04. SYNTHETIC VICE
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The future of booze. What does it taste like? Join us while we look at the role of the oldest of human concoctions: alcohol, and how we may just be on the cusp of a radical revolution in all things inebriation.
Professor David Nutt is a neuropsychopharmacologist and the Co-Founder of GABA Labs. He is also the Founder and Chairman of Drug Science, a UK based independednt drug advisory committee.
Eva Kelley: Since the dawn of time, humans have wanted to get a lil crazy every now and again. And yes, consuming mind altering substances can be fun. It can also be regretful. And It can be dangerous or even fatal. But have you ever thought about how maybe consuming mind altering substances might be the root of our success as a species? And, allow me to go even further, how they might even be the solution to a lot of our issues?
EK: This is Episode 4: Synthetic Vice.
[Intro: The Life Cycle, a podcast about the future of humanity]
John Holten: Hey Eva.
EK: Hey John.
JH: What’s up?
EK: You enjoy a drink, right?
JH: [laughs] Yeah you could say that.
EK: [laughs] I mean, me too, definitely. Alcohol is arguably the most popular drug of choice, following caffeine and nicotine, I guess. In certain cultures, it’s part of every day life, it’s part of the dinner ritual for some people, the after work ritual. It’s used in religions, to celebrate, to congregate, to commemorate. Mostly, or, I should say, ideally, we use alcohol to form bonds or to strengthen them with other people.
JH: Yeah, that’s definitely probably the best, best case scenario.
EK: So tell me, what’s your least favorite part of drinking?
JH: Oh gosh, I mean definitely the next day, I mean from yeah general hangover headaches. But also like I always sleep really badly after I have a drink. But definitely also my anxiety levels are through the roof sometimes.
EK: Yeah me too, I always feel a little on edge, you know, after a night out. And now that I have kids, I mean, being hungover while taking care of small children, is definitely another level of horrible. And I feel like we’ve kind of just accepted that that’s part of the deal right?
JH: Yeah, it’s our pact with the devil, the demon booze.
EK: It’s the price you pay for a good time.
JH: Right. But I kinda get the feeling here that you’re about to say: But what if I told you ….
EK: [interrupts] But what if I told you, it didn’t have to be that way? What if I told you, you could have the good times, without the bad times?
JH: Yeah, like as usual I’m just going to say sign me up. But definitely tell me more first.
EK: So, I had the pleasure of speaking with Professor David Nutt, who is a psychiatrist and a psychopharmacologist, which means, he studies the effects of pharmacological agents in the brain. And he has a super diverse range of research projects, but you could say they all kind of fall under the umbrella of finding a way to use mind altering substances in a positive way, to transform the image of these substances to be viewed as aids rather than obstacles.
JH: Yeah, David Nutt, his name is familiar. I think he was a government drug advisor at one point right?
EK: Yes! He was the UK’s government chief drug advisor and in 2009, he got fired from the job because he claimed in a paper that alcohol and tobacco were more harmful than many illegal drugs including LSD, ecstasy, and cannabis.
JH: Yeah, I’m pretty sure I remember that, cause it made a lot of eye-catching headlines. But it’s kind of becoming more mainstream, this idea. So like he was a bit a head of his time. I think like today a lot of people would be like ‘yeah you’re onto something’.
EK: Totally, but in 2009, that was a much more radical statement to make than it is today. You know, microdosing LSD or mushrooms has become much more popular in recent years. Not just as a party drug, but also to enhance work performance or creativity for example, you know CEOs taking a drop of liquid psilocybin in the morning is nothing out of the ordinary.
JH: And not just that, like the CEO microdosing, but I also think it’s also being used a lot as an alternative to alcohol or cocaine or what have you.
EK: I personally have some friends even who have microdosed for a period of time, usually a few weeks, and they’ve done it very consciously as a sort of type of therapy for their mental health. But of course, because it isn’t legal, it’s not officially supervised.
JH: Yeah and it would probably be beneficial for everyone in society involved if it was.
