Judgment – The mental faculties are the first to be affected by drinking. Alcohol levels as low as,02% (well under the legal limit in many states) can lessen the capacity to reason, making it difficult to plan ahead or respond appropriately to one’s immediate surroundings.
- 0.1 What is the first thing that gets affected by alcohol?
- 1 What is the third thing alcohol affects?
- 2 When did the first person get drunk?
- 2.1 How long does it take for alcohol to exit the system?
- 2.2 What are the 4 main effects of alcohol?
- 3 Is there a safe amount of alcohol?
- 4 Does eating a lot of food before drinking help keep a person from getting drunk?
- 5 Who was the most drunk person in the world?
What is the first thing that gets affected by alcohol?
When you drink alcohol, you don’t digest alcohol. It passes quickly into your bloodstream and travels to every part of your body. Alcohol affects your brain first, then your kidneys, lungs and liver. The effect on your body depends on your age, gender, weight and the type of alcohol.
What effect does drinking alcohol have on a driver?
As a driver, you should be aware that alcohol can impair your driving. For example, using alcohol can make you tired and affect your concentration, which reduces your ability to drive safely. You also need to be aware of how long it takes for alcohol to leave the body.
What is the third thing alcohol affects?
2.22.1 – Alcohol and Driving – Figure 2-22 Drinking alcohol and then driving is very dangerous and a serious problem. People who drink alcohol are involved in traffic accidents resulting in over 20,000 deaths every year. Alcohol impairs muscle coordination, reaction time, depth perception, and night vision.
It also affects the parts of the brain that control judgment and inhibition. For some people, one drink is all it takes to show signs of impairment. How Alcohol Works. Alcohol goes directly into the blood stream and is carried to the brain. After passing through the brain, a small percentage is removed in urine, perspiration, and by breathing, while the rest is carried to the liver.
The liver can only process one-third an ounce of alcohol per hour, which is considerably less than the alcohol in a standard drink. This is a fixed rate, so only time, not black coffee or a cold shower, will sober you up. If you have drinks faster than your body can get rid of them, you will have more alcohol in your body, and your driving will be more affected.
A 12-ounce glass of 5% beer. A 5-ounce glass of 12% wine. A 1.5-ounce shot of 80 proof liquor.
What Determines Blood Alcohol Concentration? BAC is determined by the amount of alcohol you drink (more alcohol means higher BAC), how fast you drink (faster drinking means higher BAC), and your weight (a small person doesn’t have to drink as much to reach the same BAC).
Alcohol and the Brain. Alcohol affects more and more of the brain as BAC builds up. The first part of the brain affected controls judgment and self-control. One of the bad things about this is it can keep drinkers from knowing they are getting drunk. And, of course, good judgment and self-control are absolutely necessary for safe driving.
As BAC continues to build up, muscle control, vision, and coordination are affected more and more. Effects on driving may include:
Straddling lanes. Quick, jerky starts. Not signaling, failure to use lights. Running stop signs and red lights. Improper passing.
See Figure 2.23. These effects mean increased chances of a crash and chances of losing your driver’s license. Accident statistics show that the chance of a crash is much greater for drivers who have been drinking than for drivers who have not. Figure 2-23 How Alcohol Affects Driving. All drivers are affected by drinking alcohol. Alcohol affects judgment, vision, coordination, and reaction time. It causes serious driving errors, such as:
Increased reaction time to hazards. Driving too fast or too slow. Driving in the wrong lane. Running over the curb. Weaving.
What does alcohol do to body temperature?
