Alcohol: Use and Abuse

1
Alcohol Use and Abuse

• Chapter 13

2
Drinking in Moderation

• Is the amount of alcohol that causes no harm to
  health not more than one or two drinks in a day
  for healthy adults
• Authorities recommend that people who drink,
  should do so in moderation.
• No one exact amount of alcohol per day is
  moderation for everyone, because people have
  different tolerance levels.

3
Why People Drink

• To celebrate
• To unwind
• Because they like the taste of it
• Young people drink because
• Peer Pressure
• To Rebel
• Because it is available to them

4
What is a drink?

• A drink is amount of a beverage that delivers ½
  ounces of pure ethanol.
• Alcoholic beverages contain a lot of water and
  other substances, as well as alcohol.
• Wine and beer have relatively low percentages of
  alcohol.
• Proof is a measure of of alcohol in alcoholic
  beverages.
• 100 proof means 50 alcohol
• 90 proof means 45 alcohol and so forth

5
Teens who Drink

• Teens who drink and who temporarily manage to
  escape alcohols traffic and other hazards still
  may suffer by
• Achieving lower grades
• Being arrested
• Being the victim of a crime
• Being punished or expelled from school
• Being fined up to 2,500 and serving up to a year
  of jail or detention

6
Moderate Drinking Immediate Effects

• Alcohol is a special molecule in many ways
• It can move fast, and it can mix both fatty and
  watery substances.
• This means that it meets with no barriers in the
  body.
• Alcohol affects every cell of the body
• Being acting on the body the moment a person
  swallows it.

7
Cont.

• Within minutes after the first sip of a drink,
  ethanol is affecting the brain, muscles, glands,
  and small blood vessels of the skin
• The liver is the organ most well- equipped with
  the machinery to change alcohol into harmless
  wastes that the body can excrete.
• The liver goes to work on the alcohol right away
  but can handle only about one drink an hour.
• If a person drinks faster than this, the excess
  keeps building up, affecting all the cells more
  and more.

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Key Point

• Alcohol affects every cell. In moderate amounts,
  it depresses the brains fine-tuning nerves,
  opens the blood vessels of the skin, disturbs
  sleep, impairs mental abilities, dulls awareness,
  clouds vision and speech, and intensifies
  expression

9
Excessive Drinking Immediate Effects

• People may act against their own desires and
  wishes, because their awareness of those desires
  and wishes are now gone
• Against all reason and judgment
• A person may pick a fight
• May become sexually aggressive or have unplanned
  sexually intercourse.
• May attempt a dangerous physical exploit

10

• The reason these things can happen is clear from
  the map of the brain.
• Judgment would also tell the person not to have
  another drink- but again judgment is gone
• The is why a person may go on to drink to the
  point of passing out.
• Next speech, vision, and coordination are
  disabled.
• Intoxication- literally, a state of being
  poisoned often used to mean drunkenness

11
Key Point

• Excessive drinking makes people unaware of their
  desires and wishes, and it steals judgment. Still
  more alcohol puts the conscious mind to sleep.
  The body protects itself from toxic doses of
  alcohol through the choking reflex, vomiting, and
  the breakdown of alcohol by the liver. The liver
  itself can be damaged by alcohol.

12
Hangover

• The hangover- the awful feeling of headache pain,
  unpleasant sensations in the mouth, and nausea
  that a drinker suffers the morning after drinking
  to much.
• Delirium a state of mental confusion, usually
  with hallucinations and continual movement.
• Tremors- quivering and shaking
• Congeners- ingredients in alcohol beverages,
  other than the alcohol itself, that may irritate
  the nervous system.

13
Cont.

• Dehydration of the brain is a second factor
  causing a hangover.
• Alcohol causes the body to lose water. It reduces
  the brain cells water content too.
• When these cell rehydrate the morning after, the
  nerves hurt as the cell swell back to their
  normal size.

14
Long-Term Effects

• Alcohol abuse also increases the risk of cancer
  of the mouth, throat, lungs, pancreas, and
  rectum.
• Other long term effects are
• Ulcers of the stomach and intestines
• Shrinking of all the bodys muscles, including
  the heart muscles.
• Abnormal changes in the blood
• Kidney, bladder, and gland damges

15

• Skin rashes and sores
• Shrinkage and damage to the testicles, causing
  men to become feminine and develop sexual
  problems
• Failure of the ovaries and menstrual problems in
  women
• Lung damage leading to flu, pneumonia or
  tuberculosis
• Psychological depression and mental illness.

16
Fetal Alcohol Syndrome

• Then there is the risk of fetus when a pregnant
  women abuses alcohol- the longest risks of all.
• The effects of fetal alcohol syndrome are severe.
• They include mental and physical retardation and
  birth defects that last a lifetime.