Frontline Health

#124 - Alcohol, Marijuana, And The Mind: What Science Really Shows

• Troy Duell

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We explore what brain science says about alcohol and marijuana, why young brains are more vulnerable, and how clarity, sleep, and mood change when people step away from use. We weigh legality against neurobiology and ask what choices truly protect your future.

• alcohol as a central nervous system depressant 
• slowed reaction time, impaired judgment, disrupted sleep 
• links to brain volume loss and dementia risk 
• gen Z trends: less alcohol, more marijuana 
• marijuana’s effects on attention, memory, coordination 
• reduced blood flow and activity in key brain regions 
• higher anxiety, depression, suicidal thoughts with regular use 
• psychosis risk in genetically vulnerable subgroups 
• developing brain risk through age 25 
• is any use brain safe and tradeoffs of “moderate” use 
• reported benefits of stopping: better sleep, less anxiety, more motivation 
• personal responsibility, driving safety, and community impact

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SPEAKER_01:

Today on the Frontline Health Podcast. Alcohol is a central nervous system depressant. So it's going to slow your reaction time. It disrupts your sleep. But typically it's that liquid courage that leads to bad things, not good things. And even moderate intake has been linked to long-term brain volume loss, increased dementia risk, and worsened mental health outcomes. So alcohol is not a good thing overall.

SPEAKER_00:

Hello, welcome back to another episode of the Frontline Health Podcast by Centurion Health, where we help you take ownership of your health with news, tips, and insights. Today we're going to be talking about what brain science shows us about alcohol and marijuana, how these substances affect thinking, mood, memory, and decision making, and why young brains are especially vulnerable. With me is our founder and CEO, Troy Duell. How are you doing today, Troy? Good, man. How are you? Doing great and excited to talk about just a really relevant topic, especially for a lot of young people out there or people who are just thinking about how different things that they put in their body impact it. So when we talk about substances like alcohol and marijuana, the conversation often gets emotional or political really fast. But today we want to start somewhere more basic and more human, how it impacts the brain. Your brain controls how you think, how you feel, how you make decisions, and how safely you move through the world, including when you're behind the wheel of a car. So, Troy, why frame this conversation about alcohol and marijuana around brain health?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I think it's because your brain really affects everything that we do each and every day. It's one of those no-duh moments. But when you think about it, it affects your mood, it affects your memory, it has a strong effect on your relationships, how you control yourself on a day-to-day basis, and it even affects safety. So, and we know that alcohol and marijuana specifically affect brain function. It affects the blood flow to the brain, and it affects the communication between those brain cells. So it is incredibly important to have an understanding of how alcohol and marijuana specifically affect the brain and how it affects your choices throughout the day, whether that's through your relationships, through driving, or any other thing you may be doing.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, and we've seen a couple of interesting trends that I kind of want to throw out there at the beginning of this episode with Gen Z. Gen Z is using alcohol, consuming alcohol at a much lower rate than millennials or Gen X. Uh, but marijuana use seems to be increasing. And so I think that's an kind of an interesting thing for us to consider um as we're kind of trying to look at these substances objectively and see what the what the research really tells us about uh brain health. So let's kind of look at the big picture here. Um let's zoom out for a second, and I want to ask you how big of a brain health issue are alcohol and marijuana?

SPEAKER_01:

