Alcohol – Hic! The right way to consume it!

We drink alcohol for the high it gives us and the inhibitions it takes away, making us feel happy and free. Most of us believe that the more we drink, the high we get is still more, isn't it? In this process, we end up competing and drinking to fill our stomachs, feeling sick & hung over the next morning.

You need to understand how alcohol travels in your body. When you drink alcohol, it begins to get absorbed into our bloodstream, from our mouth, then the stomach and mostly from the intestines. Once it enters the bloodstream, it goes to the liver and gets metabolized there. From there, it travels into the brain, and voila!, the goodness starts.

In general, the liver can process one ounce of liquor (30ml), i.e a small peg, in one hour. If you consume more than this, your system gets saturated, and the additional alcohol will do nothing to you but accumulate in the blood and the body tissues until it can be metabolized. This is why drinking excess alcohol will result in high blood alcohol concentrations that last for several hours.

The above statement means that, how much ever you drink to fill your stomach, only 30 ml/per hour can be metabolized in the body and give you the high. The rest remains in the bloodstream and gets metabolized much later; what a waste, isn't it? The most ideal way to drink is to take your drink in very small sips, rolling it in your mouth as the absorption starts in the mouth. Ideally, one drink should last an hour as that is the capacity of your liver to metabolize alcohol.

If you are drinking for 2 hours and normally consume about 5 drinks, only 2 drinks of what you consumed is giving you the high in your brains, the rest is staying in your bloodstream and is getting metabolized way after you stop drinking and you may be fast asleep while it's happening. The only thing that the excess alcohol consumed can do is to make you feel sick in the stomach and give a headache along with a horrible hangover the next day.

One needs to drink sensibly keeping in mind the above knowledge. Nothing wrong in drinking sensibly and enjoying life as long as your judgement is not compromised or you don't behave like an animal after drinking.

-Dr. Manoj Kuriakose