EK: Exactly, and this is something that Professor Nutt is really passionate about.
Professor David Nutt: I've had a sort of parallel career in trying to bring science to drug policy to rationalise drug policy, and of course, many drugs which change consciousness, either increase energy or drive or alter the way you think or feel, are illegal. And it's often struck me that for a long time, I've taken the view that this illegality wasn't based on science, it was based on politics. So I've tried to develop ways of assessing the harms of different drugs using a structured assessment of the harms to the user, the harms to society.
PDN: And come to the conclusion that there are a number of drugs which are currently seen as very dangerous and are held in the most severe level of control schedule one, which are actually somewhat less harmful than drugs, which are illegal like alcohol. And I've highlighted that as a scientific anomaly. But also, having started researching this field in recent years, I've discovered that not only do these drugs have these drugs been vilified as being very dangerous, which they're not. Like psilocybin or LSD. But on top of all that, they turn out to have enormous medical potential, which has been denied to people because access is very limited by their illegal status. So I've been trying to rectify attitudes to these drugs, particularly the psychedelics and MDMA in the last few years.
EK: So I just find this so interesting, because it would be such a shift in our thinking about these drugs if we used them therapeutically. Imagine, in a few years, you were going through a period of depression and you seek out a therapist, as in, a therapist to speak to about your thoughts. And alongside that talk therapy, instead of an SSRI or traditional antidepressant, you were offered a course of mushrooms microdosed, over you know 2 months or something.
JH: Yeah it sounds, it sounds incredible to be honest. So, what’s standing in the way of this?
EK: Well, like Professor Nutt said, it’s all politics, and of course, testing the safety and the correct dosage is expensive and time consuming. Also, the black market has no interest in purity and quality control of these drugs. Professor Nutt says that regulated market knowledge of what you are taking is critical to taking drugs safely. You know, if you’re taking drugs bought off the street, the likelihood of something going wrong is obviously much greater than if that drug and its dosage had been tested for safety by scientists.
JH: Yeah that makes total sense. And what mental disorders are we talking about? And what like drugs specifically?
EK: So, apparently psychedelic drugs and MDMA have shown very exciting possibilities in terms of treating disorders like depression, PTSD, and addiction.
PDN: We're studying a range of disorders in which people get locked into ways of thinking which are maladaptive, from which they struggle to escape. So we're talking about disorders, like anorexia like OCD, like pain syndromes where people can’t escape from brain processes, which are repetitive.
PDN: I think there may be disorders which aren't helped. I mean, certainly, we're not doing studies in psychosis because it could make them worse. It may be that what we call the externalising disorders, like ADHD don't benefit, but internalising disorders where people get locked into thinking about themselves continuously either. In depression, they have negative thoughts about themselves. In addictions, they are always thinking about themselves taking drugs. OCD, they're always worried about their self being contaminated for instance. In anorexia, they're perpetually worried about their body weight and body shape. Those disorders where people are too much engaged in introspection, these may be the disorders that are most susceptible to pertubation by psychedelics.
JH: Wow MDMA, that’s wild. That’s cool.
EK: So interesting right?
JH: Yeah, I mean it definitely seems to be groundbreaking. And to be clear, there are a lot of scientists now active in this area. I just came across an article on the BBC that describes the testing of a pill, which contained 25 mg psilocybin for patients with depression. And the results were super positive, they showed that psychological therapy was more likely to succeed and that it aided in treating depression for up to 12 weeks. But this wasn’t microdosing, this was like a sustained, 8 hour long trip. The only difference being that it was in a controlled environment with a therapist and it was all medically supervised.
EK: So apparently after doing mushrooms, your brain is more flexible. So it’s like a window of opportunity for psychological therapy to have a greater effect on you, and restructure your thought process.
JH: Right, but this wasn’t the reason you wanted to speak to Professor Nutt right? I thought we were doing an episode on the future of alcohol [laughs].
EK: [laughs] Yeah, yeah true, we are. I just couldn't withhold this part. But you’re right, what I really wanted to find out is what the future of drinking looks like.
