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I have found alcohol to have beneficial and desirable effects on me, and I have been exploring the question of why alcohol is not given the same level of pharmaceutical legitimacy as other medicines and medications.

For example, is there even any research being conducted on what beneficial psychological effects the consumption of alcohol may have?

Or, more importantly, is there any medication which is a molecule similar to alcohol, with moderately similar effects?

Which medication is most molecularly similar to ethanol? It is part of the class of compounds known as "alcohols" - the only alcohol I know to be used as a medicine would be paracetamol.

Julius Hamilton
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    There are quite a few questions in here. Adding your own research findings is a great way to focus a broad post into a single answerable question. Further, self-help questions are offtopic, so removing any reference to self is advisable. – AliceD Sep 07 '22 at 12:33
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    Consider that alcohol is one of the leading causes of morbidity and mortality. – Bryan Krause Sep 07 '22 at 12:40
  • @Bryan Krause Do you think that could be because it is one of the most commonly consumed drugs? How can it be definitively and rationally determined that taking an SSRI or something would be preferable, in terms of human health, to consuming alcohol? – Julius Hamilton Sep 07 '22 at 18:15
  • @PeterElbert Yes, certainly, though something like caffeine is also very widely used and does not have the same level of negative outcomes involved. Certainly people have argued that certain drugs that are illegal far more places than alcohol is are less dangerous, including cannabis and some psychedelics. Even if you consider it on a per-user basis, alcohol is dangerous. SSRIs have some dangerous side effects in young people and occasional issues in adults (as well as more common lesser side effects), but are also used in treatment of conditions that come with their own morbidity/mortality. – Bryan Krause Sep 07 '22 at 18:47
  • In that sense, SSRIs when used as prescribed reduce bad outcomes. Alcohol isn't typically prescribed (besides the circumstances JonB mentions - methanol poisoning, external use as a disinfectant, and also sometimes as an "inactive" part of other medicines to help them dissolve) but certainly causes bad outcomes. Plenty of people, including myself, still choose to drink alcohol, but it should not be considered medicine by any means. – Bryan Krause Sep 07 '22 at 18:48
  • Interesting paper that ketamine’s effects are phenomenologically similar to alcohol https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9554431/ – Julius Hamilton Sep 09 '22 at 10:16
  • Chemically, an alcohol is any organic compound with a hrdroxyl group (ie OH) on a saturated carbon atom and are usually designated with a -ol postfix. These need not, and on the whole will not, have the same effect as ethanol, the usual alcohol. – Mozibur Ullah Sep 22 '22 at 09:39

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As far as I know, alcohol (ethanol) is sometimes used as a medication in methanol poisoning (Jones, 2021), and of course also as a disinfectant.

While alcohol in low doses has some positive effects (for instance decreasing anxiety, reduced time to sleep and also perhaps also some cardioprotective effects though this is disputed), the side effects and negative long-term health consequences are much more prominent. In fact, more and more experts on the topic seem to hold the view that there is no safe level of alcohol consumption so with that in mind, using alcohol as a medication when there are other, much safer options, seems like a bad idea (Topiwala, 2021).

Alcohol might have "beneficial and desirable" effects on you - for now. However, there are very real risk of addiction and a multitude of physical health risks down the line.

Regarding your question about similar substances, there are a class of drugs called benzodiazepines. They are not structurally similar to alcohol, but their mechanism of action mimics the main mechanism of action of alcohol, which is increased signalling of GABA-ergic neurons in the central nervous system. In fact, alcohol and benzodiazepines are cross reactive, which means that benzodiazepines can and are used in the treatment of alcohol withdrawal. Benzodiazepines share the effects of alcohol on anxiety and sedation, and are used for anxiety and insomnia.

However, while less harmful than alcohol in many ways (Nutt et al, 2010), benzodiazepines are also highly addictive and should preferably not be used as a continuous treatment.

I hope this answer helps you.

References (as suggested by another user in the comments):

Jones AW. Clinical and forensic toxicology of methanol. Forensic Sci Rev. 2021 Jul;33(2):117-143.

Nutt DJ, King LA, Phillips LD; Independent Scientific Committee on Drugs.Drug harms in the UK: a multicriteria decision analysis. Lancet. 2010 Nov 6;376(9752):1558-65.

Topiwala A, Ebmeier KP, Maullin-Sapey T, Nichols TE. Alcohol consumption and MRI markers of brain structure and function: Cohort study of 25,378 UK Biobank participants.

JonB
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  • Thank you. “there is no safe level of alcohol consumption” > is this a scientifically rigorous assertion? As you yourself said, benzodiazepines seem to be addictive and to also have negative longterm effects. So is there some medically sound way to claim taking benzodiazepines would always be preferable to taking alcohol? – Julius Hamilton Sep 07 '22 at 18:13
  • @PeterElbert Alcohol is also addictive, also has negative long term effects, also comes with tolerance issues. For the no safe level argument see e.g. https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/a/42112/39100 You could also look at public health guidelines. – Bryan Krause Sep 07 '22 at 18:51
  • @PeterElbert: My impression is that there is not a total scientific consensus about there being no safe levels of alcohol consumption, but that several studies published in recent years do support that assertion and it's slowly becoming the consensus view. – JonB Sep 08 '22 at 05:31
  • @PeterElbert: About benzodiazepines being preferable to alcohol I would say it depends. The health risk of benzodiazepines is probably much lower due to the fact that they don't seem to damage the organs of the body in the way that alcohol does. On the other hand, it's much easier to overdose on benzodiazepines and I would guess that it's much easier to fall into taking a few pills every morning than having a drink every morning because it's more socially acceptable to take medications. I would therefore assume that the risk of addiction is higher with non-prescribed benzodiazpines. – JonB Sep 08 '22 at 05:35
  • @PeterElbert: That is, benzodiazepines not taking as prescribed from a doctor but freely, for recreational purposes. – JonB Sep 08 '22 at 05:36
  • There are no citations for evidence backing you claims, for example, alcohol as medication for methanol poisoning, "experts on the topic seem to hold the view that there is no safe level of alcohol consumption" and your claim that benzodiazepines are less harmful than alcohol. Please back your claims with research papers and/or other reliable sources – Chris Rogers Sep 10 '22 at 05:21
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    Added some references. – JonB Sep 22 '22 at 05:32