Alcohol

The most noticeable is its effect on the brain. It can migrate through the membrane surrounding the brain rather easily, and cause its disruptions directly to the neurons. It gets to the receptors on the neurons, and attaches to them, blocking neurotransmitters from activating the neuron. As the amount of alcohol increases inside the brain, cells essentially shut down because they cannot receive signals. The more alcohol consumed, the lower the levels of brain activity, and the worse the ability to process stimuli and react to it.

It affects the outer areas of the brain first, which control higher level functions, such as reasoning. As those areas shut down, more primal, simple areas of the brain end up in control, unless so much is consumed that that area shuts down also, which can result in passing out or even death, due to disturbing vital functioning of the body.

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H-C-C-OH
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Nice huh?

A colorless, volatile, pungent liquid, C₂H₅OH. It can be burned as fuel (10-15% of gasohol), is used in industry and medicine, and is the intoxicating element of whiskey, wine, beer, and other fermented or distilled liquor. It is classed as a depressant drug.

Actually a name for a class of organic chemicals, unique because of their functional group:-O-H.

Many alcohols exist, but by far the most common is ethanol, more commonly known just as alcohol, and probably the most widely used drug in the world. Ethanol is usually made by fermentation of yeast, and other alcohols are made by hydrolysing alkenes.

Alcohol was being consumed unwittingly by our ancestors long before the cereals we know of were used to make bread. A weak, unfiltered, variant of the beer we know and love today was the first use of Barley known to man. The beer was made to be stored during months of drought, since plain water could not be stored for a long period of time before becoming stagnant and very harmful due to the high bacterial content. The small amounts of alcohol contained in that early beer was enough to keep the bacterial content to an acceptable limit.

The same may be said about wine. One may wonder why Christian religions claim that Jesus left us bread and wine as a symbol of Himself when bread and water might seem more appropriate. Again, the warm weather in Israel made stored water 2000 years ago a certain death. Wine, on the other hand, contained sufficient alcohol to keep the stored liquid close enough to sterility.

So the question arises. Should we thank alcohol for our existence today? The answer in my humble opinion is a definite yes. Survival of the race has always depended on sufficient amounts of safe water during times of drought and alcohol made this possible in Western civilisations.

The reason for which I specify western civilisations is that Eastern Civilisations seemed to emphasise the use of tea far before it was transported to the West. Tea was believed to have miraculous, life-extending properties, but in view of what is said about alcohol, the probability is that boiling served the same purpose, killing off harmful pathogens before the water was consumed.

Alcoholism

Short term effects of alcohol

For many people, drinking is very harmless, however, for others it can be quite destructive. There are many things that excessive alcohol consumption can promote, which in effect raises risk factors. Obviously, there is the state of being drunk. While intoxicated, the person experiences a lack of coordination. This causes them to loose balance as well as depth perception. However, most importantly, when someone is drunk, they loose the ability to think properly. They have trouble thinking clearly, therefore, more problems arise. Many times, being drunk leads to an increase in sexual activity, and as we know, this leads to uncontrolled births.

Also, some teens tend to binge-drink (this is when they drink in large quantities). Sometimes, binge drinking leads to alcohol poisoning as well as even death. This is because alcohol acts as a depressant, it slows down the central nervous system and this causes the heart to beat more and more slowly.

Another effect of drinking is that is causes your veins to expand slightly. A result of this is that your body temperature is more seceptable to change according to the temperature of your surrounding environment.

Long term effects

Over a period of many years, drinking has been proven to cause certain things in your body to change. For example, it gradually kills your brain cells. It also causes you to lose your sense of taste for certain types of foods. It even makes your sense of smell and touch weaker. Those are simply the obvious effects, it doesn't mention the emotional stress which the alcohol places onto a person. Someone may lose many friends because alcohol has made them very unpleasant to be around. Many married people end up in divorce over alcohol related issues. These long term effects certainly apply to you if you start at age twenty-one, but what if you started as a child. The alcohol greatly effects a child's brain much more quickly and more drastically than it could to any adult. By starting alcoholism at an early age, you are setting yourself up for a quick failure.

Stages of Alcoholism

There are a few stages of alcoholism. Some people can drink socially and never have any type of alcoholic problem. However, there are people who eventually decide to take it to the next level. From drinking a beer every now and then with some friends, to having many beers, becoming intoxicated. Then after that, you will have some people who eventually live to drink, every time they get money, they decide to spend it on alcohol. This is because they have let the "drug" control them.

Here are a few signs of alcoholism

· Drinking alone or in secret.

· Not remembering conversations or commitments.

· Making a ritual of having drinks before, with or after dinner and becoming annoyed when this ritual is disturbed or questioned.

· Losing interest in activities and hobbies that used to bring pleasure.

· Irritability as usual drinking time nears, especially if alcohol isn't available.

· Keeping alcohol in unlikely places at home, at work or in the car.

· Gulping drinks, ordering doubles, becoming intoxicated intentionally to feel good or drinking to feel "normal."

· Having problems with relationships, employment or finances or legal problems.

The word alcohol is derived from the Arabic word meaning `the light' and refers to the liquid in beer, wine and spirits which leads to people becoming drunk.

First discovered by an Arabian chemist, Alcohol is produced naturally as a result of the fermentation of almost any fruit or grain and was probably consumed by primitive peoples with probably comparable motives for doing so. It has been made by almost every group of people, in almost every society, using an enormous variety of substances ranging from honey and milk to rice and coconut palms. Egyptian writings dating back thousands of years, ancient chinese proverbs and early laws relating to alcohol abuse indicate that it was an integral part of everyday life and that its abuse was a cause for societal concern. Not only was its use widespread, but once it became part of the culture, it survived all attempts at prohibition. Prohibition has been trialed in more places than just the USA, for example in China, England, Russia, Finland and Iceland. All attempts at prohibition have failed.