Well, and to kind of piggyback on what you mentioned with Gen Z and less alcohol use and more marijuana use, I think a lot of it is based on this uh, I guess, theory that's going around or concept that's going around that marijuana, because it's now legal, is actually good for you and it has some health benefits. And alcohol at one point was always talked about as having some health benefits for the heart. And you have all these things and theories going around that people are hearing, and because of that, I think people have a false sense of this is really good for me, and it's really good for my whole body, but what may be good in one area of your body may not be good in another area of your body. We know that alcohol is responsible for a large number of deaths due to uh violence or impaired judgments or from just car crashes. And while marijuana doesn't come to that same level, we do know from studies now that daily use and the higher potency products that are out there now with more THC in them and early exposure has increasingly been linked to cognitive impairment, to mental health disorders, to increased crash risk, just like alcohol, and to really long-term brain damages or brain changes. So, from a brain health standpoint, both substances are really an issue and something we need to look at. Um, as we know and we get into it a little bit more, alcohol is a central nervous system depressant. So it's going to slow your reaction time, it disrupts your sleep, it worsens anxiety and depression over time, and we know that it impairs judgment. It gives you that, as they always call it, the liquid courage, but typically it's that liquid courage that leads to bad things, not good things. Uh, and even moderate intake has been linked to long-term brain volume loss, uh, increased dementia risk, and worsened the mental health outcomes. So alcohol is not a good thing overall.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, and I think you bring up a great point, even outside of the direct impacts on our health, the impaired judgment and that kind of thing when it is abused, um, I think that's something that we should definitely dig into. You know, as we talk about both alcohol and marijuana, there are things that can't exactly be measured as far as overall impact on our well-being, because you know, people do different crazy things when their judgment is impaired. Uh, I think that's especially important for young people. So, what about teens and young adults? What kind of effect does alcohol have on the developing brain?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, it's a great question. As we've talked about before, the prefrontal cortex isn't fully developed until about the age of 25. And we know that alcohol is interfering with that memory formation, it's interfering with impulse control and emotional regulation, which are all things that when you're younger, you're trying to walk through and figure out on your own. And adding alcohol or marijuana to the mix does not help in that process, and it kind of slows the progression as a whole and causes it to be stunned, if you will.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, that's that's really important. I think most people probably do not know that piece that the brain is continuing to develop until the age of 25. My wife had fun with that uh with me for a little while because I think the female brain develops a little bit faster uh than the male brain, which probably tells us a lot about a lot of things. Um but very important uh to know for alcohol consumption as well. Shifting gears more kind of towards the brain on marijuana. Um, you know, let's let's think about what brain imaging and neuroscience are showing. A lot of people assume marijuana is harmless because it's legal now or natural, kind of like you said earlier. But neuroscience tells us a more complicated story than that.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, so we know that marijuana is affecting brain regions that are responsible for attention, for learning and memory, for coordination and judgment. So we see that during brain imaging, where it's shown to lower the blood flow and the activity in those areas involved in each of those spots. So it's going to affect your long-term memory, it's going to affect your learning and keep going the ability to learn long term. This lower blood flow and activity has shown itself by being having individuals be more fatigued, they tend to have lower motivation, they tend to become more depressed, and their anxiety levels actually increase, which is interesting to me because a lot of people take or smoke marijuana in order to overcome anxiety. And that seems to happen and be just the opposite of the long-term outcomes. And then the the most frightening thing to me is that there is a sub-population, some say upwards of 20 to 25 percent, that have a genetic risk that if they smoke marijuana, it can trigger psychosis. I actually know of two kids personally that tried marijuana once and both have ended up in and out of psychiatric facilities. And these were both great kids, both very uh good grades, and they were very athletic and musically inclined. But they tried it once at a party, and because the THC levels now are so high, it created this psychotic break within them, and they've been in and out of psychiatric facilities for years now.

SPEAKER_00:

That is really sad. Um, yeah, I mean, I I also think about what you said about, you know, how it can how marijuana use kind of tends to um dull your ambitions or kind of take away um the desire to to go out and achieve things. Um you know, to me, that is to me, reducing anxiety is not the same thing as removing ambition. And we know that's one of the most important things for a young person's well-being, to have goals and things that they're chasing after. So that's a really harmful thing that I think is hard to hard to measure. We do see it, like you're saying, in these um, in these brain scans, but you know, it's hard to measure the impact that that actually has on somebody's life when we know that having things to to aim for, things to go after in life are so important for a young person's well-being. And I've seen it, you know, to the point with some people that I went to high school with. They've graduated from high school and then they've just stayed in their neighborhoods. They haven't moved out of their parents' house, um, not in a great place, struggled to keep a job. And it just has really caused some people to just not not really do anything with their lives. Um, and it's really sad to see that happen, even though it hasn't had an immediate impact on their health. Obviously, we've talked about some of these longer-term things, but it it has made it difficult for them to go out into the world and do what you know, young people with a lot of potential are supposed to do.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, and I think, you know, we talked about regular marijuana use leading to greater anxiety and depression, but it's interesting because they also show that it increases those suicidal thoughts. And some of that is that cyclical piece that I think you're talking about when it reduces your ambition and you're stuck at home or you're no longer able to keep your job. I think some of that suicidal stuff even comes into play then because you don't have anything to hang your hat on. And it it becomes even deeper of a hole that you're digging if you may be depressed and then you roll into those suicidal thoughts. But you know, that regular marijuana use, even if it doesn't affect you right away with the psychosis piece. Uh, we know the anxiety, the depression, the suicidal thoughts, but the fact that they're greater likelihood of psychotic disorders later in life is also something that you've got to take into consideration, which is which is difficult when you're young because most young people don't look 10, 20 years ahead. But we know that when you start to disrupt that brain as it's developing, that those are the things that can happen based on the brain scans and some of the studies that are coming back. And it does have a long-term impact, and it's not something that is just uh because it's legal or because it's used for medical reasons, it doesn't necessarily mean that it's good for you.

SPEAKER_00:

So we do know that there are some medical uses for marijuana, for example. Um, we know that it, like you mentioned earlier, at certain points there have has been a thought that maybe certain alcoholic beverages have had a positive impact on heart health. So let's let's discuss this for a minute. Is there a safe amount of alcohol or marijuana for the brain?