Medically Reviewed by Carmelita Swiner, MD on November 04, 2021 Alcohol can affect your body in different ways, depending on how much you drink. In general, experts say it’s OK to have up to one drink a day if you’re a woman or two if you’re a man. Overdo it, and you raise your odds for short-term risks like falls and car crashes. If you drink heavily for a long time, alcohol can affect how your brain looks and works. Its cells start to change and even get smaller. Too much alcohol can actually shrink your brain. And that’ll have big effects on your ability to think, learn, and remember things. Alcohol’s slow-down effect on your brain can make you drowsy, so you may doze off more easily. But you won’t sleep well. Your body processes alcohol throughout the night. Once the effects wear off, it leaves you tossing and turning. You don’t get that good REM sleep your body needs to feel restored. Alcohol irritates the lining of your stomach and makes your digestive juices flow. If enough acid and alcohol build up, you get nauseated and you may throw up. Years of heavy drinking can cause painful sores called ulcers. It can also lead to irritation of the lining of the stomach, called gastritis. our small intestine and colon get irritated, too. Alcohol throws off the normal speed that food moves through them. That’s why hard drinking can lead to diarrhea, which can turn into a long-term problem. It also makes heartburn more likely because it relaxes the muscle that keeps acid out of your esophagus, the tube that connects your mouth and stomach. Your brain helps your body stay well-hydrated by producing a hormone that keeps your kidneys from making too much urine. But when alcohol swings into action, it tells your brain to hold off on making that hormone. That means you have to go more often, which can leave you dehydrated. When you drink heavily for years, that extra workload and the toxic effects of alcohol can wear your kidneys down. Your liver breaks down almost all the alcohol you drink. In the process, it handles a lot of toxins. Over time, heavy drinking makes the organ fatty and lets thicker, fibrous tissue build up. That limits blood flow, so liver cells don’t get what they need to survive. As they die off, the liver gets scars and stops working as well, a disease called cirrhosis. Normally, this organ makes insulin and other chemicals that help your intestines break down food. But drinking too much alcohol jams that process up. The chemicals stay inside the pancreas. Along with toxins from alcohol, they can cause inflammation in the organ over time, which can lead to serious damage. That cotton-mouthed, bleary-eyed morning-after is no accident. Alcohol makes you dehydrated and makes blood vessels in your body and brain expand. That gives you your headache. Your stomach wants to get rid of the toxins and acid that alcohol churns up, which gives you nausea and vomiting. One night of binge drinking can jumble the electrical signals that keep your heart’s rhythm steady. If you do it for years, you can make those heart rhythm changes permanent and cause what’s called arrhythmia. And alcohol can wear your heart out. Over time, it causes heart muscles to droop and stretch, like an old rubber band. Alcohol widens your blood vessels, making more blood flow to your skin. That makes you blush and feel warm and toasty. But not for long. The heat from that extra blood passes right out of your body, causing your temperature to drop. On the other hand, long-term heavy drinking boosts your blood pressure. You might not link a cold to a night of drinking, but there might be a connection. Alcohol puts the brakes on your body’s defenses, or immune system. Your body can’t make the numbers of white blood cells it needs to fight germs. So for 24 hours after drinking too much, you’re more likely to get sick. Long-term heavy drinkers are much more likely to get illnesses like pneumonia and tuberculosis. These powerful chemicals manage everything from your sex drive to how fast you digest food. To keep it all going smoothly, you need them in the right balance. But drinking alcohol may have an impact. For example, some studies suggest that moderate alcohol drinking can affect fertility for some women. Alcohol impacts your hearing, but no one’s sure exactly how. It could be that it messes with the part of your brain that processes sound. Or it might damage the nerves and tiny hairs in your inner ear that help you hear. However it happens, drinking means you need a sound to be louder so you can hear it. Heavy drinking can throw off your calcium levels. Along with the hormone changes that alcohol triggers, that can keep your body from building new bone. Your bones get thinner and more fragile, a condition called osteoporosis. Alcohol also limits blood flow to your muscles and gets in the way of the proteins that build them up. Over time, you’ll have lower muscle mass and less strength.
What is the first thing affected by your drinking quizlet?
Alcohol affects brain function and sensory perception directly, with judgment being the first to go. Things like distance and speed perception become much more difficult.
When did the first person get drunk?
(Image credit: Minerva Studio/Shutterstock.com) Human ancestors may have begun evolving the knack for consuming alcohol about 10 million years ago, long before modern humans began brewing booze, researchers say. The ability to break down alcohol likely helped human ancestors make the most out of rotting, fermented fruit that fell onto the forest floor, the researchers said.
- Therefore, knowing when this ability developed could help researchers figure out when these human ancestors began moving to life on the ground, as opposed to mostly in trees, as earlier human ancestors had lived.