JH: And … is it … bright? Is it beautiful?
EK: You know what John, it certainly is. Don’t you worry. This is a project Professor Nutt is working on. He set up a company called GABA Labs, which was founded with the purpose of finding alternatives to alcohol. And really, he had been trying to do this since his days at university.
PDN: Perhaps you might find this amusing. But when I was doing my PhD, I discovered an antidote to alcohol, I discovered that I could, I could sober up a rat, by giving it a GABA antagonists called bicuculline. And I was so excited by this, I thought I could see the Nobel Prize in the distance. And I rushed into my professor and I said, I've got an alcohol antidote, I can save the people up. And he said, What's the point of that? And I said, Well, you know, you might better drive home safely. You know, he might remember what you did. And he said, Yeah, but surely the alcohol still kill the liver and the brain and the heart. Yes, and they might drink more might they? So tail between my legs, I forgot about the Nobel Prize, and went back to the lab.
EK: But it hadnt been a waste of time, because it illustrated something. It…
PDN:It illustrated that the effects of alcohol are mediated to some extent through the GABA system. And then 25 years later, I came back to this by thinking, Well, if we, if we can't stop people drinking, which we can't, because it's a popular, very it’s the most popular drug after coffee, probably. Could we give people a safer and less harmful alternative?
JH: Okay so hold up, we’ve got GABA music, but we also have GABA labs, GABA system, what is GABA?
EK: Yes, what’s GABA? So, before we go any further, let’s break this down. So, the website for GABA labs is actually really amazing and explains everything super well, so that’s my source for the information I’m going to give you about GABA. But I’m going to break it down even more. Do you remember that show The Magic School Bus?
JH: Ummm…
EK: Cartoon, redhead teacher, takes her class on a field trip into like, the human intestines or space in every episode?
JH: I don’t think we had that in my country [laughs].
EK: [lauhgs] Really? Ok, well let’s go on a little field trip into our brains.
[The Magic School Bus theme song]
JH: Okay wait Is that Little Richard? This is wild! I’m up for this magic schoolbus ride, let’s go!
EK: Ok. The human brain contains an estimated 86 billion neurons. These billions of neurons communicate with each other by passing chemical messages at the synapse, which is the small gap between each cell, in a process called neurotransmission. And those chemical messages are unique molecules called neurotransmitters, and they are made specifically to transmit the message in question. So imagine, you have two brain cells next to each other, They’re neighbors. But there’s a gap between them. And one of the cells wants to communicate something to the other cell. So it creates a message, and that message, or neurotransmitter, doesn’t come in the form of a letter or an email or a phone call, but it comes in the form of a molecule. Ok? So the molecule is the message.
JH: Okay, so far so good.
EK: Great. And these billions of neurotransmitter molecules, or messages, are tirelessly working to keeping our brains functioning. They manage everything for us, from our breathing, to our heartbeat, to our concentration levels. But they also manage psychological functions, such as fear, mood, pleasure, and joy. And there are more than 40 different kinds of neurotransmitters. You’ve probably heard of some of them, like dopamine, serotonin, histamine. But there’s also gamma-aminobutyric acid. Otherwise known as: GABA.
JH: Okay, and so what does GABA have to do with alcohol?
EK: Well, essentially, GABA is a neurotransmitter, so a message, that is produced in the brain and helps us feel calm, relaxed, increases our social abilities and reduces our anxiety. And when we drink ethanol alcohol, it activates GABA in our brains, which is the reason we like SOME of the effects it produces. It makes us feel more comfortable talking to strangers, it reduces the fear of flying for some. But the problem with ethanol is that it also produces all these negative effects, aside from a headache, a hangover, or the potential for addiction and abuse, it causes huge damage to human tissue, particularly the brain, the nervous system, heart, liver, and pancreas. So GABA has a range of subtypes that all mediate different effects. And here is where Professor Nutt comes in:
PDN: some of those effects are the effects we want from alcohol like sociability, conviviality, relaxation. So I thought, Well, maybe if we target those receptor subtypes and ignore the others, which lead to things like aggression and dependence and hangover, then maybe we could actually mimic the good effects the desired effects of alcohol without much greater risk, a much lower risk of getting negative effects. And that's what GABA labs has set up to do, to to make targeted molecules that potentiate the effects of GABA that we believe mediate the good effects of alcohol.
