ACTION CLINIC

The most widely used drug in the world is not aspirin, nor penicillin, nor any other substance prescribed by doctors. The drug is a colorless, very volitile liquid known to chemists as ethanol, or ethyl alcohol, but to everybody else it is simply alcohol.

Alcohol has been produced and consumed by man since before the daun of civilization. All subsequent civilizations produced alcohol, as early as 3000 8.C. before the existance of monetary systems, it was used as payment for labor, goods and services. Every country in the world today, including the ones in which alcohol is forbidden, consumes a large amount of the drug. Americans use dome 400 million gallons a year (equivelent to about 270 quarts of 4.6% beer or over 50 pints of 100 proof whiskey)

for every person over 16.

Alcohol's actions work directly on the brain, which controls the body's other activities. It is a depressant, not a stimulant as is commonly believed. Alco hol, unlike true stimulants, such as caffeine or amphetamine, retards rathor than accelerates the brain's control mechanisms. Depending on the dosage, it can cause mild or severe mental disorga nization, loss of muscle control (such as slurred speech and staggering guit), sleep, coma and even death.

The effects of alcohol become noticable in the drinkers behavior at an .05 per cent concentration in the blood. At 10 per cent, loud or slurred speech become obvious with some loss of equilibrium; and in most states the drinker is presumed legally intoxicated; at .20 par cent, he will be staggering: at .30 he may be unable to stand. At .40 per cent he will probably be unconcious. A feu drinkers have managed to pass this last point, often with fatal results. A few years ago a man boasted he could drink 17 martinis in less than an hour. which he did but the 17th proved to be his last drink, for he dropped dead after susllowing it.

The results of a dose of alcohol depend on the speed with which it reaches the blood stream. The route followed by al-

cohol is indirect, it is swallowed and reaches the blood stream by way of the stomach. There, part of it passes into the blood vessals of the stomach wall. How much is absorbed, and how fast, de-

6/JUNE ACTION 1982

DRUGS

pends on hou diluted the alcohol is. glass of bear (4 per cent alcohol) or a dilute highball (10 to 20 per cent) are absorbed much much more slowly than of straight whiskey (43 per cent). Food also slows this passage particularly proteins and fats, thich being least easily digested remain in the stomach longest, along with any alcohol mixed in with them. Potatoes and bread have the capacity to absorb large amounts of fluids and also slow the release of alcohol to the blood stream.

Carbon dioxide, however, speeds up the passage of alcohol into the blood. It is CO2 that gives champagne it's extra kick and makes whiskey with carbonated mixers more potent than whiskey with water.

EBEVERAGE

amicale that become incorporated into when consumed in moderate amounts. Desalcoholic beverages during their manuspite preachnents of prohibitionists, ffacture. The congeners in drinks are there is no proof that a lifetime of listed in the table below. noderate indulgance interferes with normal health. The habitual use of large amounts of the drug, however, is not only harmful to the personality, but it also causes physical damage in the form of cirrhosis, destroys liver cells, usually occurs in longtime heavy drinkers and is believed to be caused by alcohol.

PER CENT ALCOHOL

PER CENT CONGENERS

.004

.003

.048

.095

.111

EGIN, 90 Proof VVODKA, 80 Proof RRUM, 80 Proof SSCOTCH, 86 Proof RRYE, 86 Proof BBRANDY (COGNAC) BBOURBON, 86 Proof 43

.212 .246

a disease that

Even in moderate doses, alcohol can lead to serious and occasionally lethal effects when taken in combination HHangovers are blaned on both alcohol with certain other drugs, such as bar eand congeners. But congeners have been biturates and tranquilizers. The drugs pparticularly implicated by studies, as like alcohol, are depressants, so they those of Dr. Henry 8. Murphree. When have an additive effect when combined. the gave one group of volunteers drinks Normally this is not serious; a person sspiked with congeners and found that taking barbiturates or a depressant tthese people exhibited more hangover tranquilizer who then begins drinking changes in the brain that may be permassymptoms than did those given similar will simply get drunk more quickly. nent. In the words of a standard text, "the finer grades of discrimination, of But if an evening of heavy drinking is followed by the drunken gulping of

Prolonged use of alcohol produces some

memory, concentration and insight are dulled and then lost. Confidence, though, abounds, and speech may become eloquent and occasionally brilliant. Mood swings are uncontrolled, and emotional outbursts frequent."

When an individual starts drinking the liver immediately starts neutralizing alcohol about one fourth ounce each hour, therefore drinking a half a shot or half pint of beer per hour a person can drink indefinitely without getting drunk. But an intake even slightly exceeding the liver's capacity will, sooner or later, build up to intoxication.

Once alcohol leaves the body, its after effects are few. The disconforts of even the most nonumental hangover are only partly caused by the drug alcohol. The most common symptom fatigue has the same cause as any other kind of fatique: overactivity. Alcohol, though it does not banish fatigue, blocks off the sind's awareness of it, so the drinker continues carousing well past the point at which he would otherwise succumb to exhaustion and sleep. On sobering up ho feels tired because he is tired. The

pounding hangover headache is partly a result of fatigue but also of changes in brain fluid brought on by alcohol. Many hangover symptoms are due to the various cho"congeners" in alcohol-

ddrinks with feuer congeners.

UUnlike many drugs, alcohol does not produce cumulative changes in the body sleeping pills, the two drugs together may produce a fatal dose.

(corner of kenmore & lakeshore blvds]

AS A THANK YOU TO OUR CUSTOMERS

JUNE 11th & 12th

THERE WILL BE A MINI SHOW AT MIDNIGHT

THERE IS NO COVER CHARGE

FOR THIS SHOW

AIR CONDITIONED

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Disco DISCO BALLROOM

WATCH FOR OUR DANCE FLOOR EXTENSION

WEDNESDAY: SPECIAL DRINK PRICES THURSDAY:

SPECIAL BEER PRICES

25¢ HOT DOGS

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OPEN SEVEN NIGHTS A WEEK

OLD PLANTATION 419 KENMORE BLVD.

216-375-5275

JUNE ACTION 1982/ 7