What Happens To Your Body When You Drink Alcohol
Table of Contents
You are at your best friend’s birthday party and you have promised your friend that you’re drinking till you drop. You start with a couple of tequila shots, maybe a Kamikaze and a pitcher of beer to keep the high going. You happily comment. “This is fun” but at the same time, your body is going through a whole other process and has probably screamed “You’re making a huge mistake” about a million times.
This article is a spokesperson for all the bodies which have screamed in agonizing pain and its sole purpose is to try and give you an insight on what is actually happening inside your body when you’re happily getting wasted.
0-10 minutes: The moment the alcohol reaches your stomach, your body knows that it’s party time! The alcohol starts to travel quickly (as quickly as you took those 2 shots of Tequila) and is absorbed into your bloodstream making its way to your brain and your muscles.(This explains the nonsensical yet deep talk about comets and your moves like Jagger on the dance floor.)
Very soon, your body realizes that it is not really party time and alcohol is indeed a poison and therefore, it starts figuring out a way to break it down in order to release it out of your system at the earliest.
**10-20 minutes:**Your body is now working really hard to eliminate the alcohol or at least change it into substances that aren’t harmful to it. Your stomach takes the leap of faith and starts producing an **enzyme called alcohol dehydrogenase which turns the liquor into Acetaldehyde.** Acetaldehyde is that toxic substance which brings out the #YOLO person in you and also brings along tomorrow’s headache (Yes, Hangover!) **The remaining alcohol breaks down into acetyl acid and fatty acids which are sorta kinda useful to your body compared to alcohol.**
**20-45 minutes:** This is the part where you whisper “I feel a lil’ buzzed” in your best friend’s ear. The alcohol starts to affect the neurotransmitters, signaling the brain that it’s time to greenlit the physical and emotional rollercoaster.**Physically, you might start feeling dizzy, lightheaded, drowsy, numb and a million other things and emotionally, you might just say “Guys! I have a confession.”** This is just a teaser of the feature film that’s coming up.
45-60+ minutes: This is what you’ve been waiting for. Now, you can finally stand up on a chair with your best friend and scream, “We made it!” The alcohol in your blood starts rising to its peak level. Because alcohol is a diuretic, it starts taking a toll on your kidneys and bladder releasing more and more liquid from your body which is the reason why you keep disappearing for pee breaks. The multiple pee breaks then lead to dehydration which explains why you keep tossing and turning throughout the night and the reason why you have a bad hangover the next day.
Physically, you can range from ‘sitting in a corner and smoking a cigarette’ to ‘dancing with the DJ’ and emotionally, you can range from “I love my all my friends” to “Friends, no one loves me.”
After a couple of hours, your body is totally exhausted and you fall flat on the bed. When you wake up, due to dehydration, your body decides to pay you back in the form of dizziness, tremors, headaches, thirst (in short, a hangover). Over the span of 24 hours, 2 cups of coffee, one unwanted meal, a couple hours of improper sleep and 2 bottles glasses of water, your body finally starts returning to its normal state.
You look in the mirror and promise that you will never let this happen again but deep inside the #YOLO person in you knows that it’s one big fat lie.
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