PDN: Our ambition, and this is where we are moving towards, is to invent, and we've done that we've invented small molecules, which can mimic the effects of alcohol, which we are taking now through food safety testing. And the plan then is to get one of these molecules approved as a food ingredient, which we can then sell to drinks companies and they can add it to any drink they like. So they can add it to beers, they can add it to non-alcoholic beers or non-alcoholic, wines or non-alcoholic spirits. They can make up their own flavoured drink. So instead of having alcohol in it, you'll have our Alcarelle, which is our small molecule.
EK: So remember the neurotransmitter message that was sent from brain cell to brain cell? And how that message was a molecule? So GABA Labs has created a molecule that they call Alcarelle. And Alcarelle targets the positive effects that alcohol has on us, and ignores the negatives.
JH: I really like the word Alcarelle. It’s a really beautiful neologism. It also kind of sounds like straight off a sci-fi film’s set department. It sounds like a dream.
EK: I know! It’s almost too good to be true. And it’s gets better, there’s actually a drink you can buy called Sentia. Now, until GABA’s molecule Alcarelle is approved as a food ingredient, Dr. Nutt estimates that will take about 3 to 4 more years, we quote on quote have to “make due” with Sentia. So, Sentia is a botanical drink, which contains a range of herbs, and those herbs contain different molecules that work on the GABA system. So it’s a mix of herbs which potentiate the effects of GABA in the brain.
PDN: We estimate now that particularly in, in London in high powered cities where there's enormous work pressure that perhaps up to a quarter of people under the age of about 35, are turning away from alcohol. Because they're worried about dependence, they're worried about impairment, they're particularly worried about hangover the next day, which will impair their work performance. And they're worried about the health implications and health hackers are looking for alternatives. But the alternatives to alcohol at present are basically flavored waters that don't have any functionality. So they rehydrate you but they don't allow you to engage socially in the same way as alcohol does. My hope is that by making less harmful alternatives, like alcohol, we can give people the pleasures that the benefits of alcarelle in terms of sociability and relaxation, without putting them on this path to excessive drinking or, also, very significantly minimise health harms.
JH: Oh my gosh.
EK: Yeah, and so naturally, I had a lot of questions. Like, what does it taste like?
PDN: Well I’ll give you a few tips about drinking it. So it's like a strong vermouth. It's got a powerful taste, very rich, so you probably, best to have it cold ideally on ice. The best way I think is to is to add your favourite mixer, so whether that's a tonic.A lot of people find Elderflower Tonic, particularly effective with it, but you can mix it with apple juice, orange juice, coke, you know, whatever you like. Try it as a long drink I think that's, but you might, some people drink neat as a removed but it is has got quite a strong flavour. It's like one of those not it's not as bitter as, you know, things like Campari, but it's in that direction.
EK: What’s in it?
PDN: Every single one of the ingredients in the Sentia bottle is an antioxidant. So you may well get health benefits as well as social benefits.
EK: Can I get drunk from it?
PDN: No, and this is a really important point. So we have targeted a maximum a ceiling effect of about one to two small glasses of wine or a pint of beer and one and a half pints of beer, we do not want people to get completely out of their minds. Most people don't want to get completely out of their minds, the people that do want to are either actively damaging themselves or are, lose control as a result of being vulnerable to the disinhibiting effects of alcohol. Now, we can avoid that we can get this ceiling effect by just targeting the small subset of GABA receptors which mediate the desirable effects of alcohol.
