Posted by Cam W. on August 7, 2001, at 10:27:19
In reply to social anxiety/Cam or anyone, posted by DN on August 7, 2001, at 9:37:12
DN - Even though you are not drunk, you still have alcohol in your system over the next day, just under the level of where you notice it. The alcohol leaves your body slowly, so it could be the residual alcohol, acting as an agonist at the GABA-receptor complex that is giving you this effect.
When you stimulate the GABAergic neurons, you slow impulses in other neurotransmitter systems, and it is the slowing of electrical transmission in the dopamine neurons, more than in your serotonin neurons, that may be alleviating your social anxiety. Increased serotonin neurotransmission seems to help in social anxiety.
So, there are two ways to attack social anxiety. You could take a drug that increases serotonin neurotransmission, like the SSRIs (eg. Paxil and several others) and/or you could take a drug that increases GABA neurotrans mission like BuSpar or the benzodiazepines (eg. Xanax and several others).
The benzodiazepines work at the GABA-receptor complex, but at a different site than alcohol. Combining the two increases the electrical transmission in GABA neurons, and if increased too much, this can lead to death from respiratory depression (stop breathing).
I hope that this is of some help. - Cam
poster:Cam W.
thread:73930
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20010804/msgs/73941.html