My brother’s boss sent him a helpful link to a website all about the dangers of alcohol this morning, and he helpfully passed it on to me, reminding me in the process of the time I registered with a new doctor and, after making something of a wild misstatement regarding my alcohol intake, was met with a raised eyebrow and sent to the waiting room clutching a leaflet entitled ‘Thinking About Drink’. Them’s were strange days.So today I have mostly been learning facts about alcohol.
While alcohol has the effect of stimulating the drinker, it is not in fact a stimulant. On the contrary, the garrulousness, wild dancing, hilarious-anecdote-telling, sing-song-instigating, ill-advised-text-messaging and tearful revelations that accompany a night down the local occur because alcohol anaesthetises the part of your brain that governs self-control. The different areas of your brain get pissed at varying rates, which explains why you can go from ‘I bloody love you, mate’ to ‘LET’S JUMP IN THE RIVER!’ – and back. On the positive side – depending on what you’re up to – your pain threshold goes through the roof.
I also learnt that alcohol is technically a food, since it contains calories. Who knew? Indeed, a glass of wonderful booze contains as many calories as ‘a large potato’, the website told me. Unlike a large potato, however, alcohol has no nutritional value and doesn’t sit around waiting to be digested. It goes into your blood stream in a diluted form, depending on how much water you have in your body. Since muscle contains more water than fat, and women generally have more fat in their bodies than men, women are traditionally a bunch of hysterical lightweights and most likely to suffer from ‘behavioural instability’ and ‘emotional distress’. (I’m thinking Jean off EastEnders.)
There were all manner of other hideous facts – ‘blood-sludging’, ‘cell death’ and ‘decreasing penile size’ came up an awful lot – but they were rather depressing and would have driven you to drink.
Chin chin.
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