Alcohol

Contents

Is alcohol a dangerous drug------Page 1

Positive impacts of alcohol-------Page 2

How alcohol enters your body---Page 3

Short term effects of alcohol-----Page 4

Long term effects of alcohol-----Page 5

Binge drinking---------------------Page 6

Alcohol addiction------------------Page 7/8

Conclusion--------------------------Page 9

Bibliography------------------------Page 10

How reliable my sources are------Page 11

Alcohol is a dangerous drug, it can affect every organ in the body, is carries risks and can be addictive such as street drugs, but unlike them it is not illegal to consume.

Alcohol is a poison; in Britain there are nearly one in 10 men and one in 20 women who have an alcohol problem. Long term alcoholics lose bone mass as alcohol affects the way calcium is processed.

A plus side to alcohol is that:

The liver can remove alcohol from the body at a rate of one unit per hour.

Research has shown that moderate consumption of alcohol of wine and beer is good for the heart.

Drinking helps people to relax in social situations.

For alcohol to have a positive effect on the body it must be drunk in moderation, such as one drink a day for women under 65 and two drinks a day for men under 65, this has been proven to lower the risks of some health conditions such as heart disease, it can also reduce serum levels of ldl which is bad cholesterol and raises hdl which is good cholesterol. Red wine is also thought to have some beneficial antioxidant properties.

Even though alcohol in moderation has these positive effects on the body the risks of alcohol are still much higher therefore

Alcohol should not be used as a medicine.

When a person drinks alcohol, 20% is absorbed by the stomach and 80% is absorbed by the small intestine. How fast it is absorbed depends on:

The concentration of the alcohol.

The type of drink, carbonated drinks are absorbed faster.

Whether the stomach is full or empty, food slows down absorption.

After alcohol is absorbed it enters the bloodstream, which carries alcohol throughout the body.

There are many short term effects when a person has had too much to drink. Many of these short term effects can be resolved a short time after the person has stopped drinking, and they may wake up with a headache, sore throat, sickness, tired, and in some cases may experience dizziness which is known as a �hangover’ this normally wears off throughout the day.

There are many stages of being drunk the mildest is tipsy, this is when a person is under the influence of alcohol, and can be rendered foolish or maybe weak but not absolutely drunk. When a person is drunk they get many short term effects of alcohol such as: blurred vision, slurred speech, difficulty walking (staggering, or falling) slow reaction times, and a lot of people can’t remember many things, which happened when they were drunk, the next day. The worst type of being drunk is paralytic, when this drunk you will experience all the things above but much worse, also a person could vomit due to too much alcohol and in cases pass out.

Alcohol also has many long term effects, if you are an alcoholic or a binge drinker there is a high risk to your well being, it often causes physical damage, puts you at risk for getting diseases or can make a disease you already have much worse. Drinking too much over a long period of time can lead to a number of different medical problems such as these: heart failure, damage to the brain, high blood pressure, hepatitis and cirrhosis of the liver, certain types of cancer, including mouth and throat, gastritis (inflammation of the stomach lining) or pancreatitis (inflammation of the pancreas along with many other disease or illness.

Not only can excessive drinking lead to this but also many other problems, which will jeopardize many aspects of your life, such as family life as alcohol