- A lot of aspects about the modern human condition — everything from back pain to ingesting too much salt, sugar and fat — goes back to our evolutionary history,” said lead study author Matthew Carrigan, a paleogeneticist at Santa Fe College in Gainesville, Florida.
“We wanted to understand more about the modern human condition with regards to ethanol,” he said, referring to the kind of alcohol found in rotting fruit and that’s also used in liquor and fuel. To learn more about how human ancestors evolved the ability to break down alcohol, scientists focused on the genes that code for a group of digestive enzymes called the ADH4 family.
- ADH4 enzymes are found in the stomach, throat and tongue of primates, and are the first alcohol-metabolizing enzymes to encounter ethanol after it is imbibed.
- The researchers investigated the ADH4 genes from 28 different mammals, including 17 primates.
- They collected the sequences of these genes from either genetic databanks or well-preserved tissue samples.
The scientists looked at the family trees of these 28 species, to investigate how closely related they were and find out when their ancestors diverged. In total, they explored nearly 70 million years of primate evolution, The scientists then used this knowledge to investigate how the ADH4 genes evolved over time and what the ADH4 genes of their ancestors might have been like.
- Then, Carrigan and his colleagues took the genes for ADH4 from these 28 species, as well as the ancestral genes they modeled, and plugged them into bacteria, which read the genes and manufactured the ADH4 enzymes.
- Next, they tested how well those enzymes broke down ethanol and other alcohols.
- This method of using bacteria to read ancestral genes is “a new way to observe changes that happened a long time ago that didn’t fossilize into bones,” Carrigan said.
The results suggested there was a single genetic mutation 10 million years ago that endowed human ancestors with an enhanced ability to break down ethanol. “I remember seeing this huge difference in effects with this mutation and being really surprised,” Carrigan said.
- The scientists noted that the timing of this mutation coincided with a shift to a terrestrial lifestyle.
- The ability to consume ethanol may have helped human ancestors dine on rotting, fermenting fruit that fell on the forest floor when other food was scarce.
- I suspect ethanol was a second-choice item,” Carrigan said.
“If the ancestors of humans, chimps and gorillas had a choice between rotten and normal fruit, they would go for the normal fruit. Just because they were adapted to be able to ingest it doesn’t mean ethanol was their first choice, nor that they were perfectly adapted to metabolize it.
They might have benefited from small quantities, but not to excessive consumption.” In people today, drinking in moderation can have benefits, but drinking in excess can definitely cause health problems, experts agree. Scientists have suggested that problems people have with drinking, such as heart disease, liver disease, and mental health problems, result because humans have not evolved genes to sufficiently process ethanol.
Similarly, humans have not evolved genes to handle large amounts of sugar, fat and salt, which, in turn, have given way to obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure and many other health problems. One model for the evolution of alcohol consumption suggests that ethanol only entered the human diet after people began to store extra food, potentially after the advent of agriculture, and that humans subsequently developed ways to intentionally direct the fermentation of food about 9,000 years ago.
Therefore, the theory goes, alcoholism as a disease resulted because the human genome has not had enough time to fully adapt to alcohol. Another model suggests that human ancestors began consuming alcohol as early as 80 million years ago, when early primates occasionally ate rotting fermented fruit rich in ethanol.
This model suggests that the attraction to alcohol started becoming a problem once modern humans began intentionally fermenting food because it generated far more ethanol than was normally found in nature. The new findings support this model. In the future, Carrigan and his colleagues want to investigate what the ethanol content of fallen fruit might be, and find out whether apes, such as chimpanzees or gorillas, are willing to consume fermented fruit with varying levels of ethanol.
- We also want to look at other enzymes involved in alcohol metabolism, to see if they’re co-evolving with ADH4 at the same time,” Carrigan said.
- The scientists detailed their findings online today (Dec.1) in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
- Follow us @livescience, Facebook & Google+,
Original article on Live Science, Stay up to date on the latest science news by signing up for our Essentials newsletter. Charles Q. Choi is a contributing writer for Live Science and Space.com. He covers all things human origins and astronomy as well as physics, animals and general science topics.
What is the effect of alcohol on the skills and abilities?
