Study shows if you quit drinking, you get depressed

Stopping drinking even at moderate levels has been linked to depression and a reduced capacity of the brain to produce new neurons, U.S. researchers said.

Researchers at the Bowles Center for Alcohol Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill said that their research in an animal model establishes a causal link between abstinence from alcohol drinking and depression.

Senior author Clyde W. Hodge said that in mice that voluntarily drank alcohol for 28 days, depression-like behavior was evident 14 days after termination of alcohol drinking.