At any rate, there seem to be three main interactions responsible for alcohol's intoxicating properties:

1. Endogenous opioid release: Endogenous opioids are peptides produced in the central nervous system and endocrine system which activate the same receptors as morphine, heroin, and other man-made opiates. They're usually released due to pain or stress, and serve to lessen the impact of those stimuli, inducing pain relief or even euphoria. Upon exposure to alcohol, endogenous opioid release is increased in the brain and the pituitary gland, and endorphin/enkephalin (responsible for transmission/reception of endogenous opioids, respectively) gene expression is increased. This action is probably responsible for the feelings of well-being or euphoria experienced with alcohol. Based on success in studies done with naltrexone, an opioid receptor blocker, this pathway is thought to be responsible for psychological alcohol addiction as well.

2. GABA system sensitization: GABA (gamma-aminobutyric acid) is the brain's primary inhibitory neurotransmitter, responsible for decreasing the excitability of neurons. Increased GABA activity thus leads to sedation and lessened anxiety -- Valium and related benzodiazepines work by increasing GABA activity. Alcohol, interestingly enough, can in some situations mimic the GABA molecule itself at a receptor site, causing exactly the same effect as an increased concentration of real GABA. For more on this, see GABAergic drug use and memory loss

   For short term, recreational alcohol use, the increased activation causes a pleasant dulling of sensation and no appreciable long term effects. During long-term abuse of the drug, however, the GABA receptors respond to constant increased activity by desensitizing, so that regular GABA levels can no longer sufficiently activate them. Desensitization is possibly why alcohol withdrawal can cause anxiety, panic attacks, seizures, and other responses that would seem to be based on neuronal over-excitation.

3. NMDA receptor blockade: NMDA channels are one way that calcium ions may enter a neuron under certain circumstances, causing long-term potentiation of that neuron and (theoretically, at least) the formation of long-term memory in the overall system. Alcohol has the effect of blocking NMDA channels so that those processes occur more slowly or not at all. One effect of this is a euphoric, even mildly psychedelic shift in overall mental activity, a much weaker version of the dissociative intoxication also given by DXM or Ketamine use. Also like those drugs, the NMDA blockade is none-too-healthy for the brain itself, causing exitotoxicity and cell death possibly even in neurons unfazed by the alcohol. Years of accumulating this widespread brain damage probably contribute to Korsakoff syndrome, and other non-nutritional cerebral atrophy associated with alcohol.

From the BioTech Dictionary at http://biotech.icmb.utexas.edu/. For further information see the BioTech homenode.

Alcohol commonly refers to Ethanol (C₂H₅OH). Human consumption can be a very vile thing. It makes people inadvertantly end up with their tongues in the mouths of people they swore they'd stay away from before they opened that can of Budweiser. It makes people spew brown liquids out of their mouths, and into the sink (if they're fortunate), trash basket (if they're less fortunate), or all over the floor (if they're my brother). It makes people get into fights with each other for no apparent reason. It can cause permanent anterograde and/or retrograde amnesia (as in Korsakoff's syndrome).

There are plenty of reasons not to drink, but, that said, it's also a lot of fun.

Harm Reduction
Proper harm-reduction depends on several matters. First, make sure you can't drive. If your judgment is impaired enough when completely trashed that you might consider it, give someone else the keys. It's an easy thing to do, and it could just save you your life.

Second, take proper supplements. A B-complex vitamin helps prevent deficincies in essential nutrients that can lead to cognitive deficits. The aforementioned Korsakoff's Syndrome is shown to result directly from vitamin B₁ deficiencies. N-acetylcysteine is a powerful antioxidant that removes stress on the liver, and reduces the interaction between alcohol and acetaminophen (Tylenol). Be careful with it, however. High doses can cause excitotoxicity and thus brain damage themselves, negating any positive effects.
See R. Orasas et al, N-acetylcysteine attenuates alcohol-induced oxidative stress in the rat, PMID 12508366 and E. A. Carter, Enhanced acetaminophen toxicity associated with prior alcohol consumption in mice: prevention by N-acetylcysteine, PMID 3828067 for more on the possible benefits of N-acetylcysteine.

Al"co*hol (#), n. [Cf. F. alcool, formerly written alcohol, Sp. alcohol alcohol, antimony, galena, OSp. alcofol; all fr. Ar. al-kohl a powder of antimony or galena, to paint the eyebrows with. The name was afterwards applied, on account of the fineness of this powder, to highly rectified spirits, a signification unknown in Arabia. The Sp. word has bot meanings. Cf. Alquifou.]

1.

An impalpable powder.

2.

The fluid essence or pure spirit obtained by distillation.

Boyle.

3.

Pure spirit of wine; pure or highly rectified spirit (called also ethyl alcohol); the spirituous or intoxicating element of fermented or distilled liquors, or more loosely a liquid containing it in considerable quantity. It is extracted by simple distillation from various vegetable juices and infusions of a saccharine nature, which have undergone vinous fermentation.

⇒ As used in the U. S. "Pharmacopœia, alcohol contains 91 per cent by weight of ethyl alcohol and 9 per cent of water; and diluted alcohol (proof spirit) contains 45.5 per cent by weight of ethyl alcohol and 54.5 per cent of water.

4. Organic Chem.

A class of compounds analogous to vinic alcohol in constitution. Chemically speaking, they are hydroxides of certain organic radicals; as, the radical ethyl forms common or ethyl alcohol (C2H5OH); methyl forms methyl alcohol (CH3.OH) or wood spirit; amyl forms amyl alcohol (C5H11.OH) or fusel oil, etc.

© Webster 1913.