Consuming alcohol before or during the hunt increases the risk of incidents because it impairs coordination, hearing, vision, communication, and judgment. Drugs can have a similar effect. If you have to take prescription medicine, check with your physician to see if it’s safe to take while hunting. Because you can drink faster than your system can burn the alcohol off, there is an increasing level of alcohol in your blood. This level is referred to as Blood Alcohol Concentration (BAC).
How long does it take for alcohol to exit the system?
How long alcohol stays in your system depends on a number of factors. A big concern that many people have after a long night of drinking is how long alcohol will remain in their system. It takes time for alcohol to be processed by the body. On average, it takes about one hour to metabolize one standard drink.
Blood : Alcohol is eliminated from the bloodstream at about 0.015 per hour. Alcohol can show up in a blood test for up to 12 hours. Urine : Alcohol can be detected in urine for up 3 to 5 days via the ethyl glucuronide (EtG) test or 10 to 12 hours via the traditional method. Hair : Similar to other drugs, alcohol can be detected in a hair follicle drug test for up to 90 days.
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What are the 4 main effects of alcohol?
Long-Term Health Risks – Over time, excessive alcohol use can lead to the development of chronic diseases and other serious problems including:
- High blood pressure, heart disease, stroke, liver disease, and digestive problems.6,16
- of the breast, mouth, throat, esophagus, voice box, liver, colon, and rectum.6,17
- Weakening of the immune system, increasing the chances of getting sick.6,16
- Learning and memory problems, including dementia and poor school performance.6,18
- Mental health problems, including depression and anxiety.6,19
- Social problems, including family problems, job-related problems, and unemployment.6,20,21
- Alcohol use disorders, or alcohol dependence.5
By not drinking too much, you can reduce the risk of these short- and long-term health risks.
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention., Accessed April 19, 2022.
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- U.S. Department of Agriculture and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.9th Edition, Washington, DC; 2020.
- Esser MB, Hedden SL, Kanny D, Brewer RD, Gfroerer JC, Naimi TS., Prev Chronic Dis 2014;11:140329.
- World Health Organization., Geneva, Switzerland: World Health Organization; 2018.
- Alpert HR, Slater ME, Yoon YH, Chen CM, Winstanley N, Esser MB., Am J Prev Med 2022;63:286–300.
- Greenfield LA., Report prepared for the Assistant Attorney General’s National Symposium on Alcohol Abuse and Crime. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, 1998.
- Mohler-Kuo M, Dowdall GW, Koss M, Wechsler H., Journal of Studies on Alcohol 2004;65(1):37–45.
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- Wechsler H, Davenport A, Dowdall G, Moeykens B, Castillo S., JAMA 1994;272(21):1672–1677.
- Kesmodel U, Wisborg K, Olsen SF, Henriksen TB, Sechler NJ., Alcohol & Alcoholism 2002;37(1):87–92.
- American Academy of Pediatrics, Committee on Substance Abuse and Committee on Children with Disabilities.2000., Pediatrics 2000;106:358–361.
- Rehm J, Baliunas D, Borges GL, Graham K, Irving H, Kehoe T, et al., Addiction.2010;105(5):817-43.
- International Agency for Research on Cancer. Personal Habits and Indoor Combustions: A Review of Human Carcinogens, Volume 100E 2012. Available from:,
- Miller JW, Naimi TS, Brewer RD, Jones SE., Pediatrics.2007;119(1):76-85.
- Castaneda R, Sussman N, Westreich L, Levy R, O’Malley M., J Clin Psychiatry 1996;57(5):207–212.
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- Leonard KE, Rothbard JC., J Stud Alcohol Suppl 1999;13:139–146.
What is the first thing to be affected by alcohol is muscle control vision judgment?
The first part of the body affected by alcohol is the brain, particularly the part of the brain that allows you to think clearly and make good decisions. The second part of the body affected by alcohol is muscle control– including the small muscles in the eye!
What are 7 factors that affect alcohol consumption?
What happens when you drink an alcoholic beverage? Although alcohol affects different people in different ways, in general, it is quickly absorbed from your digestive system into your blood. The amount of alcohol in your blood reaches its maximum within 30 to 45 minutes, according to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA).
