Alcohol has been produced and consumed by humans throughout history. Alcohol has been a socially accepted factor throughout many years. It may be legal, but it is still a drug. Consuming alcohol can be a savor experience, but consuming too much can cause long term problems to the body and the developing brain. Drinking alcohol is like hiking a mountain, the higher you go up the harder it gets.
Alcohol impacts and damages everyone, but it effects everyone in a different way. The amount of alcohol you drink all depends on the persons: age, gender, height, weight, and general health. It also depends on the concentration of alcohol the person is drinking or if they had food or water in their stomach. The blood alcohol concentration (BAC) is the
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The other 80% is absorbed by the small intestine, and the heart pumps and moves the alcohol to every part of the body. The very first place alcohol targets is the central nervous system, which is formed by the spinal cord and the brain. The brain is the fastest target that alcohol gets to, so that is why people feel light headed and relaxed just after one drink.
When someone reaches ages of 20 to 25, thats when the brain is well developed. When people younger than 20 drink alcohol they cause irreversible damages to the developing brain. Once the heart pumps alcohol all over the body and reaches the cerebral cortex in the brain. Controlling our sense and inhibitory center which controls our good judgments and effects us in thinking clearly. This is when the drinker starts to become more talkative, self-confident, and less socially inhibited. If the intake of alcohol increases, it can reach the frontal lobe part of the brain. This controls; planning, forming ideas, making decisions, and using self-control. Having alcohol reach the frontal lobe may be hard to have self-control and act without thinking. Sometimes people may act violent and out of character. When people start stumbling, loosing their balance, and falling that means that the alcohol has reached the part of the brain called their cerebellum. It controls our thinking and being aware. For that reason is why people see things
The article “Adolescent Brain Development and Underage Drinking in the United States: Identifying Risks of Alcohol Use in College Populations” written by Marisa Silveri, PhD, aims to emphasize the the negative behavioral consequences with underage alcohol use. Silveri is a highly decorated professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, who has been studying the neurobiology of brain development and consequences of alcohol and drug abuse using preclinical and clinical models for two decades. Her substantial background in psychology and neurobiology make her a highly credible source, and improves the author’s chance of making the point really stick. The article is easy to follow, and split up in subcategories that each cover a specific point the author is trying to make. Professor Silveri, with great credibility, uses logic and also emotional appeal to effectively convince the reader that alcohol use affects the brain negatively, and the importance to discourage the excessive consumption of alcohol by adolescents.
Getting Stupid focuses on the mental health affects of alcohol on the teenage brain. Adolescent drinkers are more inclined to damage their brain than adult drinkers. This is because structures in the brain such as the hippocampus, which is responsible for learning and memory, and the prefrontal cortex, “which is the brains chief decision maker and voice of reason” (Wuethrich, p.59) are making a lot of adjustments during the teen years. As a result the brain does not fully develop. This has been proven by a study done with rats, conducted by Scott Swartzwelder at Duke University. The study found that the equivalent of only two beers, for adolescent rats is needed to loose memory, while the equivalent of four beers is needed to loose memory in adult ra...
Alcohol is a is a beverage that is known as a drug and it depresses the CNS. Lowering the drinking age will cause this effect to take over young adults, and this is a huge factor why the drinking age is now 21. After a couple a drinks many people will start to slur their speech, their motor ability slows down, and alcohol also causes blurry vision. We can sum up the reasons why the drinking age was raised to 21 because many people don’t really think when they are drunk on alcohol. Young adults find it fun to have sexual intercourse when they drunk which leads to pregnancy because they don’t think about condoms when they are drunk because they don’t think before they act. Alcohol also impairs vision which of many young adults end up in fatal car accident because of heavily drinking, and
Also, In a study conducted by www.cdc.gov, youth who begin drinking before the age of 15 are 15 percent more likely to develop an addiction later in life. This can be extremely dangerous, because the more you drink, the more dependent you become. It can be extremely difficult to get rid of addictions and has severe withdrawal symptoms that could be very painful. Another effect of underage drinking is low self esteem. Many teens begin drinking because they are very easily pressured by peers. This can cause them to at first feel more confident and have higher self-esteem. Soon, however, this will wear off and they may be left with a worse feeling than before. Similar to psychological disorders, alcohol abuse can lead to many social
Alcohol not broken down by the liver goes to the rest of the body, including the brain. Alcohol can affect parts of the brain that control movement, speech, judgment, and memory. These effects lead to the
Hanson, David J., Ph.D. “Drinking Alcohol Damages Teenager’s Brains.” Sociology Deprtment. n.d.. Web. 20 March 2014. .
