The Effects of Alcohol on the Body
It was spring 2004 when I first got to see the powerful side effects of binge drinking. The LMC concert band was going on the tour and, of course, the band that was hosting us wanted to give us a good time and invited us to a party. I couldn’t go, nor did I want to, but many people did go, and it was interesting (and rather funny) to see the bleary faces of my cranky band members the next day.
So what happens when you get drunk? Certain effects are obvious, such as different behaviors, but why does this happen and how does alcohol affect the body? The article, “Jane Behaving Badly” tries to answer this question by examining the wild night of “Jane” who has unfortunately drank a little bit too much alcohol.
When you first drink alcohol, it goes through your digestive system very quickly. Alcohol is a tiny molecule, which is known as C2H5OH. This molecule is too small to digest properly, so it goes to the small intestines where water and other small nutrients are kept and eventually picked up and sent throughout the body. There, the alcohol slips in easily with the water and other nutrients and gets inside the bloodstream.
The bloodstream is an essential component of the body since it gives all the cells in the body a chance to get oxygen, water, and nutrients that the cells could not get otherwise. Blood goes everywhere in the body and one of the first places the blood goes – the first place the alcohol directly affects – is the brain.
The brain is the most important part of the body because it handles all of the body’s responses and needs, it coordinates cellular, physical, and emotional activity, and integrates these activities into one being. While many other organs can fail temporarily and still not screw up the whole body, if the brain fails, it screws up everything.
Alcohol affects all parts of the brain, but in particular, it affects the frontal lobe, the cerebellum, and the hypothalamus. The frontal lobe is the part that controls judgments, thoughts, memories, speech, personality, motor responses, sexual activity, problem solving, and more! The cerebellum controls balancing and body movements. The hypothalamus regulates the sex drive, hunger, thirst, temperature, and it helps us experience emotions such as pleasure and rage. In addition to that, the hypothalamus is also the part of the brain that is susceptible to addictions.
In a brain uninfluenced by alcohol these functions are balanced carefully. The brain monitors the activities of the rest of body and judges what reaction to give to each stimulus sent up by the sensory neurons. For instance, if you see something your brain registers as dangerous, your brain will coordinate your body to move in a flight-or-fight response by sending a message down the motor neurons to tell your body to tense up and get ready for a fight. Emotions can also cause an effect too – if you see something sad, your brain will register it as sad and do the appropriate response. The brain coordinates these in an efficient manner and, even if sometimes the action carried out is rash, the brain is still capable of analyzing the situation fairly reasonably.
That is not so with alcohol intoxicating your system. Alcohol acts very much like a hormone. As it flows through the bloodstream, it attaches itself to receptors of a cell, and sends a message through the cell. This message tells the cell to slow down and it inhibits the cell’s reactions. Alcohol is not fat-soluble, so it cannot go inside of the cell, but it affects it nonetheless. When alcohol attaches to brain cells, strange things happen.
At first, the alcohol stimulates you. It does this by sensitizing your frontal lobe so any stimulus is heightened. Thinking, remembering, feeling, all of these are heightened as alcohol first passes through your brain. This heightened activity requires energy, and more blood flows into your brain to give you more nutrients needed for energy. There’s only one problem with that – the blood still has a lot of alcohol in it, and now there’s more alcohol flowing in your brain.
A little bit of alcohol stimulates the brain, but as more and more alcohol builds up, it increases the activity of the brain to an almost unbearable extent. This is the feeling that many people drink for; they feel relaxed and happy, as if nothing can go wrong.
At this point, the brain, even though it is undergoing a tremendous amount of activity, becomes relaxed. The frontal lobe, which controls judgment, personality, and a host of other things, begins to relax, which is the reason why someone can have a complete personality change under the influence. The hypothalamus begins to send strange signals throughout the brain, these signals depending on how the person is affected by alcohol. In the article, Jane behaved in many strange ways, singing and dancing to raunchy songs. Another example is during the band party one of the guys in our band began to strip naked – I believe he was hot. Since the hypothalamus controls temperature, that would explain that incident. Also, the fact that there were some lovely young ladies there didn’t hurt – the hypothalamus also affects the sex drive.
A special part of the frontal lobe known as the thalamus also controls the motor responses. More particularly, it sorts through information the sensory neurons fire up to it, figures out which messages are important and which aren’t, and then acts accordingly by either ignoring the message or reacting to it by sending a message back telling your body how to respond.
When the alcohol begins to work on the thalamus, the thalamus may react to messages that it shouldn’t react to, and it may ignore signals that should not be ignored. Also, even though the thalamus is heightened by alcohol, it is in such a relaxed state it has a hard time relaying back messages to the body about how it should respond to any given stimulus. This is a reason why people under the influence of alcohol react to things rather slowly or may twitch uncontrollably. The motor neurons are sending confused signals from the brain to the rest of the body, and the body sometimes doesn’t understand what to do about those signals.
Another part, the cerebellum, which controls balance and movement, is dramatically affected by alcohol and is the reason why drunks often have trouble with balance and motion.
All of these factors play in with each other and, at this point, you do not have much control over anything. Also note that the brain is not the only thing that is being affected by the alcohol. The blood is sending the alcohol molecules everywhere to the body, and slowly the entire body is utterly intoxicated by alcohol.
Then there is an overload. The brain is overloading with such strange signals that the body realizes there is something seriously wrong, and it begins to depress the body by releasing a chemical which inhibits the cells of the brain and causes drowsiness. This is a safety mechanism done to stop any activity that might be dangerous to the brain and to stop any more intake of alcohol. As the depressed effects begin to show, there is less brain metabolism than usual, down to 29%. This is because the brain is shutting itself down temporarily, and it is consuming less energy. This is not healthy, but at this point it’s necessary to stop the effects of alcohol.
As the body begins to rest, it collects the alcohol and sends it to the liver, where the alcohol is eventually broken down to carbon dioxide and water. As the alcohol is broken down, it is converted into a molecule known as acetaldehyde, which is toxic to the body. If you drink too much alcohol, acetaldehyde will build up, creating nausea. Also, the liver can only handle so much – one glass of beer can be broken down every hour.
Though the alcohol is eventually broken down, this doesn’t stop the brain from acting strange. Tired and dehydrated, the brain has gotten used to the depressing effects of alcohol. The brain cells, which used to be depressed by the alcohol, are now active and working hard to maintain themselves. The information sent out by the brain is still muddled since the brain – indeed, the whole body – is trying to get used to its nonalcoholic state. This confusion can create dizziness and headaches and, coupled with the nausea of too much toxic chemicals in the body, is known to us as a hangover.
The next day after the party, our band director faced us, his face glancing over the bloodshot eyes of the tired musicians. He gave his usual happy smile, told us that some members of the band had partied a little bit too hard, and gave them some advice so they wouldn’t die during the concert. Then he sat down, and we were off to our next destination, the big concert. The only sound I heard was the groaning of people who were complaining about their sleepless night.
I decided to avoid any future parties.