PDN: And that minimises a lot of the complications of alcohol. Because if you if you take a lot of alcohol, you, you blast the GABA system, but you also bring into play other neurotransmitter systems, which are deleterious. By being very selective at the GABA system, we avoid all those extra complications of, of alcohol, particularly the blockade in the glutamate system, which leads to amnesia and blackouts, and also seizures when you stop drinking. But the second thing we can do is we can develop molecules, which we call partial agonist, that plateau, that their maximal effect is set below the maximum that the system can generate. And that way, you have a built in safety margin, even if you saturate the brain with these molecules, the effect is limited.
EK: How long does the feeling last?
PDN: There's another clever twist we have put into this approach. And that's to develop chemistry of compounds that are going to be short lived. Now the thing with alcohol is if you the more you drink, the longer it stays in your body. Whereas we can and we have invented molecules which are much more rapidly eliminated. And that means that you're very much less likely to have a hangover and also a carryover effect the next day. So that combination of partial agonism and rapid metabolism gives us a very high level of safety compared with alcohol. So we're targeting having an effect, which lasts between about 30 and 45 minutes per drink.
EK: Can you drink it when you’re pregnant?
PDN: Sentia is made of food approved plants. These are all plants that have been in the food chain for thousands of years. And they've all meet the criteria as being safe as food or food additives. I think it's very unlikely they'd have an impact in pregnancy, but there's no way I would possibly say it is safe, because that would require a lot of testing. And it would be very difficult, challenging to do so. So I think Pregnant women should be very cautious about what they take.
EK: What about alcoholics, can they drink it?
PDN: So the way we are viewing this is that it's very unlikely that if you're going to become dependent on Sentia, or any of our follow up to GABA drinks, because we’re not targeting, we're avoiding targeting those parts of the brain which lead to addiction dependence. Now, we haven't formally tested Sentia in people who are abstinent from alcohol, absitenet alcoholics. Again, you know, that would be a very big and challenging thing to do. But we certainly have had a lot of people who have previously stopped drinking, because they were losing control, drink Sentia and say they can drink it without having a desire to take alcohol and without feeling that they you know, the risk of alcoholism is coming back. So I think that's credible within the context of the pharmacology that the targeted pharmacology.
PDN: But again, I couldn't say. It's not a medicine. It's not a treatment for alcoholism. Our ambition is to give people who might be vulnerable to alcoholism, who might early in their life, discover that they like alcohol more than other people, that feel that they're temporarily going to get out of control. This will be a really good alternative because I think it's much less likely to push them down the path of becoming dependent.
EK: Does Professor Nutt himself drink this stuff?
PDN: I'll tell you what I do. In the week, when I'm working, I drink Sentia. And then I allow myself, my wife, we open a bottle of wine on a Saturday night. And we share that on Saturday night, and we make it last till Sunday. Very simple message is never open the second bottle. Because once you start the second bottle, you will be drunk. And that will mean that you will finish the second bottle because your willpower will have been eroded. So that's a simple message.
EK: So all of this sounds amazing right? That two drink sweet spot, doesn’t last longer than about 40 minutes, no negative consequences the following day.
JH: I’m going to be a skeptic and say I somehow can’t help but think this is all too good to be true.
EK: Well, it gets even dreamier, because there’s also environmental benefits to no alcohol-alcohol.
PDN: That's right. So we've looked at sustainability. And I was staggered by the environmental cost of making alcohol. And it comes from several sources, it comes from the fact you've got an awful lot of land is spent growing, particularly barley to make alcohol. That's the first thing. And the second thing is of course, alcohol, typically things like beers and wines are, they're heavy. So transporting them around uses a lot of energy, because there's a lot of water in them. But our ambition to GABA labs is to make a small molecule, which will do the same as the botanical drink Sentia. Which we can then distribute as an ingredient to drinks manufacturers all around the world. And that would have huge benefits in terms of, of energy and demand. Because you can send a very small concentrated amount, rather than having to send bottles and bottles and bottles and bottles.
EK: So, of course the next logical step is …
JH: We need to try it.
