mind & bodyanalysisWellcome Collection
Humans have been making alcohol for about nine thousand years, and we keep drinking it for social reasons
Fermented drinks are known from China around 7000 to 6650 BCE, and alcohol has been part of human life in Egypt, Mesoamerica, Europe and the Greek and Roman worlds ever since. Alcohol's appeal comes less from its taste than from its social role and its effect on the brain. Ethanol increases the release of dopamine, which makes us feel relaxed and happy. In sixteenth-century England the average Briton drank around 17 pints of weak beer a week, and during the mid-eighteenth-century Gin Craze the average person drank nearly three gallons of spirits a year. Prohibition attempts have repeatedly pushed production underground instead of ending it.
Ethanol, the alcohol in drinks, acts on the brain's reward system and increases the release of dopamine, producing a feeling of relaxation and pleasure. As intake rises, the effect can slide from pleasure into impaired coordination and judgement, and repeated reward can drive craving and addiction.
Understanding why alcohol is so entrenched helps explain why policies on it are hard to design. Most people drink for shared pleasure, but the same dopamine reward can turn into addiction, which is why modern debates focus on regulation and harm reduction.
Evidence of fermented drinks in China dates to about 7000 BCE, long before the first cities.
Wellcome Collection · CC BY 4.0
Illustrative photo · Unknown author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
