The various methods of self-medicating includes drinking alcoholic beverages, such as beer, wine, or liquors, or ingesting drugs through smoking, snorting, shooting up, or eating. In some ways, self-medication may occur unintentionally. People could be using substances to fill a void that they are feeling is in their lives without being consciously aware that they are doing so. Ways to tell if someone is self-medicating is to observe whether or not they are making it a habit to “drown out their troubles” with alcohol or use drugs to settle or comfort themselves, as well as becoming cantankerous or anxious when they are unable to obtain these items to relive their physical and or their emotional …show more content…
In society it can be seen as something that trivial and not a big deal, or it can be seen as something deeply serious depending on the situation. Alcohol is mainly used for emotional pain and can be used to “take the edge off” when someone is going through a tough time. After a rough day at work or a breakup, someone may want to turn to alcohol and binge drink to try to solve their emotional issues. In this case, friends and peers may encourage it, thinking nothing of the behavior. When this becomes an ongoing problem, and the person is drinking excessively over an extensive period of time, people may finally start to take the behavior more seriously and see the problem with it. Without the excessive behavior though, alcohol is the most widely socially acceptable substance for someone to use to self-medicate. It interacts with the neurons in the brain involving the neurotransmitters GABA and Glutamate. GABA acts an inhibitor to neurons firing when it binds with its receptor and Glutamate acts as an excitatory neurotransmitter. Alcohol is an enhancer in that it makes GABA more of an inhibitor than it already is and blocks glutamate from binding and creating an excitatory response in the neuron. The feeling in response to these neural reactions is loss of memory and impulse control. They feel less anxious and freer in a situation as it has a numbing effect on people. Obtaining alcohol is