When you think of dangerous drugs, alcohol likely isn’t the first thing that comes to mind. Most people think of crack, heroin, or prescription painkillers. Because of widespread social acceptance in this country, drinking — and getting drunk — is often considered a largely harmless form of social recreation. But is it really? Could it be that we don’t always realize just how dangerous the effects of alcohol are on the human brain and body?
The Health Dangers of Alcohol
New findings on the health dangers of alcohol show us that the answer is yes. The more scientists learn about alcohol and its effects, the less enthusiastic they are about even occasional drinking. For example, an August 2018 study at the University of Washington School of Medicine concluded there is no safe level of alcohol consumption. Researchers said the health risks associated with alcohol were massive, pointing to the fact that in 2016, more than 3 million deaths globally were attributed to alcohol use.
How Alcohol Affects the Brain and Body
In addition to being the most commonly abused drug, alcohol is probably one of the most dangerous — it affects the brain and every part of the body on a cellular level.
The brain is the main source of the body’s functions. To a certain extent, when you drink alcohol and don’t stop, it seeps into your brain, affecting the different parts of your body’s motherboard as you drink more and more.
How to Know If You’re Drunk: Understanding Different Measurement Systems
While blood alcohol concentration (BAC) is the most commonly referenced system for measuring intoxication levels in the United States, it’s important to understand that there isn’t one universal system used worldwide. For instance, some European nations measure alcohol levels in milligrams per milliliter of blood rather than the percentage-based BAC system used in the U.S.
At FHE Health, we understand these various measurement approaches and can help you understand what your alcohol intake truly means for your health and safety, regardless of which system you’re most familiar with.
The Levels of Being Drunk
Consider what happens when you get drunk. While this article focuses on a four-stage model based on BAC levels, some medical professionals and researchers break intoxication into five or six distinct stages. These alternative models may include additional gradations that separate mild euphoria from moderate impairment or distinguish between different levels of severe intoxication. As you keep drinking, you move through stages of drunkenness as your blood alcohol concentration (BAC) levels increase:
- Euphoria/”buzz.” This stage of intoxication ensues once a person’s BAC levels reach the range of .03% to .12%. For men, this typically means two to three beers in an hour and, for women, one to two beers. A person in this initial, feel-good stage may feel more relaxed, chatty, and self-confident. They may experience a mild, euphoric buzz and even get a bit tipsy, depending on their metabolism of alcohol and factors like age, amount of food eaten, body size and weight and other drugs taken.
- Excitement. At this next level of intoxication, when BAC is between .09% and .25%, a person has crossed the threshold of being in control of their mental and emotional faculties: They may dramatically overreact with excitement, anger, or sadness and have trouble recalling things. Meanwhile, they begin to lose coordination and balance and can have blurry vision and/or impaired judgment. Even at moderate BAC levels, your decision-making abilities become significantly compromised, which is why you should never drive or operate machinery after drinking.
- Confusion and loss of coordination. By the time a person has reached this advanced stage of drunkenness, their BAC is at dangerously high levels, within the range of .18 to .30%. This means you’re drinking roughly five drinks per hour if you’re a man and four drinks per hour if you’re a woman, and you’re at imminent risk of alcohol poisoning and even death. If you’ve reached this stage of drunkenness, it means that the amount of alcohol you have consumed is way too much to metabolize in one sitting. Your brain and body may begin to shut down at this juncture, and you could have trouble standing up and walking. You may pass out or fade in and out of consciousness. Total disorientation sets in, and your reaction times have completely slowed. You may stop feeling pain and become more vulnerable to injuries. Bladder function and heart rate can fail.
- Stupor. With a BAC of .30 and higher, you are well within the realm of fatal alcohol poisoning. Some of the symptoms and complications that can occur in this final, often deadly stage of drunkenness are loss of control of bodily functions, comas, seizures and respiratory arrest. By the time you’ve reached this stage, your gag reflex won’t work, so there is a very real prospect of choking on your own vomit and dying.
Immediate medical attention is imperative in the lead-up to this last stage of drunkenness to prevent death from alcohol poisoning and/or other fatal symptoms. Indeed, at a BAC of over .40, it’s possible to die from alcohol poisoning. These facts about the stages of drunkenness are, therefore, a sobering antidote to the notion that “getting drunk” is a harmless form of social entertainment.
The Four Stages of How Drinking Affects Your Brain
These stages of being drunk roughly overlap with corresponding changes in the brain. They are as follows:
- Stage 1: The cerebral cortex. The cerebral cortex processes information from your senses and thoughts and initiates the majority of voluntary muscle movements; it also has some control over lower-order brain centers. Alcohol impairs these thought processes and leads to poor judgment. It can cause a loss of inhibition, leading to talkativeness and increased self-confidence. When that happens, it means alcohol has seeped into the cerebral cortex, blunting the senses.
- Stage 2: The cerebellum. The cerebellum coordinates muscle movement by influencing nerve impulses from the medulla. These nerve impulses control fine movements, which include those for balance and basic things like walking. Alcohol can disrupt these impulses, causing a loss of coordination.
- Stage 3: Hypothalamus and pituitary gland. Alcohol depresses nerve centers in the hypothalamus that control sexual arousal, making you more aroused but less able to perform. It inhibits pituitary secretion, affecting urine excretion. This explains why you have to pee so much when you drink; your kidneys can’t absorb the water.
- Stage 4: The medulla. Slowly but surely, you’ve now drunk enough to get alcohol poisoning, and your brain is flooded with alcohol. The medulla controls your automatic body functions, such as heart rate, body temperature, and breathing. When alcohol reaches the medulla, a person will start to feel sleepy and begin to lose consciousness. Increased drinking can be fatal because it shuts down the medulla entirely in the fourth stage of intoxication.
Frequently Asked Questions About Alcohol Intoxication
All of this is to say that if getting drunk sounds like a form of harmless fun, think again. In some cases, getting drunk can be life-threatening. That’s because alcohol is the most dangerous drug out there. Anyone who drinks heavily should know the health risks ahead of time — as well as how to get help for an alcohol problem. Learn more about our alcohol treatment program today.
