Letter: Why people turn to drink (From Lancashire Telegraph)

Letter: Why people turn to drink

2:39pm Monday 20th August 2012 in Opinion

RE ‘East Lancashire’s towns drowning in alcohol’ (LT, August 17), I can explain why people become alcoholics in the first place.

When they are in work, their employers treat them as automatons, reducing their sense of self-worth and thus contribute to work-related stress. This stress is mainly felt in the portion of the brain known as the amygdala which in turn affects behaviour, causing depression.

This depression can be, in the short term, relieved by alcohol or drugs. This only affects 10per cent of the population to a chronic degree.

Deep in the brain is an area that produces an hormone called dopamine, the pleasure drug that makes thrill seekers do extraordinary things to themselves.

Drinking and drug taking produces high levels of dopamine.

Now you know that, can I have half the money that is going to be squandered on this research, safe in the knowledge that I will go to the pub and buy rounds of drinks for all rather than see it wasted?

woolywords (via website).