EK: Yes! And I just want to be transparent here, for you listeners, that this is not an ad for Sentia, we were not paid by them or even approached by them or Professor Nutt to try this drink or do this episode.
JH: I mean why would we not investigate this future possibility?!
EK: Exactly. And that’s why we ordered a bottle of it and paid for that ourselves, although Professor Nutt did kindly offer to send us a sample.
JH: Yes, I got to come over to your place in London. I also got to meet your boyfriend Roger for the first time, and we had a few GABA drinks.
JH: Hi Roger, Pleasure to meet you.
Rodger Wilkinson: We meet at last.
JH: Yeah, at last. Yeah it's been it's been a long time coming.
RW: Yeah, you look different than what I thought you would look like.
EK: Really? Did you not know what John looked like?
RW: No.
EK: What did you think John was going to look like?
RW: I thought he was going to be, well you were going to be, sort of academic looking. Not cool Berlin vibes.
EK: oooooh.
JH: No dirty beard.
EK: Okay. Cause he’s like the smart one on the podcast.
JH: Well, I dont know about that.
EK: So what kind of glass does everybody want? Do you want a wineglass? Or just like?
JH: A Tumbler would be fine. I'm tempted to have ice in mine, or?
EK: Yeah. Sure.
RW: What are we, are we doing it in shots?
EK: No, it’s a drink. It’s like vermouth. But you can have it neat. I think we have some tonic, or juice, or something.
JH: Just go nuts and try it.
EK: Yeah, just go nuts.
[sound of pouring drinks]
EK: That’s a good sound here.
JH: Wow it looks like tomato juice,
Eva: Yeah like berry juice.
RW: Berry Smoothie.
EK: Berry smoothie. Ok, pick your glass. They’re all different. Okay, well smells sort of spicy.
[glasses clinking]
JH: Cheers.
EK: Cheers.
RW: Cheers
JH: Yeah, like, almost like a Jagermeister or something.
RW: Mhmm.
[Everyone laughs]
EK: it's it's kind of like. It tastes maybe like cold mulled wine?
JH: Yeah, I was about to say, like a Christmas drink.
RW: Yeah. Combined with a Bloody Mary.
EK: Yeah, cuz it's kind of thick. It's like the texture of a Bloody Mary but the taste of mulled wine, but it's cold.
JH: So have you guys already read this out to each other when you got the bottle?
EK: No, not at all.
JH: So Sentia is an alcohol free spirit comprising a patent pending blend of functional botanical ingredients designed by the science team at GABA labs to help you find your harmony. [laughs] Okay, so they haven't even patented yet. It's just like, still pending.
EK: I'm actually like, okay maybe this is placebo but it's going into my head.
RW: I'm, I'm feeling it.
EK: Can you feel that? Can you feel that John? Maybe you need some more [laughs].
JH: [laughs] I'll just drink half a bottle.
EK: Seriously, like it's really going to my head.
Eva: So, what’s the verdict? I was really into it at this point. I was surprised by how soon I could feel the effect. Although Roger very quickly asked:
RW: He could make a slightly stronger one as well?
JH: Yeah, I think it took me a little longer than you to feel anything, but then I definitely did feel something.
EK: I was initially more put off by the taste to be honest. It tasted strong, like you were drinking something with a little bite, like a campari, you know? But not incredibly enjoyable for me personally.
JH: Eva, that’s just how the future tastes.
EK: Like a campari?
JH: Yeah, kind of bitter and sticky. [laughs] That’s not very optimistic. Anyway, about 45 minutes later in, we kind of turned on the recorder again to see how we were feeling and suddenly remembered we could add a mixer to the drink.
EK: Which changed everything.
JH: Yeah, so I think I definitely feel warm in my cheeks. And I dont think thats from the gas fire. So I feel slightly warm and rosy.
EK: Yeah. I feel like I’ve had, I actually really feel like I’m on my second glass of wine, let’s put it that way. Like I've had one and I’m working on my second. That’s how I feel.
JH: Great.
EK: So, a little bit of tingly right? I have that little bit sense of excitement. But if I’m super honest, this is going to sound really horrible. it just makes me want to have a drink.
