# Alcohol Safety
## October 28th, 2020
- Okay, we have a guest lecture on alcohol today from Dr. Sarah Morales (who works in Tech's Health Initiatives department)
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- So, talk with the people around you (I am alone in my room with no one around me): what influences your attitude about drinking?
- According to other people:
- Advertising and media
- The media is confusing; it can celebrate drinking as "awesome" while simultaneously warning about its dangers
- And expectation of
- Your upbringing (family, friends, religion, etc.)
- Alcohol is a DEPRESSANT, slowing down the central nervous system and your breathing/heart rate (in contrast with stimulants that speed those up)
- However, alcohol can be deceptive because it initially releases extra dopamine and endorphins; below 0.06 blood alcohol level is the "buzz" phase of being euphoric and actually feeling stimulated; above this you're in the "drunk" zone, ~0.9 BAL is when there's no more "buzz" and alcohol starts to act purely as a depressant
- A BAC means that in every 100ml of blood, there's 0.05 grams of alcohol
- The legal driving limit is 0.08; even by this point your skills are heavily affected
- A BAC (BA concentration) of 0.06-0.11 is "drunk," above that is increasing levels of risk for heart failure and death
- This is affected by how much ethanol you consume, how quickly you drink, your body weight, your sex, other drugs you have, etc.
- It takes the liver ~1 hour to process 1 "standard drink" of alcohol
- A larger person will be less affected by a given amount of alcohol; if people are the same size, the one with more body fat will be MORE affected since alcohol has an affinity for water
- Biological sex, too; alcohol affects women more than men; women tend to be smaller and have higher water content in their bodies
- For a man and woman of the same size, the woman can be affected between 10-16% more
- Food does NOT prevent the absorption of alcohol, but it does slow the rate of absorbing alcohol and delay it
- Once the alcohol is in your body, there's no quick fix to get it out of your body; the only thing that'll sober you up is time
- Carbonation actually speeds up alcohol absorption, since it opens the valve of your stomach and makes it go into the small intestine faster
- 1 standard drink is 12 oz. for beer, 5 oz. for wine, and 1.5oz. for 80-proof liqueur (or 1 oz. for 100-proof)
- Going by a Solo cup, 12 oz of beer is filling that cup, 5 oz. of wine is ~1/3 of the cup, and 1oz is just barely above the cup's bottom
- "Jungle juice," for instance, could be 5-7 drinks in a full solo cup
- It's important that you know what you're drinking!
- Alcohol is mainly absorbed via the stomach (20%) and small intestine (80%), absorbed into your blood (where it goes to your brain), and finally processed by the liver
- The liver does a BUNCH of stuff: it filters digestive blood, detoxifies chemicals, metabolizes drugs, makes proteins for blood clotting, etc.; the liver breaks down 95% of the alcohol we take in (the remaining is released via urine, sweat, or breathing)
- The liver does this via OXIDATION, with ADH first turning alcohol into acetaldehyde (which is still toxic), then ALDH turning it into acetate, which the body can process into water and C02
- Heavy drinking can damage the liver over time via CIRRHOSIS
- There's a myth that alcohol warms you up by drinking it, but all drinking alcohol does is widen your blood vessels, which makes you feel warm but actually increases your heat loss
- Alcohol can affect your balance, reaction time, motor skills, information processing, speech/vision, etc; this happens because alcohol in your blood can pass the blood-brain barrier, changing your behavior
- ALCOHOL MYOPIA is where above a BAC of 0.06, your reasoning abilities and ability to concentrate is substantially decreased, and can cause you to miss social cues, make poor judgements, etc.; even drunk, you're legally responsible for what you do, so drink responsibly
- A few high-risk drinking behaviors:
- Drinking games, taking shots, "pre-gaming," binge drinking, drinking and driving, etc.; pre-gaming and shots tend to be the most common problems for college students
- These high-risk behaviors can result in you getting arrested or losing your job; more commonly, you could have a hangover, miss or do poorly an assignment, get in a fight or do something else you'll regret when you're sober, etc.
- Those who drink < 3.5 drinks per week have an A average, while those with higher drinking rates have correspondingly low grades
- Fights are the most common drinking-related injuries, 25%, and every year ~1800 people die due to excess alcohol poisoning
- Low-risk drinking does NOT mean no risk, but that there's little chance of danger
- ~3 drinks per day, serious health risks from alcohol begin
- ALCOHOL POISONING is a medical condition where a person has so much alcohol that it actually depresses messages from your brain to your heart, and can kill you; symptoms of this include:
- Puking, unresponsiveness, breathing is shallow (less than 8 times a minute), skin is blue - any of these are worth calling 911 over, and they shouldn't go to bed if they're showing these symptoms
- If you find someone who's passed out, call 911 and then roll them so they don't have their head straight up (so they don't choke on their own vomit), and stay with the person; do not give them ANYTHING by mouth and don't let them just "sleep it off"
- Tech has a "good samaritan" policy where, if you call 911 for help with a drug incident, you won't have it charged against you legally or put on your permanent record - we want you to be safe
- Why do people drink, then?
- You're socially awkward, so you do it to be less nervous; due to peer pressure; to relieve stress; to relax; to socialize; etc.
- People often feel pressured to drink because of their friends, but in reality ~45% of students drink only a few times per year, and ~20% don't drink at all; those who do drink largely do so safely
- To reduce your risk from alcohol, make sure to know what you're drinking, monitor how much you drink
- Follow a P.L.A.N. - pace yourself, have a limit, alternate between alcohol and non-alcoholic drinks, and never drink and drive
- We're not here to tell you not to drink; academics are your priority as a student, but we understand you need to have a life outside that and college is a time to explore. Just do it safely and try to find a balance.