Facts about alcohol
One of the basic facts about alcohol that many people fail to grasp is that it is a drug.Alcohol is a sedative. Ethyl alcohol was the first of the sedatives to be discovered and is easily available in our culture without a prescription. It is the only drug which is absorbed in significant quantities through the stomach and so it reaches the bloodstream faster than most other sedatives.
The alcohol effect
Drinking alcohol makes people:- Feel like they’re having more fun
- Feel confident
- Feel relaxed and calms their nerves
- Feel able to open up and talk more
- Let go and lose their inhibitions
- Feel they fit in socially
- Feel really happy and laugh more
- Forget their worries for a while
- Think they have the courage to overcome their fears.
The downside
Ethyl alcohol depresses the various centres in the brain. Like all sedatives, it diminishes or stops normal functioning. It works first on the cerebrum, which controls intellectual and rational thought and judgement, then on the spinal cord, then on the vital centres, for example breathing and the heart. Alcohol first leaves you confused, then unable to walk, then unconscious with no reflexes, then dead.Alcohol has two effects:
- It diminishes psychomotor activity, leaving the individual relaxed, less anxious, less worried than before
- It increases psychomotor activity
