Does Depression Lead to Substance Abuse? It’s a Complicated Link

But it can also factor into the development of serious mental health conditions, including depression. There is a strong link between alcohol use and depression, a mental health condition that includes feelings of hopelessness, emptiness, fatigue, loss of interest, and more. But does regular drinking lead to depression, or are people with depression more likely to drink too much alcohol? Drinking persistently and excessively can increase your risk of developing a major depressive disorder. It can also aggravate symptoms of pre-existing depression and endanger your health and mental health.

What counts as a ‘severe’ substance use disorder?

Then, try distracting yourself to help take does drinking make your depression worse your mind off how you feel. It often feels very tempting (and easy) to keep drinking until you feel better, especially when you have less access than usual to more helpful coping methods. If you tend to rely on alcohol to ease anxiety in social situations, for example, you might never address the underlying causes of your discomfort. You might begin drinking more regularly in order to feel better or forget about those unwanted emotions and memories.

Isolation

KISH tables were subsequently used to identify one household member from each selected dwelling unit to participate in the study. By using these sampling procedures, the results should be generalizable to the group of residents represented by the individuals included in the study. If you keep drinking a lot of alcohol, it can cause more problems and make your depression and anxiety worse over time. Alcohol misuse and depression are serious conditions that you shouldn’t ignore.

Treatment for Co-Occurring Depression and Alcohol Use Disorder

Antidepressants can help level out the neurotransmitters involved in depression. While they don’t directly improve symptoms of a substance use disorder, they may indirectly help by reducing the symptoms of depression contributing to the desire to use substances. Even if you have depression, it’s possible to have a healthy relationship with alcohol and other substances. That said, since depression and substance use disorders can feed into each other, it never hurts to practice some caution.

Examine your existing relationships

Future research should explore whether there is a threshold level at which being lonely can lead to abusive alcohol consumption. There are significant clinical implications to understanding whether loneliness is one possible avenue by which people progress from alcohol use to abuse. Baseline data for 1,919 adults (aged 21 years and above) from a representative health survey in the Central region of Singapore was used for this study. The influence of loneliness on depressive symptoms is independent of that of any social isolation indicators.