What Alcohol is and What it Does to Your Body

What is Alcohol?

Ethanol, or ethyl alcohol, is produced by fermentation and has been used as a general anesthetic, antiseptic, disinfectant, and as a fuel source for lamps, stoves, and internal combustion engines. Ethanol is a volatile, flammable, colorless liquid, it is the active ingredient in alcoholic drinks, as a psychoactive depressant, and the second most consumed drug, with caffeine as number one.

A product of alcohol metabolism that is more toxic than alcohol itself, acetaldehyde, a highly toxic and carcinogenic substance, is created when the alcohol in the liver is broken down.

What Does it Do to Your Body?

ALCOHOL IS TOXIC

Since alcohol is both water-soluble and fat-soluble, it can pass into all the cells of your body, skipping the normal digestion process. The liver immediately starts metabolizing it as it would any poison, and the process of breaking down alcohol generates toxins even more harmful than alcohol itself.

A plethora of health problems are related to heavy drinking including:

Various types of cancer including brain tumors.
Leaky gut
Reduced bone density
High blood pressure
Cardiomyopathy – drooping of heart muscle
Stroke
Heart disease, and a sagging of the heart
Steatosis, or fatty liver
Alcoholic hepatitis
Fibrosis
Cirrhosis
Pancreatitis
Dehydration
Sexual dysfunction
Sleep disorders
Weakened immune system

THE TIPSY/DRUNK STATE

Within a short time, the effects of alcohol can be felt. Dramatic changes in serotonin (involved in mood and feelings of well-being) occur and the triggering of the pleasure center causes the initial euphoric feelings. Though chronic drinkers will experience less and less of this. Mood circuitries are disrupted, at first making them hyperactive, causing the person to be talkative and active. But as more alcohol is ingested or as it wears off, serotonin levels start to drop. More alcohol can’t recover that energized mood, so even if more is consumed, the drinker will start to feel more and more suppressed. In this sense, alcohol is both a stimulant and a depressant.

INHIBITION

The prefrontal cortex goes offline first thing as alcohol suppresses the neural networks. This is the CEO of our brain – the area that’s involved in thinking, reasoning, planning, decisions, and impulse control. Well, we all know what follows then.

Alcohol depresses the behavioral inhibitory centers, making the person less inhibited; it slows down the processing of information from the eyes, ears, mouth and other senses; and it inhibits the thought processes, making it difficult to think clearly.

Even low to moderate amounts of alcohol shows a loss of neurons in the neocortex involved in higher-order brain functions.

MEMORY

Alcohol affects short-term memory by slowing down the hippocampus which is associated with forming and keeping memories. Heavy alcohol use doesn’t only slow down the hippocampus, it can damage it, affecting a short- and long-term memory permanently, making it difficult or impossible to maintain memories. Furthermore, Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome (WKS) is a type of dementia linked to heavy alcohol use.

“Blackouts” occur when your body’s alcohol levels are high, meaning that new memories cannot form while intoxicated. This is why some are unable to recollect anything about the time that they were inebriated. A blackout is not the same as passing out.

COORDINATION

Alcohol affects the cerebellum, the center of movement and balance, resulting in the staggering, off-balance swagger we associate with the so-called “falling-down drunk.”

SEXUAL PERFORMANCE

The hypothalamus and pituitary coordinate automatic brain functions and hormone release. Alcohol depresses nerve centers in the hypothalamus that control sexual arousal and performance. Although sexual urge may increase, sexual performance decreases.

SLEEP

The medulla, the area of the brain that handles such automatic functions as breathing, consciousness and body temperature is affected, causing sleepiness. It can also slow breathing and lower body temperature, which can be life threatening. Many people use alcohol to fall asleep faster, but it is actually more like passing out.

Alcohol reduces melatonin and has a direct effect on circadian rhythms, the natural flow of sleep stages. It also leads to more restless sleep as the night wears on, known as the “rebound effect,” and next-day fatigue. REM sleep, which is important for mental restoration, including memory and emotional processing is disrupted.