How much drink is too much

yes, a very nice tipple. Local brewed but im sure it gets around...

 

I second felixes point and wish to add to it slightly.

The goverments advice about not exceeding the 4 units is advice that is to cover anyone. This includes the 9st skinny computer technitions.

The ability to tolerate alcohol is based on 4 main factors:

1) Primarily Genetics, Alcohol has been arround for such a long period of time it has been involved in our evolution. If you are Polish you will have a significantly higher resiliance to alcohol than someone who is chinese.

2) Self generated resistance, If your body is used to being poisioned (alcohol is technically toxic, but not poisionous) the body will be more efficient at removing any toxins.

It is like your muscles, if you lift a heavy weight, it will damage your muscles, they will reinforce themselves. This is one of the reasons the goverment advises ou drink one glass of red wine per day (redwine also contain anti-oxidants which prevent cancer)

3) Body mass. Alcohols toxicity is related to the concentration. If you weigh 18st you can in theory drink twice as much as a similar 9 st person. This is primarily down to water concentration. If you have alot of mucle that will help. as will fat but not as much. If you are fit you can drink more too.

4) The source of Alcohol: An earlier thread had the right idea but from the wrong direction. Alcohol itself is not that toxic and is not the primary cause of hangovers!
The goverment simplifies problems so the great unwashed can understand.

A highly distilled vodka like Absolut contains just alcohol and water. Scrumpy contains ethyl-alcohol, propanol, formaldehyde, methanol, and a large variety of oils and other toxins. Theese are not all added, they natully occur!

Basic chemistry tells you add sugar to yeast and you get alcohol, do you really think yeast is that specific?

Simply put if I drink 15 units of Absolut and drink a pint of water before bed i will wake up feeling better than if I had not drunk it (helps you sleep)

If i drink 15 units of scrumpy I will be down for days!

If you want to cause as little damage to your body as possible go for the purer alcohol. You can ESTIMATE this by the colour.

The lighter the colour the less impurities. Guinnes is an exception, as is cider. Guinnes is not worse than a normal beer. Scrumpies alcohol is created by yeast AND the bacteria in the skins of the apples, which is how they get so high alcohol! The bacteria produces a whole world of filth which will make you very sick.

To sumerise as a 17st half polish guy who runs every day and drinks vodka I will be able to drink MUCH more than a scrumpy drinking asian computer geek.

If anyone is interested in the evolution aspect please ask it is a very interesing short story.

 

P.S. I am glad to say there is finaly a thread here I know something about =-)
P.P.S. Sorry about the typos, learning to touch type here!
P.P.P.S. I worked my way through uni in bars, I loved serving Butcome....I never made one joke about "good head" and the taste of "but cum"

 

well considered and thought out post, peter, but you forget that with the colour, some companies do add colourings.
boddingtons afaik is shed loads of chemical
clarifying agents, colourings, heading agents, have you seen the head, that is NO WAY natural.
I doubt I would feel well after drinking 15 units of absolute.

One rough rule of thumb I heard was 1 unit per hour if you are driving ,I never go abouve 1/2-1 pint if driving anyway.

there is something to do with going to the toilet, too, can't recall it.my judo instructor drinks cider like a fish, and hasn't been caught yet, its only a matter of time, plus he was drinking with pancreatitis, and still does, nearly killed him, I thoght this jap philosophy was supposed to bring wisdom

 

If you suddenly developed a bleeding stomach ulcers and required emergency surgery would you rather be operated by a 17st pure breed Polish surgeon who have 20 pints for dinner or a 10st pure Chinese surgeon who had 2 pints?

 

So thats why my hangovers dont seem as bad as my mates' hangovers then.....

 

Neither, but I wouldnot have a problem of a polish guy operating on me after a pint, but would if a asian guys had any alcohol in him.

Alcohol was one of the last factors in the evolution of man.

It is down to one simple fact waterpurity.

cholera and other waterborn bateria have been killing thousands of people in the last few milenia.

Two methods were created to overcome this, The western method and the easten method.

In asia they worked out if you boiled water before drinking it you did not die as often as if you had drunk the water straight from the stream. They then added leaves to this to make it taste nice (tea)
Simply put tea drinking was a majar blow to water born bacteria.
As tea was mre popular than alcohol in asia the fact that the alcohol killed the bacteria aswell did not promote the alcohol drinkers over the tea drinkers. Probably means asian peopla are more resistant to caffine.

Europe had a less simple solution. They mixed their water with yeast, flour and sugar and made beer!

People who were sensetive to this new drink and got sick from it would not choose to drink it. theywould drink the stream water instead. then they would die, not breeding.

The people who liked the taste and did not get the hangovers would not drink the streamwater and not die. they would then share their genetic code arround (as most beer drinkers try after a few pints)

This meant the people who could tolerate the alcohol would become more common withevery generation. They would be more likely to interbreed and evolution was born.