Alcoholism affects the cerebral cortex, the thalamus (communication within the brain), the hypothalamus (releases hormones in response to stress and other stimuli), and hippocampus (the lower area of the front part of the brain, involved in learning and memory). Another brain structure is the cerebellum the base of the brain, which plays a huge role in posture and coordination and learning simple tasks ("Alcoholism and the Brain: An Overview"). As "Alcoholism and the Brain: An Overview" states that there are thousands of neurotransmitters, four neurotransmitters that are affected by alcohol, one of them is serotonin it increases in the body. A high level of serotonin affects the brain by making the body addictive to alcohol. People later become active to alcohol ...
Underaged drinking has effected many people especally those who are consuming large amounts of alcohol at an age younger than twenty-one. The government has the ability to raise not only awareness about the dangers but also can raise the drinking age nationally to a more safer age. At the age of twenty-five, not only has the brain developed correctly but it can also decrease chances of disasters and car crashes in the United States.
Alcohol is a central nervous system depressant it has a huge impact on the lives of a drinker . In small quantities, alcohol results in a mild euphoria and usually removes inhibitions, and is relatively harmless. However, when used in excess, it has the power to change many lives in many ways. Alcohol causes a lot of trouble in a lot of peoples lives not just in the drinkers life. . Some ways it effects peoples lives include alcohol poisoning and alcohol-related traffic fatalities by individuals who are problem drinkers but who are not alcohol dependent. Because alcohol has so many negative effects on a person's mental and physical health, people should avoid the consumption of it altogether.
How can alcohol affect your life? Alcohol is bad for everyone because it leads to health problems, affects the people you love, and can also ruin your life. Well, first off alcohol is one of the leading cause of death while driving and you very fortunate if the cops catch you drunk driving. Alcohol can turn you into something that you are not. I mean it totally changes you after a while like for an instance your personality, the way you think, your attitude, etc. When drinking alcohol will drastically change your life because you can end up pushing the people you love anyway. Some people also drink for a reason, almost like their drinking their problems away and it’s like they are drinking away all that glity, sorrow, and pain for something that
Alcohol is something that people use to help with multiply different things and some studies have shown that alcohol may help protect our bodies from cardiovascular disease. Alcohol does have side effects to our health the surroundings around us and can cause violence, vehicle crashes and even suicide. Alcohol does have an effect on people that many social drinkers may not realize. Many people usually have tried alcohol around 13 years of age and high school students consume more wine coolers that are sold in the U.S. and they drink more than 1 billion beers a year. To understand the effects of alcohol, it begins with the brain. It is a curiosity as to why people feel the need to drink and drive. The way the brain works while influenced with alcohol has always fascinated me. Drinking and driving is one of the biggest decisions that alcohol leads to. The National Public Services Research Institute (NHTSA) did a study on 600 people who admitted driving while under the influence of alcohol. They described in detail the decisions they made leading up to the occurrence of driving while impaired like whether to take part in a drinking event, how to get to the event, how much to drink, and how to get home. The people being interviewed revealed more than 2,000 individual decisions that led to alcohol impaired driving. The decisions were then broken down into several categories as shown on the graph attached. Little is known as to what leads people to continue to drinking and driving. But as research shows, people do think, prior to drinking, how they will get home. It’s after they have already had been drinking that they decide to get behind the wheel.
Alcohol has many terrible effects on a person’s health. Alcohol affects many different parts of the body, but first of all, alcohol affects the brain. A person’s brain is very important, it shows how someone thinks, makes decisions, and controls their body. According to National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and
middle of paper ... ... Alcohol consumption needs to be taken seriously and always in moderation. It has not only short-term effects, but long-term ones as well. Alcohol can lead to serious problems with the central nervous system, blood, muscles, the liver, and more.
There is too much stimulus in that can shape our actions Some might say mo, we are not responsible, because when intoxicated, people do not know what they are doing. The brain is the main part of the Central Nervous System and is the responsible organ of making decisions; it processes information gathered through the five sense and also has a part that makes sure that vital life processes, like breathing. The central nervous system is very sensitive, so when alcohol touches the CNS cells, they change, resulting changes in the person’s behavior. Many people are not able to produce 'alcohol dehydrogenase' which is an enzyme on our bodies to break down alcohol. Someone who is not able to produce these enzymes can get easily drunk with just a minimum amount of alcohol.
Not much is known about how alcohol develops the adolescent brain but it can be concluded that a variety of negative side effects will be attached. Research shows that brain development continues well into a person’s twenties (National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, "Underage Drinking”). Alcohol can affect this development, and contribute to a range of problems.