>>7720478
because life is suffering and substance-abuse is the easiest path for temporary relief. also, alcohol is a drug, faggot, in fact one of the most deadly drugs.

You have to talk about brain chemistry when you talk about WHY these things are good.

But it all boils down to evolution. We evolved with the pleasure centers in our brain in order to be spurred into action, in one form or another. We search for food and fuckbuddies, and either one of those activates a gland which rewards us with feelings of pleasure.

The strange part is this wacky coincidence that these specific chemicals which make us feel good don't just come from the gland; they also come from other sources opiates for example.

The relationship between the poppy plant and the mammal, therefore, must be symbiotic. The animal eats the plant, enjoys the high, poops out the seeds, the circle of life continues.

TL;DR it's a symbiotic relationship based on getting the host high.

idk I don't like alcohol
most of it tastes too much like syrups I hated as a kid

>>7720496
This. I'm still wondering why "harder" drugs are still illegal when alcohol is far worse than any of them.

You don't usually see people on heroin, meth or cocaine become abusive.

>>7720538
>You don't usually see people on heroin, meth or cocaine become abusive
Retard detected

ask a police officer about that ill-educated statement.

It doesn't feel good to get drunk.

Your subjective opinion is irrelevant.

>>7720543
That's just the street version of those drugs.

If they were legalized and possibly regulated they'd be likely safer to use. Just look at Portugal.

>>7720543
Im on codeine now and Im totally chill.

>>7720543
most violent crimes are committed under the influence of alcohol. this is directly related to the disinhibition-inducing behaviour of alcohol. on the other hand, how often does your usual pot-head get into a fight? i won't even start to talk about domestic violence..

>>7720501
That maybe applies to complex molecules that only a handful of species are capable of producing that have specific methods of action in animals' brains, e.g. some receptor it acts on. However, ethanol is a byproduct of a simple chemical reaction ubiquitous in nature. Ethanol is in a class of its own in method of action. We can point to its specific effects on neurotransmitters but it also kind of just diffuses all across your brain which makes it hard to study.

OP I don't really have an answer to your question, but there are interesting studies on fruit flies that relate to voluntary alcohol consumption. Male fruit flies that get rejected by female mates end up with anxiety and asocial behavior and... it makes em more likely to drink alcohol given the opportunity. Conversely, fruit flies that are successful getting a ladyfly preggers tend to shun the free booze and are less likely to get addicted. The positive behavior and increased willpower against alcohol seems to correlate with abundance of a certain neuropeptide in the brain. This same neuropeptide in fruit flies has a human analog that is low in people suffering from PTSD (like war vets) who also suffer from high rates of alcoholism and depression.

In a way, alcohol is an evolutionary test for complex organisms. A fun little molecule can be an organisms' downfall if it becomes an escape.

>>7720478
Doesn't happen to me.
I just get fucking dizzy and the room starts spinning and I act a little dumber. Doesn't really feel "good"

I gotta admit though, it certainly did that one time where I only really drank because I was so fucking miserable in another state. I honestly think alcohol numbs the pain.

Don't do it anon. Don't drink to take the pain away.

>>7720505
Yes it does. But that's because the majority of the population is pleb as fuck. The good scotches and beers are delicious. I don't drink to get drunk

>>7720572
yeah this
the changes have equally been purported to have been caused by altered permeability of cell membranes so basically we have no idea.
except >test
That doesn't make any sense given your context as the outcome has already been decided ( no mate ) and the reaction is to go to the bottle. I don't think a fruitfly is likely to make positive changes to its behaviour that would render it more salable to future mates. Even if that were the case the nature of the rejection is inherently arbitrary regardless of your own personal conduct, so changing yourself is instigated by fundamentally a flawed consent.

Therein, any change you make should be by your own rational distress at the foundation, ethics, motivation of your action - CBT style intervention has been found to be the most effective/most studied

>>7720478
> but why did we evolve to respond with pleasure to substances like alcohol and drugs?
We didn't. Some compounds can bind to similar receptors, some compounds can force release, some compounds inhibit reuptake / breakdown. It's not worth typing out all the sources of parallel or convergent evolution, ie why some plants synthesize nicotine or methylxanthines (because they're pesticides, we're just far too large and not vulnerable to being killed that way), etc. It just does. They more accurately for us than we did it. There are some highly conserved chemical messengers across all species, not just mammals, and reasons for that as well.

Ethanol makes you feel good because of salsolinol. Ethanol breakdown -> acetaldehyde -> reacts with dopamine -> salsolinol. The GABA components are trivial in comparison. Salsolinol comprises the main stimulant effect.