This is why Europeans on average could drink your average asian underthe table.

Now the reason the poles and russians have higher tolerances is simple. Water would freeze in the winter and people would die of thirst and cold defrosting it. Vodka does not freeze so easily. This meant in the middle of winter Vodka was the only liquid, so they drunk that. People who could tolerate it evolved, the rest died!

To summerise.
Asia found two ways of preventing water poisioning, some evolution would occur but not neccersarily in the direction of the alcohol.

Europeans only found one method of avoiding death, the people who were good at it evolved, the rest died.

Cold climates had to drink stronger drinks than warmer climes so evolved faster.

Any questions?

 

On a second note aabout the drink driving issue. Significantly more people crash due to tiredness behind the wheel as opposed to alcohol.

I occasionally drink and drive (not a heavy amount of drink, but over the limit) If i can feel the effects of alcohol I WILL NOT GET BEHIND THE WHEEL. If i feel the effect while driving, i pull over and sleep it of in the car.

I have only once had a near accident while over the limit and I was very tired at the time. 5am, a sheep ran out infront of my landrover. I was doing 70. If i had been awake i would have kept straight, dropped a gear and floored it. Flatten the ****er.
As I was tired and inebriated I swerved, almost rolled the car for the sake of something that was going to morrisons anyway.

I have had MANY near accidents while driving as a result of tiredness. MANY.

The police were discussing bringing out a co-ordination tester as opposed to a breathaliser. I fully promote this act, this detects the imparement of ability not the POSSIBLE cause.

 

One pint?


I presume you are refering to the different levels of alcohol dehydrogenase in people of different nationalities.

http://www.healthatoz.com/healthatoz/Atoz/ency/pharmacogenetics.jsp

 

going back to petes good post - when you do see a chinese person drink, they do tend to get flush quickly too...!

 

Are you likely to be offered a choice?

 

Sorry, but I cannot understand why people even have the discussion about how much is safe to drink before you drive.

It's a bit like arguing about how sharp an instrument must be to cut skin, and then sharpening it to that level and running it across your throat. But not before testing it on your family. And another random family or two.

And I do agree that tiredness behind the wheel kills (not sure of Peter's source regarding the relative numbers, but I won't argue the point as I have no numbers myself). I don't drive when tired either, though obviously it's harder to measure as 8 hours sleep doesn't guarantee you won't be tired in the same way as no alcohol guarantees you won't be drunk. Generally if I have a rotton night's sleep I'll work from home rather than make the 30 mile commute. You can't escape the necessity of judgement in that situation.

 

Sorry, kind of strayed from my point a little there.

The point is that tiredness you have to judge. You cannot completely remove the doubt.

Impaired judgement due to alcohol can be 100% avoided by not drinking any.

And just because tiredness is a bigger killer (apparently) doesn't mean we should just ignore all other probable causes of road accidents.

 

Peter your understanding of alcohol is flawed.

Most everyone who takes it upon them selves to drink a large quantity of Vodka most deffo does not feel good in the morning, your argument is to simplistic.

And of course a hang over is not the only outcome of alcohol consumption, I would dread to think of the count in someones liver after a night on vodka.

 

http://www.cdc.gov/genomics/hugenet/ejournal/alcohol.htm

Here is a reason. It appears it is due to the high level of aldehyde dehydrogenase some of our friends have. I suppose if some one feels 'ill' after a tiny amount of alcohol then you are likely to stop drinking well before you allows your brain to be pickled.

 

I think my liver must have suffered last night, I was on a university night out and alcpops were on offer and stupid prices, people kept buying them for me, I had 8 of the things plus to pints of cider, all in the space of three hours. I drank lots of water when I got back and felt fine today.

Even so my liver would not have liked it, its the last time I will drink that much so quickly it was just a one off last university night thing.

 

The only time I've really gone OTT with vodka was on a night out with my cousin, when I had a dozen vodka and limes (he was drinking pints of lager). Though very drunk by the time I got home, I had no hangover the next day, though still felt a bit 'floaty' till about teatime. As it only happened the once I reckon my liver didn't suffer too badly

Compare and contrast the 'morning after' effect of ten pints of bitter consumed during a works' leaving do, when I was very ill indeed for a couple of days.

 

Be cafeul Penance, A mate of mine had had a few pints. so being responsible he rode his bike on the grass verge. A policeman told him to get off the bike and ride it on the road, to which he replied he had been drinking. He got done drunk in charge of a bicycle, and 12 month ban from riding a bike.

 

Thing is how are the police gonna inforce that eh?

 

They have an officer dedicated to following him around 24-7. Couldn't have a dangerous criminal like him left unsupervised...