1. There's a whole
lot of things that
people stuff in
their faces. Some
of them keep
those people
alive. Some of
them taste good
to those people.
Some of them
help those people
win pie-eating
contests. Alcohol
does none of
those things. Why
do people keep
putting it in their
bodies? And what
does it do once it
gets there?
Alcohol heads for the digestive system and because it's water soluble, gets into
the water in the bloodstream. Because ethanol, to a certain extent, can move
through lipids, it can pass through cell membranes. Between that and the
bloodstream, it can go pretty much anywhere. It spreads through the muscles,

2. and is exuded –unmetabolized and whole – through the skin. It gets into the
heart. It even takes a walk through the brain, and this is the secret of its powers.
Once there, alcohol acts on a certain part of the brain, the nucleus accumbens.
This area is a midpoint between the reward center of a brain and the parts that
make associations and memories. Alcohol causes a bunch of dopamine to be
released in the nucleus accumbens, hot-wiring the system. It makes people feel
good.
It also makes people feel confident and talkative, although it's considered a
depressant. It depresses brain function. Alcohol isn't confined to the reward
center of the brain. Instead it wanders all around the brain. When nerves
communicate with each other, one gives off a certain chemical. The other picks
up the chemical with its receptors, and once it picks up enough, it gets activated
itself. Alcohol binds to many kinds of receptors. It holds on to glutamate
receptors, but doesn't activate them. Glutamate is what excites neurons, so if
many glutamate receptors are blocked, a certain stimulation that would activate
the brain gets a slower, or depressed response. Alcohol also binds to GABA
(gamma aminobutyric acid) receptors. These it does activate, but GABA receptors
slow the brain down. This helps a drunk person feel calm and sleepy, and it
further depresses brain activity. This is also why caffeine feels like it ‘sobers' a
person up, but doesn't. Caffeine may help people not feel sleepy, but it can't
unblock those receptors.
Everyone knows that too much alcohol at once can kill people, but how? As said
before, alcohol depresses the nerves, and the nerves affect pretty much every
area of the body. Enough alcohol makes people sleep and suppresses the gag
reflex, so people who are passed out choke on their own vomit. Most worrying,
always, is alcohol stomping around in the brain. Even at its most primitive, the
brain controls things like breathing and heart rate. However, enough alcohol can
shut down those parts of the brain just like any other part. People pass out and
their brains simply forget to breathe.
Alcohol is broken down in the liver, at some cost to the liver itself. Alcohol doesn't
destroy the liver, but products that the liver breaks the alcohol into do cause

3. damage. Meanwhile, any alcohol that isn't metabolized wanders around the
body, coming out in urine from the kidneys, seeping from the skin, or being
breathed out by the lungs.
Not that alcohol doesn't have its good side. Depending on what articles are to be
believed, a glass of wine per day can either not do any harm, can prevent heart
attacks, or can make someone functionally immortal. And it is kind of nice to
know that sometimes, relaxation and cheer can literally be bottled. All that's
needed is to take care how much alcohol is let into a person's brain.