"A necessary starting point to understanding why some humans drink too much is understanding why humans consume alcohol at all. Our hominid ancestors evolved to metabolize alcohol over 10 million years ago, pushed by the need to safely consume rotting fruit from the forest floor. We have been deliberately manufacturing alcohol for over 15,000 years, and today it remains our most popular drug, despite many well-acknowledged downsides. Why do we continue to drink it? We can't still claim this as a nutritional necessity."
"The vervet monkey on the island of Saint Kitts in the Caribbean is one example of many animal species that consume alcohol, with individuals showing variable enthusiasm for doing so. This attests to a fundamental biological driver. It cannot simply come down to clever advertising, peer pressure, or the price being right at the liquor store. The brain lies at the heart of this. If we ask most people, they will tell us that drinking alcohol makes them feel good and that they have fun drinking it. This is because alcohol is a primary reward; it can chemically alter the levels of certain neurotransmitters in our brains."
Humans evolved the ability to metabolize alcohol over ten million years ago to safely consume fermenting fruit on the forest floor. Deliberate manufacture of alcoholic beverages began over fifteen thousand years ago, and alcohol remains the most widely used psychoactive substance despite known harms. Nonhuman animals such as vervet monkeys also consume alcohol with individual variation, indicating an underlying biological driver for alcohol use. Cultural, economic, and social factors influence consumption, but they do not fully explain why some individuals transition from voluntary drinking to compulsive use. Alcohol acts as a primary reward by altering neurotransmitter levels in the brain, producing pleasure and increasing risk of repeated use and dependence.
Read at Fast Company
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