- Alcohol is metabolized — that is, broken down chemically so it can be eliminated from your body — more slowly than it is absorbed.
- You can become more intoxicated as you drink more alcohol than is eliminated, which will result in an increase in your blood alcohol level.
- A standard drink is considered to be 12 ounces of beer, 5 ounces of wine, or 1.5 ounces of 80-proof distilled spirits — all of these contain the same amount (approximately 15 grams or 1/2 ounce) of alcohol.
Genetics, body weight, gender, age, what type of beverage, food in your stomach, medications in your system, and your state of health, influence how people respond to alcohol.
Why do I feel cold when drunk?
Slowed Circulation – Alcohol is a depressant which means it slows down our entire system. It slows down circulation, which prevents oxygen from getting to the brain. This is why people die suddenly from drinking too much alcohol ; their breathing becomes suppressed, their circulation slowed, and their brain becomes starved of oxygen.
- A slower circulatory system also means that the blood is kept from making it to and warming extremities.
- In cold weather, we want to keep as much blood pumping to our hands and feet as possible in order to prevent frostbite and damage to our extremities.
- In any cold weather, a person who drinks alcohol will feel warm at first, but before long will cool off quickly.
They may notice that their hands and feet get especially cold. In extreme cold, people are advised not to drink alcohol, as it can slow circulation and cool the body enough to cause serious damage.
Can black coffee sober you up?
Can Drinking a Lot of Hot, Black Coffee Help You Sober Up After Drinking a Lot of Alcohol? This question has been discussed by everyone from college students to respected scientists, probably for generations. Like many medical myths there is some “truth” to this notion.
- However, UAMS’ Department of Emergency Medicine says it’s important to know that coffee cannot reverse the effects of alcohol.
- Coffee cannot ‘sober you up.’ It does not get rid of alcohol from the system.
- If you have an alcohol level above the legal limit, you can drink all the coffee you want and the alcohol level will not magically fall faster than it would have if you had not drunk the coffee.
That said, there must have been some effect produced by the coffee that has led people to believe that there is an effect. This has been extensively studied, and it appears that the effect is due to a partial reversal of the sedating effect of the alcohol.
Persons who were below the legal limit for driving were tested, with and without coffee. They appeared to perform better on tests of concentration after the coffee than before. To learn more about the personalized care provided by our doctors using state-of-the-art equipment and technology, please visit our medical services section.
: Can Drinking a Lot of Hot, Black Coffee Help You Sober Up After Drinking a Lot of Alcohol?
Is there a safe amount of alcohol?
No level of alcohol consumption is safe for our health The risks and harms associated with drinking alcohol have been systematically evaluated over the years and are well documented. The World Health Organization has now published a statement in The Lancet Public Health: when it comes to alcohol consumption, there is no safe amount that does not affect health.
Does eating a lot of food before drinking help keep a person from getting drunk?
– Everyone absorbs alcohol at a different rate. Women, young people, and people who are smaller tend to absorb alcohol more quickly than men and people who are older and larger in body size. Your liver health will also affect the rate at which your body processes alcohol.
But eating also plays a big role in how your body handles alcohol. Alcohol is most quickly absorbed by the small intestine. The longer alcohol stays in the stomach, the slower it is absorbed and the slower it affects the body, Food prevents alcohol from passing quickly into your small intestine. When there is food in your stomach before drinking, alcohol is absorbed more slowly.
When you drink on an empty stomach, much of the alcohol you drink passes quickly from the stomach into the small intestine, where most of it is absorbed into the bloodstream. This intensifies all the side effects of drinking, such as your ability to think and coordinate your body movements.
Why do we enjoy alcohol?
Introduction – Behind only tobacco use and obesity, alcohol use is the third most common lifestyle-related cause of death in the United States ( Mokdad et al., 2004 ). People like to drink alcohol because of its ability to alter emotional states. Alcohol induces euphoria, relaxation, and disinhibition while reducing stress and anxiety.
