How does alcohol affect your mood e.g. stimulant, depressant etc?   Alcohol is a depressant and depresses all areas and functions of the brain.
 
When you drink alcohol, an initial excitement stage may be experienced. You feel reckless and careless. This effect is actually because of the alcohol causing depression of the brain’s inhibitory centres, which are responsible for the social and behavioral restraints of a person. When these centres are depressed they cause impairment of your conscious self control and relieve your anxiety. That is why alcohol is considered as a stimulant, disinhibitor or euphoriant.

The brain’s high integrative areas are affected first; followed by impairment of your thought processes, fine discrimination, judgement and motor function sequentially. These effects are usually noticed when your blood alcohol concentrations reach 0.05 % or lower. However there are marked variations among individuals and it is very difficult to predict a specific behavioral pattern.

As blood alcohol concentrations increase (around 0.1%), there are more frequent errors in your judgment capability. Your co-ordination becomes impaired and you may experience difficulty in proper hearing and vision. You may also begin to have involuntary movements.

Walking becomes difficult and you may start staggering as blood alcohol concentrations rises further (0.15-0.2%).

You may take longer to respond and may become extremely loud, incoherent and emotionally unstable. Violent behavior may also occur at very high blood alcohol levels. These effects are the result of depression of the excitatory areas of your brain. At further high blood alcohol concentrations (0.2-0.3%), you may experience periods of amnesia or blackouts. You may not be able to recall events occurring at that time.

With more increased alcohol concentrations (0.25-3%), you may become unconscious. You may die of the depressant effect of the alcohol on the breathing control centre in your brain resulting in respiratory failure. 

Written by Medpages Editorial Team
Last Editorial Review: 21/1/2010