JH: Right.
EK: I’m not like a 100 percent on the taste.
JH: Yeah, well we didn’t mix it so I guess you’d have to do a whole range of, I think tonic water would be…
EK: Shall I get some tonic water?
JH: Seems a bit of a risk. Maybe? Or something, to try it out. Then we can give it a fair … Yeah we should I guess.
[sound of can opening]
EK: Oh yeah, that’s definitely way easier to drink.
JH: Oooh that’s lovely and refreshing.
RW: Mhmm. Yeah.
EK: Oh yeah that’s actually really nice. You know what this tastes like? This now makes me feel like, sort of like a Pimms?
JH: Yeah, summertime.
EEKva: A summers day? This would be perfect for day drinking with the kids.
JH: Yeah. You’re not even technically day drinking.
[all laugh]
EK: You’re not even technically day drinking. You’re just like hanging out in the garden, get a little buzz on.
RW: Why not for breakfast? A breakfast juice.
JH and EK: Mhmmm.
EK: So, for me, I honestly was really impressed! I definitely got that relaxing buzzy feel I get from a glass of red wine. My cheeks felt kind of chuckly, but not in a way that I felt like it could make me lose control, you know?
JH: Yeah, I agree. I also felt it in my cheeks. And the tonic was a game changer.
Eva: I had some again a few nights later by my lonesome. I put the kids to bed and I just wanted to you know kick back with a glass of wine and relax. And I remembered what Professor Nutt said about how drinking should really be a social thing, so I had some Sentia instead, and I have to say it totally hit the spot for what I wanted out of that evening. I think if you’re committed to curbing your drinking, then this can really be the solution.
EK: And this brings us to a more fundamental question though right? Because I mean, as we’ve heard, and as we’ve a guess known for centuries, drinking is bad for you. It’s short term gain, long term pain.
Eva: Yes, we all know it! So why do we keep drinking? Why are we doing this to ourselves?
PDN: Why do humans like to take drugs which alter their conciousness, like caffeine, like alcohol?I think it reflects what the human brain is about. The human brain is way the most involved brain, probably on the planet, certainly in terms of in terms of primates. We have the biggest brain and the expansion the human brain has contributed and probably driven the fact that humans are very clever and very inquisitive.
PDN: So humans seek out foods, they seek out experiences, and when they get a food that gives them an experience, like coffee alerts them, they see the value in it, because you can, you're more alert, you can work for longer, etc. So, but also, there's a pleasure in it. And humans are always seeking pleasure, because you get pleasure from foods to get pleasure from dealing with natural drives like thirst. But that system can also be turned on by plants that have products in it. For instance, drugs like cocaine, turn on the pleasure system. And turning on the pleasure system is something obviously that is pleasurable, because that's, that's by definition what it does.
PDN:So then you fall into this sort of area now, where you have individuals who are happening upon something which is better than what they're doing normally. And that's why they keep on taking, that's why powerful stimulatory drugs like cocaine and crystal meth are very addictive, because they tap into a system which is essentially designed to keep you out there hunting for honey or, or foods, you know, that are full of energy, and suddenly, wow, you kno w, you're turning on that system without having to do any work. But then there's another side to and this is where alcohol, I think has a particular role and why alcohol is way the most popular drug. Globally, it's it's used as its so common, I mean, I say possibly only exceeded by tea and coffee. And the reason alcohol is so popular is that alcohol brings people together. It promotes sociability.
EK: And then Professor Nutt mentions a theory about why humans settled down. This theory is widely known because of a book published in 2011 called Sapiens, written by Yuval Noah Hardy.
PDN: He suggests that humans settled down, humans stopped being nomadic because they worked out that the energy value of growing wheat, or other cereals, was greater than what you could achieve by roaming and grazing. So they settled down to grow crops so that they, and that created a stable society. And a stable society allowed things like education and culture to develop because people who are in the same place all the time have large numbers of people together. Now there is another explanation for why people settled down to grow wheat. And that was to turn it into beer.
