What Is the Kindling Effect?

When a person struggling with alcohol addiction quits and then relapses several times, they are at risk of developing alcohol kindling. This condition is a worsening of withdrawal symptoms each time the individual attempts to quit alcohol again. The body becomes increasingly sensitive to changes in neurotransmitters, as GABA floods the brain during periods of drinking too much and is suddenly stopped during periods of abstinence. Over a few cycles, the risk of developing delirium tremens, seizures, and other long-term effects of alcohol withdrawal which is unsupervised dramatically increases.

The medical framework of kindling is applied to many issues involving brain chemistry – not just alcohol use disorder, but also epilepsy, benzodiazepine abuse, and mood disorders, including depression and bipolar disorder. The phenomenon was first recorded in 1967 when neuroscientist Graham Goddard electrically stimulated various areas of rats’ brains to examine the learning process. However, as he applied these electrical stimuli daily, the rats began to have seizures in response to other stimulation that would normally be too low to cause convulsions. Eventually, the rats developed seizure disorders, experiencing convulsions that would begin without any stimuli. Goddard referred to this phenomenon as kindling because he had essentially kindled epilepsy in the brains of his rats.

Since Goddard’s publications on the phenomenon, the concept of kindling has been applied to many conditions in which the initial experience of symptoms is fairly mild, but over time, re-experiencing the symptoms will lead to heightened sensitivity. For example, people with bipolar disorder will experience emotional discomfort and mood changes but may not receive a diagnosis until after their first manic episode is kindled; after that initial episode, however, the individual is more likely to experience a manic episode triggered by stressful life events. Essentially, the individual becomes more sensitive to stress, so they are more likely to experience intense symptoms. The brain is primed with specific pathways that triggered conditions may follow.

Chronic heavy alcohol consumption changes the central nervous system. When the chemical changes caused by high-volume consumption of alcohol do not occur, the brain is not able to balance its own chemistry at first. The sudden reduction in available GABA can trigger panic, restlessness, insomnia, and potentially convulsions or seizures. The experience of kindling is not universal; not everyone who relapses back into alcohol abuse multiple times will develop this condition. However, the problem highlights the importance of getting medical help to safely detox from alcohol dependence and then enter a rehabilitation program to change your behaviors around alcohol and reduce the risk of relapse.
from alcohol org. 'Alcohol Withdrawal: The Kindling Effect'