Happiness at a Price

These girls look ecstatic; enjoying life, without a care in the world as they jam out on the dance floor. Any alcohol consumed could have contributed to their state of bliss. Alcohol helps release dopamine in your brain while also supplementing the release of serotonin.

Dopamine is essentially the “happy” hormone. When you drink, your brain produces more dopamine which travels to the reward centers in the brain and makes us feel happy. But be warned, these same reward centers also help create habits and are thus linked to an unhealthy dependence. This region of the brain is called the nucleus accumbens; associated with both reward and pleasure.