The consumption of alcohol exacts a terrible toll on our society. In 2009, there were nearly a half a million Emergency Department visits nationwide involving alcohol.
Among our youth, alcohol consumption factors into nearly one half of all auto accidents, which continues to be the leading cause of death among teenagers. Drinking is associated with as much as two-thirds of all date rapes and sexual attacks on students. And alcohol plays a major role in encouraging unprotected sex among young people, which increases their risk of contracting socially transmitted diseases. Source
The Center for Disease Control estimates that 52% of adults 18 and over drink regularly (at least 12 drinks in the past year); http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/alcohol.htm. while nearly 6 million people in America under the age of 21 drink alcohol to excess, imbibing five or more drinks in a row, at least once a fortnight.
If alcohol can devastate the body politic, then there is good reason to understand how alcohol affects our own bodies.
The Rapid Effect Drinking Alcohol Has on the Body
When a person drinks an alcoholic beverage, the alcohol rapidly floods their tissues. The effects this inundation of alcohol will have on a person will vary depending on their size, their weight, their age, even their sex, as well as the amount of food and alcohol they’ve consumed recently.
Moderate alcohol consumption will elevate their mood as it relaxes their body, making the drinker feel more at ease in social situations… more talkative, less inhibited. Heavier alcohol consumption, on the other hand, will depress their bodily functions causing nausea and vomiting, slurred speech, disturbed sleep and inevitably the dreaded hangover.
Even in small quantities, alcohol can strikingly impair their judgment and coordination. Driving after having just a couple of drinks can be problematic and dangerous.
For some drinkers and their families, alcohol will have an even more devastating impact. Drinking alcohol is a leading factor in the rising incidence of child abuse and domestic violence in America.
The Physiology of Alcohol Consumption
Technically speaking, alcohol is the name given to a naturally-occurring family of closely-related chemicals. Each member of the family is comprised of molecules containing a single oxygen atom plus varying numbers of carbon and hydrogen atoms. Only one is suitable for human consumption.
Ethanol, the active ingredient in wine, beer and spirits affects the body by depressing the central nervous system: the brain, the brain stem and the spinal cord.
The Absorption of Alcohol in Our Body
The process of intoxication begins with a sip of an alcoholic beverage which travels to a drinker’s stomach. Once in the stomach, the ethanol is absorbed into the blood. Unlike food, alcohol doesn’t have to be digested in order to move from the stomach into the blood. In fact, alcohol can pass directly through our stomach walls and be absorbed relatively quickly into our body and brain.
The Distribution of Alcohol in Our Body
Once alcohol moves into the blood, it’s distributed into the body’s tissues and organs through the circulatory system. Alcohol has a high affinity for water. The blood deposits the alcohol in proportion to the water content of various tissues and organs. Brain tissue, contains a relatively high percentage of water and thus receives a proportionately higher percentage of the alcohol distributed within the body.
The great affinity alcohol has for water, and the small affinity it has for fat, explains why alcohol typically influences women more profoundly than men. An average woman’s body contains approximately 20% less water than an average man’s, the disparity accounted for by the additional fatty tissue women need to protect a child in the womb. With less fluid in her body, she has less fluid in which to distribute the alcohol.
Even if she weighs exactly the same as her male counterpart and drinks no more, a female will yet experience a higher blood alcohol content (BAC) from drinking. But generally she’ll weigh less which compounds the problem.
The Elimination of Alcohol from our Body
Immediately upon entering the blood stream, the body begins to eliminate alcohol from our system. Much of it will be eliminated through metabolism, a process in which the alcohol reacts with oxygen in the body and changes through a number of steps into carbon dioxide and water, both of which are directly expelled from the body.
How fast the body metabolizes alcohol varies. From person to person and even from time to time for a particular individual. On average, though, a person’s blood alcohol concentration—after reaching its peak—will decrease about 0.015 per hour.
For an average-sized man, a BAC of 0.015 is about two-thirds of the alcohol contained in a glass of wine, a shot of whiskey or a bottle of beer. For an average-sized woman, that same blood alcohol concentration would be reached with just a half a glass, shot or bottle of alcoholic beverage.
While we can control the rate at which alcohol enters our bloodstream, nothing we do can alter the rate at which we eliminate it from our system. Neither drinking hot coffee nor taking a cold shower coffee will accelerate the process of elimination. The process of metabolism must take its own course.
The Long Term Effects of Alcohol Consumption
Extended, heavy abuse of alcohol can lead to addiction commonly referred to as alcoholism. And the long-term effects of drinking substantial amounts of alcohol, particularly when combined with nutritional deficiencies, can cause permanent injury to important organs like the liver and brain.
But putting a sudden end to long-term drinking is problematic in its own right, likely to produce withdrawal symptoms including severe anxiety, tremors, hallucinations and convulsions.
Moreover, children born to women who drink during pregnancy may suffer from fetal alcohol syndrome with its consequent afflictions such as mental retardation and physical abnormalities. And research has shown that children whose parents are alcoholics are more likely to become alcoholics themselves.
“The devastation that drinking can visit upon the body and mind of an alcoholic is unimaginable,” confirmed Mary Rieser, Executive Director of Narconon of Georgia. “Some of the most difficult cases I’ve worked with over the years as a drug rehab professional were alcoholics.”