Consistent with human self-report, animal studies also suggest that alcohol produces a rewarding as well as an anxiolytic effect ( Coop et al., 1990 ; Blanchard et al., 1993 ; Spanagel et al., 1995 ; Da Silva et al., 2005 ). Although its euphoric and stress-reducing effects have been known for centuries and are intuitively understood, how alcohol changes the function of human brain circuits has been explored only sparingly.
Where might alcohol recruit circuitry that regulates positive affect leading to euphoria? A critical area of interest is the ventral striatum (VS), which is recruited by reward-predictive stimuli ( Knutson et al., 2001 ; Bjork et al., 2004 ). A variety of primary rewards activate this circuit, including fruit juice and water ( Berns et al., 2001 ; O’Doherty et al., 2002 ; Pagnoni et al., 2002 ; McClure et al., 2003 ), as well as secondary rewards such as praise and money (for review, see Knutson and Cooper, 2005 ).
Similarly, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies have shown striatal activation in response to drugs of abuse such as cocaine ( Breiter et al., 1997 ) and nicotine ( Stein et al., 1998 ). Although there have not yet been fMRI studies of the action of alcohol on reward circuits, positron emission tomography (PET) studies demonstrate increased striatal glucose metabolism or blood flow in response to alcohol ( Wang et al., 2000 ; Boileau et al., 2003 ; Schreckenberger et al., 2004 ).
Accordingly, the mesocorticolimbic reward circuit is important in the development and maintenance of addiction ( Koob et al., 1998 ). How might alcohol affect circuitry that governs negative affect to decrease anxiety? Alcohol-mediated anxiolysis may result from disruption of threat detection circuitry.
- The amygdala in particular is critical in an attention allocation circuit that is recruited by stimuli that signal the requirement for an immediate behavioral response, such as fight or flight ( LeDoux, 2003 ; Fitzgerald et al., 2006 ).
- Alcohol intoxication increases the incidence of aggression and social risk taking ( Giancola and Zeichner, 1997 ; Corbin and Fromme, 2002 ; Giancola et al., 2002 ), perhaps by disrupting the amygdala-mediated differentiation between threatening and nonthreatening stimuli.
Decreased differential response may increase approach while decreasing avoidance, thus facilitating social interaction. The current study was designed to characterize the response of the brain to alcohol intoxication and emotional stimuli, and is the first fMRI study to examine acute pharmacological effects of alcohol on the neural circuitry underlying emotion.
Who was the most drunk person in the world?
The Greatest Drunk on Earth: Andre the Giant Some amazing man or woman, past or present, who stands colossus-like atop the Big Keg, the ground below littered with crushed empties and the blacked-out carcasses of lesser beings? A verging demigod, whose prowess with a bottle leaves you shaking your head in pop-eyed adoration? Lots of us do.
In addition to their wrist-raising abilities, we deify great drinkers because they indulge their lust for intoxication while simultaneously operating at the peak of their powers in whatever their chosen profession. In other words, great drunks are also great writers, actors, athletes, scientists, statesmen, philosophers, and so on.
I have a favorite drunkard. He was an athlete—a professional wrestler in fact—but he was also a gifted entertainer and a true artist. His parents named him Andre Rene Rousimoff, but we knew him as The Eighth Wonder of the World, Andre the Giant. For two decades, from the late 1960s through the mid 1980s, Andre the Giant was the highest paid professional wrestler in the business and a household name across the globe.
Promoters fought tooth and nail to book Andre, as his presence on a card all but guaranteed a sell-out. Fans cheered his every move, and mobbed him on the street as if he were a great big Beatle. For proof of his drawing power, look no further than Wrestlemania III in 1987. The main event was Andre vs.
Hulk Hogan. The show drew the first million-dollar gate in wrestling history, set a pay-per-view record that lasted a decade, and set the all-time indoor attendance record for any live event ever —78,000+ butts in seats at the Pontiac Silver Dome in Detroit—destroying the previous record set by some rock band called the Rolling Stones. While it can be argued that a miniscule handful of professional wrestlers matched Andre’s in-ring achievements (Gorgeous George back in the ‘40s and ‘50s, perhaps; Dusty Rhodes in the ‘70s, and Hulk Hogan, without a doubt, in the ‘80s), no other wrestler ever matched his exploits as a drunkard.
