heroin, etc. can make the depressed user feel better temporarily, but the comedown from Class A drugs is rarely pleasant, even for someone with perfect mental health. Depressed users have further to fall, making the experience all the more painful.

What this all boils down to is that taking mind-altering substances during depression is not a clever idea. Depressed people already have a chemical imbalance in the brain which affects perception. Adding other perception-changing substances to that mix is unpredictable at best and highly dangerous at worst, particularly when anxiety and paranoia are added to the equation. Do yourself a favour and swear off the booze and drugs until you're over the depression.

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© Unusual Publishing Ltd 1999-2008. Have we helped you? Then please help us! Important note: The information carried on this site relates to the direct experience of depression sufferers and is not intended as a medical guide. Nothing on this site can replace the supervision and advice of a good doctor, psychologist or psychiatrist. Anyone suffering from depression should see their doctor immediately and regularly. Legal/privacy statement. Validate.