SPEAKER_01:

Um, it depends on who you talk to. Obviously, when you're talking about the brain itself, most studies are coming back now and saying from a brain health standpoint, there is no level of alcohol and no level of marijuana that is good for your brain, that it is toxic to the brain. So, yes, you've got some good heart health studies when you talk about alcohol, and yes, you have some good issues or outcomes when you're talking about marijuana from a chemotherapy standpoint, but outside of those two things, it really becomes a little bit a bigger, if you take a bigger picture look at those things, you probably have to look at it and go, is it really worth my doing this when it comes to alcohol or worth my um imbibing in the marijuana piece because of the long-term actions that it could have on my brain health? And I think if you look at it honestly and you look at it holistically, you would probably come to the realization that those are not good for your brain at all, and none of it is good. So to to just drop it all if you can.

SPEAKER_00:

So the idea here, I mean the idea here is basically just you would recommend not using either at all for help for any to achieve any particular health benefit.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I think uh unless you are at the chemotherapy stage and you're dealing with the inability to eat and you're dealing with an exorbitant amount of pain because you're in stage four cancer, then at that point it probably becomes something that you could look at. But if it's not at that level, when you're talking about marijuana use anyway, then it's probably something you should avoid. Uh, from an alcohol standpoint, certainly less is better. Um, and if you want to have one drink or two drinks when you're out and you're in a social setting, that can that can happen. It's not going to have as much of an effect on your body, but understand that even if you do that, it's still going to have a toxic effect on your brain, and it is killing brain cells and neurons. So you do have to be careful and at least cognizant to know, hey, this is a rational decision that I'm making. I want to be social and I'm going to have a drink of alcohol, but it is killing brain cells, um, and it's not good for my sleep or my anxiety levels or even for my brain health as a whole.

SPEAKER_00:

So let's look at the benefits on the other side of this and kind of look at why more people are choosing um to step away from these substances. Uh, not necessarily because they had a dramatic moment where they like hit rock bottom or it was, you know, significantly like wrecked their life or anything like that, but because they truly want that better mental clarity, they don't want to have the increased anxiety or cortisol levels or or whatever else um that goes on there. Um, so what's going on, Troy?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I mean, I I think when people stop the use of the alcohol if they're drinking too much, or stop the regular use of marijuana or smoking it at all, then I think people start to see the effect it's having on their bodies. They end up having better sleep, they have less anxiety, they end up having a little bit more motivation and clearer thinking. So that fog seems to be going away. And I really think that's one of the main driving forces behind uh Gen Z and starting to explore and look at these things. But also, Gen Z is, I would say, one of the best generations at diving a little deeper and learning things and taking ownership of their health in a better way. And I just think they haven't been given the full uh information behind marijuana and its effects, because ultimately, when they have that information, I think they'll make the right choice because that's the reason they've made the choice to kind of step away from alcohol as a whole and really get in there because they begin to understand or have understood that their brain really is one of their most valuable assets that they will have, and that if they understand alcohol and marijuana both affect brain function and safety, and it affects not just them, but so many other people around them, especially if they get behind a wheel and drive when they've either smoked marijuana or been drinking too much, then it can have a lifetime impact. And the more we understand this and the more we educate people, I think the more people will make the right choice.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, the the question really isn't is the substance legal or is it not? The question is, is it good for my health and the health of the people around me? Um, I love the example that you always share. I think it it goes back to 9-11 um the story of somebody who was having to be rescued uh at the top of an office building that was burning down and was unable to help themselves and they have to have somebody else come and put themselves in harm, harm's way to rescue them. You know, regardless of what aspect of our health it is, the same thing kind of applies. When you take ownership of your own health, you're not only benefiting yourself, you're benefiting those around you because um you're able to carry your own weight so much better. And I think that's definitely applicable um when it comes to alcohol and marijuana, as we've talked about, these negative impacts that it has on our health and really just overall well-being.

SPEAKER_01:

Totally agree. And uh we know that what we do doesn't just impact us, it impacts so many other people because those two individuals that I mentioned earlier who are now in and out of uh the psychiatric wards are impacting their family for the worst, and they've become a burden to their family. So just those little things can make a huge impact for a lifetime. And I'm sure that if they had it to do over again, it's not a choice that they would make.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, thank you so much for listening to this episode of the Frontline Health Podcast. We hope that it has been beneficial to you and helps you as you think through your own substance usage. Uh, as always, we want to encourage you to go out, take ownership of your health because you are your best health advocate. We'll see you next time. If you enjoyed what you heard today on the podcast, please consider leaving us a review. We would love to hear your feedback and connect with you further. You can also follow us on Instagram, X, TikTok, and YouTube. And for safe, effective, and affordable health and wellness products made in the USA, visit www.centurion.health. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next time.