What happens in Alcoholic drinking?

WHAT HAPPENS IN DRINKING?

There is still a widespread misconception that alcohol is a stimulant. Actually, it has exactly the opposite effect. The gay chatter of a cocktail party, for example, is not the result of drinking-induced stimulation but rather of the depressant effect alcohol has on the nervous system which, in terms of behavior, may remove inhibitions. Alcohol dulls the cerebral cortex, an area of the brain that is involved in judgment, motor coordination, and self-control.

As a result of the dulling-which, of course, will vary in degree depending upon the rate and quantity of alcohol consumption-judgment and self-control are reduced, and feelings and emotions may be expressed more freely. 

As muscular control decreases, reaction time becomes greater, so that a driver, for example, who has had several drinks, is unable to stop or swerve in an emergency as quickly as he would normally. With heavy drinking, speech becomes slurred, vision is affected, hearing is impaired, and equilibrium is lessened. Continued intake of alcohol slows the breathing rate and heart action and lowers blood pressure.

When concentration in the blood goes beyond 0.4 per cent, there may be coma and eventually death. Alcohol acts very quickly to affect thought, feeling, and behavior because it can enter the bloodstream and begin to circulate within two minutes. Unlike food, alcohol does not have to go through the process of digestion. 

Some of it is absorbed even by the stomach walls; the rest is quickly absorbed into the bloodstream through the intestinal walls. Alcohol taken on an empty stomach is especially fast-acting; when it is mixed with food, the absorption rate is less rapid. In whatever form it may be consumed-as beer, cider, whiskey, straight, mixed-alcohol's effects on the body are the same.