Drug Awareness
Alcohol
What is alcohol and what does it do?Alcohol is a chemical contained in many drinks, including cider, wine, beer, vodka and other liquors. It is the result of the natural process of fermentation of fruit, vegetables or grain. It is increasingly available in mixed beverages, i.e. ‘cruisers,’ that contain soft drink or other sweet mixers that to some degree mask the taste of the alcoholic beverage.
Alcohol is a depressant drug, and not a stimulant as many people think. It slows down the activity in parts of the brain and the nervous system, causing slower reaction times.
How will it affect me?
- The effects of alcohol on any individual depend on many factors and combinations of factors, including any or some of the following:
- The amount of alcohol consumed
- The period of time over which the alcohol is consumed (for instance, three glasses of wine in one hour will have a far greater effect than three glasses in three hours)
- Your body size and weight
- Your proportion of body fat (fat cells absorb alcohol more quickly than other cells)
- Your general state of health, and particularly the health of your liver
- When and how you drink alcohol – for instance, whether it’s with a meal, or straight after intense physical activity
- What you’ve had to eat before drinking
- Whether alcohol is consumed with other drugs, including prescribed medication (you may have seen warnings on medication packaging about how combining the medication with alcohol may intensify the effects or make you drowsy)
- Your age and gender (generally, men can consume more alcohol than women for the equivalent short-term effect)
- How often you’ve had alcohol in the past.
- Relaxation
- Feelings of well-being
- Loss of inhibitions
- Flushing
- Dizziness
- Unclear judgments.
- Uncoordinated movements
- Slow reactions
- Blurred vision
- Slurred speech
- Aggression
- Falling asleep or passing out.
Will alcohol affect me more as a young person?
Yes. If you are drinking alcohol occasionally or regularly, the effects will be greater than they will be on your parents or older siblings.
Alcohol is responsible for most drug-related deaths in the teenage population and alcohol use also has a variety of serious health risks.
The safest level of drinking for teenagers is no drinking, especially for young people under 15 years of age.
Binge drinking or heavy drinking
Binge drinking is the term commonly used to describe drinking heavily over a short period of time with the intention of becoming intoxicated. This can be very harmful to a person’s health and wellbeing. As well as increasing the risk of health problems, binge drinking can lead young people to take risks and put themselves in dangerous situations.
Common effects of binge episodes include:
- hangovers
- headaches
- nausea and vomiting
- shakiness.
- Permanent damage to your brain, which is still developing in your teens
- Short-term and permanent damage to your ability to learn and remember
- Short-term and permanent effects on your vocabulary, memory retrieval and ability to learn and absorb general information
- Effects on your overall school performance
- Effects on your ability to make and keep friends and fit into social groups
- Make you more inclined to be depressed and/or violent
- Dramatically increase the likelihood you’ll drink heavily as an adult.
What are the long-term effects of alcohol abuse?
We all know that drinking a lot quickly will cause a ‘hangover,’ a short-term effect of alcohol which includes any or all of the following to varying degrees – headache, nausea, vomiting and shaking.
Because of its effect on vision, judgment, concentration and coordination, drinking a lot is also a common cause of accidents, particularly car accidents and drowning.
These are short-term effects, which may or may not dramatically affect you and other people. However, what research is finding more about all the time are the long-term and permanent effects of alcohol, especially when it’s absorbed in large quantities by a young person with a still-developing brain.
Some of these effects are ‘cognitive,’ which means they affect the brain and the way you think. These are listed previously. They are among ‘physical’ effects, which may be permanent, such as:
- Stomach inflammations
- Frequent infections
- Skin problems
- Liver damage
- Brain damage
- Foetal alcohol syndrome (a possible effect on an unborn child in the womb of a woman abusing alcohol)
- Damage to reproductive organs
- Memory loss
- Confused thinking
- Heart and blood disorders
- Depression
- Weight gain, with the related cardiovascular problems and risk of diabetes.
How much can I drink before I’ll be affected?
Any alcohol consumption affects you, and the effects on your body will occur before you are aware of them.
That’s why so many people of driving age get caught with a blood-alcohol reading that’s greater than they expect – and which may have them ‘over the limit’ when they think they were safe to drive.
The effects can also creep up on you, so that you think you’re not affected, or only slightly – and then all of a sudden you’ll realise you’re drunk and unable to control your body or speech.
To minimise the chances that alcohol will affect your health and well-being on a short or long-term basis, the National Health and Medical Research Council suggests the following guidelines:
- For children and young people under 18 years of age, not drinking alcohol is the safest option.
- Parents and carers should be advised that children under 15 years of age are at the greatest risk of harm from drinking and that for this age group, not drinking alcohol is especially important.
- For young people aged 15−17 years, the safest option is to delay the initiation of drinking for as long as possible.
Don’t forget – the amount of alcohol in a drink varies between drinks and between mixed drinks. The stronger the drink, the more alcohol it contains and the less you’ll need to consume before your body is affected.
Alcohol and pregnancy
Alcohol can harm a foetus. When a pregnant woman drinks alcohol, the alcohol crosses the placental barrier and enters the bloodstream of the foetus. The alcohol content in the blood of the foetus then equals or exceeds that of the mother.
Pregnant women and women planning to get pregnant should not drink.
When can I legally drink alcohol?
If you’re under 18, it’s illegal for you to buy alcohol, supply it to others, or consume it in a hotel or other licensed place, or public place – even with parents or other care-givers.
What is my Blood Alcohol Concentration?
Your Blood Alcohol Concentration (BAC) is a measure of the amount of alcohol in your blood.
A breathalyser is the piece of equipment that measures the amount of alcohol in a person’s breath, which is a direct (but not entirely exact) measure of the amount in your blood.
BAC is determined by the amount a person drinks and over what period of time. But the amount, and the time, that will result in a BAC over the legal limit differ with every individual.
If you’re under 18, it’s illegal for you to buy alcohol, supply it to others, or consume it in a hotel or other licensed place, or public place – even with parents or other care-givers.
If I do drink too much, is there anything I can do to get sober quicker?
Sobering up takes time. About 10 per cent of the alcohol in blood is discharged through breath, sweat and urine; the rest is broken down by the liver (which is why the liver is the organ most damaged by alcohol abuse). The liver can only work at a fixed rate, getting rid of about one standard drink an hour. If you think about the work your liver has to do, you’ll be sober in about as many hours as you’ve had standard drinks.
|
||||||||||||