In fact, no other human has ever matched Andre as a drinker. He is the zenith. He is the Mount Everest of inebriation. As far as great drunkards go, there is Andre the Giant, and then there is everyone else. The big man loved two things: wrestling and booze—mostly booze—and his appetites were of mythic proportion.
First, consider the number 7,000. It’s an important number, and a rather scary one considering its context, which is this—it has been estimated that Andre the Giant drank 7,000 calories worth of booze every day. The figure doesn’t include food. Just booze.7,000 calories.
Every day. I don’t know about you, but it makes my brain turn somersaults. Hell, it makes my brain perform an entire floor routine, complete with colored ribbons. When Andre arrived in New York to begin his long working relationship with the McMahon family, his reputation as both a serious student of the nightlife and an extravagant spender was already a topic of speculation and wonder among East Coast wrestlers and promoters.
Andre might make $15,000-$20,000 for a single appearance at Madison Square Garden, and a substantial amount of that went to settling the bar tabs he piled up as he boozed his way up and down Manhattan until sunrise. Andre’s generosity matched his size.
He often invited a gang of fellow wrestlers along for the ride, as he disliked drinking alone, and picked up some truly staggering tabs. Andre was going to have a good time and went out of his way to make sure everyone else did too. Worried about his headliner, Vince McMahon Sr. assigned a “handler” to the Giant—long-time wrestler, manager, and road agent, Arnold Skaaland, whose only job when Andre was in town was to keep him out of serious trouble and get him to the arena in time to wrestle.
Skaaland was an old-school drinker in his own right, but Andre blew his mind. On one occasion he could only watch goggle-eyed as Andre went about demolishing a dozen or so quarts of beer as a “warm-up” for a match. With Skaaland on the job, Vince Sr. knew Andre was in capable hands, but the promoter still worried about how the Giant would cope with the insane amount of travel required of a wrestling superstar.
Andre loathed flying—no commercial airliner could accommodate such a massive man without resorting to the luggage compartment—and his opinion of most cars wasn’t much sunnier, because aspects of his disease caused intense pain in his knees, hips and lower back when he remained too long in a cramped position.
When a tight schedule left a plane or car as the only option, Andre eased his discomfort by getting good and hammered. Vince Sr. pondered the situation and arrived at a novel solution. He wanted to keep the big man happy, so he bought a trailer and had it customized just for Andre.
- With plenty of room to spread out and relax, Andre could now travel in a semblance of comfort, which allowed him to do some serious boozing.
- During trips Andre consumed beer at the incredible rate of a case every ninety minutes, with bottles of vodka or top-rate French wine thrown in for variety.
- Sadly, the trailer wasn’t available outside the WWWF territory; Vince Sr.
wasn’t about to do the competition any favors. Andre didn’t expect other promoters to pony up a trailer just for him, so he commissioned a customized Lincoln Continental. With the front seat now positioned about where the back seat would normally be, Andre had a little leg room.
He carried his luggage and wrestling gear in the trunk and towed his necessities in a trailer. Lined with plastic tarps, the rickety trailer was filled with ice and cases of Budweiser tallboys. As he cruised the nation’s highways, Andre kept a case on the seat beside him, stopping only for food, more ice, and another case or two if he ran low.
As famous as Andre was in this country, he was even bigger in Japan. He spent a few months out of every year over there, where he was treated like a living god and pocketed five-figure payoffs for a single night’s work. That being said, Andre didn’t really like Japan.
- Everything was too small.
- Hotel beds were like bassinets and it was all but impossible for him to shower or go to the bathroom in their Lilliputian facilities.
- He was known to rip the door off his hotel bathroom and make use of the toilet by sitting sideways with his legs sticking out into the main room.
Getting from show to show presented its own problems. Japanese promoters preferred to transport the gaijin wrestlers by bus, vehicles which steadfastly refused to house giants. In order to placate their star import, promoters removed several rows of seats from the back of the bus, creating something of a private cabin for Andre, a place spacious enough for him to stretch out or catch a nap.
- Mostly, though, Andre used the space as a comfortable spot to do his drinking.