EK: Yup, you heard that right. What we know as modern society, our cultures, the countless innovations that have happened since the agricultural revolution … It’s all based on our love of beer.
JH: I’ll cheers to that.
PDN: Some people believe that Stonehenge in Britain, these were built as places where people went to celebrate togetherness, and they would come and be drunk together because that the reason for going was to have a super party. And that big getting together and a super party bonded humans together. And it's the bonding of humans, which makes us so terrifyingly powerful. And when humans work together as a, as a as a group or a country, or a nation or even as a, as an organisation.
PDN: They can change the world. So people think civilization may have started because people were able to socialise under alcohol. Whereas without alcohol, there's a natural fear of others, there's a natural anxiety that limits cooperation. To do research we know that we don't need to do research, we know that parties go much better when there's a bit of alcohol present, because alcohol lubricate sociability, because it reduces the social anxiety that is present in all of us.
JH: I guess. I mean I love how profound, and a little sentimental, this all is.
EK: Yeah, it’s a heartwarming story of how we’re all connected because … we like to drink.
JH: Is that really bad though?
EK: I dont know, it is, I mean, I think a lot of people have some familiarity with alcohol abuse, whether it be from themselves or some kind of confrontation they’ve had, or even seeing friends or family members suffer from addiction. So, I don’t think the intention here is to make a rosy case for getting wasted. But it’s more a case for how we have this craving to be social and relaxed around each other and if we can achieve that, that bonding, we can achieve great things.
JH: Yeah and I mean it is true, I mean, not just drinking with friends or family but also you know workplaces also sometimes deepen their bonds with afterwork drinks. And it is part of so much aspects of life.
PDN: You can make a case that alcohol has been had a pretty fundamental role in the evolution of humanity in terms of sociability. And you can see that in different ways you can see for instance, if you look at Judaism, the religion Judaism. You know, alcohol, they were Jews were scared by alcohol because they saw it lead to inappropriate behaviour, like Noah getting drunk. But on the other hand, they thought alcohol is being a very powerful way of bonding their society together. So Jews use alcohol in very stereotyped ways during their festivals. It's about bringing people together so that they can be together and celebrate their religious festivals together.
PDN: Same with the Christian church. Alcohol is present in most Christian churches as part of the sacrament. It’s obviously there to represent or actually beat the blood of Christ, depending on which faith you believe in, but, but it's, it's kind of been there central to our understandings of our faith. So that's why it's the most commonly used drug and why, why it's very difficult to get people be opposed to alcohol, because it's been embedded in our society for tens of thousands of years. And as they say, it may, to some extent, even underpin the generation of human social societies.
JH: It makes a lot of sense. Not just drinking with friends and family, but also many workplaces also deepen bonds by going for afterwork drinks for example. Yeah when you really start thinking about it, it’s part of so many rituals.
EK: Totally, which is why it’s actually so amazing if we could revolutionize our drinking behavior in this way. If we could have a good time, bond, joke around, and ultimately think of new ideas … I mean, John, just imagine, what our world could look like or would have looked like, if we got all these benefits from drinking, but no one ever had a hangover?
JH: Yeah there’d be a lot less headaches and we’d be probably a lot more productive!
EK: We’d definitely all be on hoverboards for sure by now!
JH: I promise I am not drunk. I promise I am not drunk. Thank you all for listeneing, and thanks to our guest Professor David Nutt.
EK: This episode was written and produced by myself, Eva Kelley, with additional writing by John Holten.
JH: Sound editing and design was by David Magnusson.
EK: Mundi Vondi is our executive producer and also created the artwork for this episode, in collaboration with Midjourney.
JH: Additional research, script supervision, and fact-checking was by Savita Joshi.
EK: Follow us on social media and subscribe for more wherever it is you listen to your podcasts.
JH: And do reach out to us. We’d love to hear from you. Like our posts and comment on them. Goodbye.
EK: [laughs] Do it.
EK: Do it.