Elisabeth Oberzaucher
Why are we looking for the intoxication? From an evolutionary point of view, it is not really meaningful to actively create a condition where you have limited control over your senses and would be helplessly exposed to an attack. In the intoxication, we are uninhibited, we lose control, we do things that regret, retrospectively. Nevertheless, the intoxication we are looking for, whether through alcohol and drugs, is the speed and risk exchange.
What went wrong? How could such a blunder happen to evolution?
The answer lies in the nature of the mechanisms that underlie evolutionary processes: they are anything but a purposeful, well-thought-out process. Rather, evolution is characterized primarily by coincidental events, patchwork and a fair amount of recycling. What we have before us as preliminary final products of this process in the form of existing living beings is therefore anything but perfect. We are a collection of properties that have been useful (but not necessarily still are) throughout our evolutionary history, traits that were never particularly useful but not harmful enough to cause our extinction, and elements we can not get rid of because they are too deeply rooted in our base, although they can cause serious problems.
For a long time, the deliberate induction of intoxication was regarded as deeply human behavior. Whether we are intoxicated by ingesting substances or doing certain activities, it is always an alternative use of physiological mechanisms that by themselves play an important role in the body.
Drugs in Austria
Consumer experience with illegal drugs (lifetime prevalence) is most prevalent in Austria in relation to cannabis with prevalence rates ranging from about 30 to 40 percent among young adults, according to the 2016 drug report. Most of the representative studies also reveal consumer experiences ranging from about 2 to 4 percent for "ecstasy", cocaine and amphetamine, and from about 1 to a maximum of 2 percent for opioids.
Study results show no significant changes in consumer behavior, both for the general population and for adolescents. The intake of stimulants (especially cocaine) remains stable at a low level. The consumption of new psychoactive substances hardly plays a role. In recent years, however, a broadening of the substance spectrum was found in the tasting and experimental consumption.
Opioid use represents the largest part of high-risk drug use. Currently, 29.000 and 33.000 people use drugs that include opioids. All available data suggest a sharp decline in high-risk opioid use in the 15 age group to 24 years, so there are fewer newcomers. Whether this means a decline in illegal drug use as a whole or a shift to other substances is not clear.
Body opiates for focusing
Our body produces opiates as homemade painkillers. Although pain fulfills an important function for the maintenance of functional balance, because it points to things that deviate from the optimum. The communicative function of pain is that they direct our attention to issues that our organism desperately needs to address. Once we respond through action, the function is fulfilled and the pain is no longer needed. Opiates are distributed to stop them.
Interestingly, the physiological mechanisms and function of the body's own opiates or endorphins were scientifically described only decades after the introduction of opiates as analgesic drugs. Its effect is not limited to alleviating pain, but also extends to suppressing hunger, and releasing sex hormones. As a result of this comprehensive influencing of the physiological balance, if necessary, the focus of the organism can be diverted from basic biological functions such as food intake in order to achieve increased performance in other areas. This is essential for mobilization as part of a stress response.
Risk as an addictive factor
While bungee jumping, you can face your head in death, break speed records on skis, start a race with heavy vehicles on a motorbike - all of these are high-risk ventures. What makes us take such risks? Why can not we resist the thrill?
Marvin Zuckerman described the personality trait "sensation seeking", ie the search for variety and new experiences, in order to experience new stimuli again and again. We achieve this stimulation through adventure and risky activities, but also through an unconventional lifestyle, through social disinhibition, or avoiding boredom. Not all people show a comparable level of "sensation seeking".
What are the hormonal bases of these behavioral tendencies? In dangerous situations, there is an increased release of adrenaline. This adrenaline rush leads to increased alertness, we are excited, the heart beats faster, the respiratory rate accelerates. The body prepares to fight or flee.
Similar to opiates, other sensations such as hunger and pain are suppressed. This very meaningful function in the course of our evolutionary history - to allow the organism to concentrate entirely on the problem at hand, without being distracted by life-sustaining needs - can become the basis of addictive behavior: the euphoric effect of adrenaline is what risk seekers seek are addicted and what motivates them to take irrational risks.
If the adrenaline level drops, the suppressed body processes recover slowly. Pain, hunger and other unpleasant feelings that remind us to take care of the needs of our body. Withdrawal symptoms that rarely feel good.
From reward to addiction
Experiments with rats, however, showed that these also have a pronounced weakness for euphoric substances. Rats that can directly stimulate the reward center in their brains by activating a lever, which triggers the release of the body's own opiates, show real addictive behavior. They use this lever again and again, even if it means they have to do without food and other essentials.
Further studies looked at how addiction develops in rats when they are given the opportunity to self-administer drugs by lever pressure. Rats develop dependence on heroin, cocaine, amphetamine, nicotine, alcohol and THC under these conditions. When rats have developed heroin or cocaine dependence, their addiction goes so far that they can not resist the substance even when the cocaine supply is coupled with electric shocks as punishment.
"Artificial" Rewards
A preference for things that increase our well-being is not problematic in and of itself. On the contrary, the origin is a positive effect on the organism. However, such biological mechanisms are not perfect constructions.
Through cultural innovation we are able to pursue these preferences almost indefinitely, which leads us to neglect other biological necessities. The physiological reward mechanisms, whose original function is to reward life-sustaining behaviors, can lead to the opposite if we manage to directly stimulate them. This happens by the artificial supply of addictive substances, or stimulation of the corresponding brain regions.
Intoxication: biology or culture?
Our susceptibility to addiction, our search for intoxication, has biological foundations, and is by no means a cultural invention. The ability to respond to this tendency, however: whether it is the availability of stimulating substances, or the possibility of stimulating behavior, these are cultural innovations that we use to increase our enjoyment, while at the same time having a significant impact on our health and other aspects of our existence.
Intoxication in the animal kingdom
Other mammals can do well without our help: elephants are frequently observed feeding on fermented fruit. However, their sensory perception and their locomotion coordination hardly seem to suffer from alcohol. The same is true of many species of fruit bat: They seem to have developed a tolerance to alcohol in order to be able to eat fermented fruits and nectars without losing their ability to fly. World champions in alcohol tolerance seem to be the Spitzhörnchen, who on average would be labeled as drunk every third day by human standards, but do not seem to suffer any limitation on their motor skills.
Rhesus monkeys and other primates, on the other hand, show very similar behavioral problems as we do, and are repeatedly observed drinking alcohol. These field observations leave no room for conclusions as to whether the animals will deliberately cause these conditions, or whether the content of high-energy foods simply tolerates the alcohol. Green monkeys have developed a penchant for alcohol, as many sugarcane plantations are found in their habitat. They prefer a mix of alcohol and sugar water to the pure sugar water. So here it seems to be that it is a deliberate cause of the intoxication state.
The ability to use alcohol meaningfully - that is, as an energy source - in metabolism seems to have evolved several times in evolution. It is closely related to the way of life: tree dwellers, who can eat fresh and unprocessed ripe fruit, do not have to deal with alcohol, soil dwellers, whose food source are fallen fruit, however, already. By relying not only on sugar as an energy source, you expand your food spectrum, thus increasing the probability of survival. The fact that unwanted side effects occur as a result of excessively high alcohol concentrations is rather rare outdoors as the availability of alcohol is rather limited. In the field, the benefits of alcohol consumption clearly outweigh the disadvantages. Only through the unlimited availability of alcohol through cultural inventions does this originally useful invention become a potential problem.
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