- A very green rookie wrestler named Hulk Hogan toured Japan several times with Andre and witnessed the Giant’s alcohol consumption first hand.
- According to Hogan, Andre drank, at a minimum, a case of tall boys during each bus ride.
When he finished a can Andre would belch, crush the can in his dinner-platter-sized hand, and bounce the empty off the back of Hogan’s head. Hogan learned to count each thunk, so he could anticipate when Andre was running low. Whenever the bus stopped, it was Hogan’s job to scamper off to the nearest store, buy as many cases of beer as he could carry, and make it back before the bus departed, a sight that never failed to make Andre roar his bassoon-like laugh.
On one tour, Andre’s Japanese sponsors rewarded him with a case of expensive plum wine. Andre settled down in the back of the bus and started drinking. Four hours later, the bus arrived at the next venue, and Andre was polishing off the last bottle of wine. Sixteen bottles of wine in four hours is a considerable feat, but it gets better.
Andre proceeded straight to the ring and wrestled three matches, including a twenty-man battle royal. The 16 bottles of plum wine had no discernible effect on Andre’s in-ring ability. By the end of the evening, Andre had sweated off the wine and found himself growing cranky.
- He dispatched Hogan for a few cases of beer.
- Hogan hurried to do as Andre asked, knowing from painful experience that a drunken Giant was a happy Giant, and a happy Giant was less likely to fracture some vital part of an opponent’s anatomy in a fit of grumpiness.
- In 1977, “The American Dream” Dusty Rhodes wrestled Andre at Madison Square Garden.
Afterwards, the old friends went out on the town. They adjourned to one of Andre’s favorite watering holes and took stools at the bar (Andre occupied two). Several hours and some 100 beers later (around 75 of them were Andre’s), they decided to head back to their hotel.
Andre looked at taxis with the same scorn as most other conveyances and announced that he and Dusty would walk, which was problem because Dusty was having trouble maintaining a vertical position. Andre studied the situation, and a twinkling grin blossomed across his huge face. People who spent any time with the big man quickly learned to watch for that grin.
It was a harbinger of danger. It meant that Andre was contemplating something risky, something with potential legal ramifications, but also, most assuredly, something fun. A moment later, the two huge wrestlers attacked a pair of horse-drawn carriages.
- Dusty threw a handful of paper money at one driver while Andre hauled the other from his seat with one hand.
- While one driver cursed and the other scrabbled around on the ground collecting his windfall, Andre and Dusty thundered off in the carriages.
- They raced through the Manhattan streets, dodging cars and pedestrians for fifteen blocks before ditching the carriages and lathered horses a block from their hotel.
By the time the cops arrived, Andre and Dusty were enjoying snifters of brandy in the hotel bar, appearing as innocent as angels. The next day, they main-evented another card at the Garden. Another sell-out. Two pros at the top of their games. Another time, in the ‘70s, Andre was holding court at a beach-front bar in the Carolinas, boozing it up with fellow wrestlers Blackjack Mulligan, Dick Murdoch, and the inimitable Ric Flair.
- They’d been drinking with gusto for hours when Flair goaded Mulligan and Murdoch into some slap-boxing with Andre, who had poured over 60 beers down his gullet.
- One of the two “accidentally” sucker-punched Andre.
- The Giant became enraged, grabbed both Mulligan (6’5″, 250 lbs.) and Murdoch (6’3″, 240 lbs.) and dragged them into the ocean, one in each hand, where he proceeded to hold them under water.
Flair intervened, and Andre released the men, assuring them he was only playing around. Murdoch and Mulligan, who had nearly drowned, weren’t so sure, but neither messed with Andre the Giant again. They also picked up the tab. On another occasion, Andre was touring the Kansas City territory and went out for drinks after a show with Bobby Heenan and several other wrestlers.
When the bartender hollered last call, Andre, slightly annoyed, announced that he didn’t care to leave. Rather than risk an altercation with his hulking customer, the bartender told Andre he could stay only if he was drinking, imagining, surely, that he would soon be rid of the big fella. Andre thanked the man, and proceeded to order 40 vodka tonics.
He sat there drinking them, one after another, finishing the last at just after five in the morning. When ill health forced Andre to largely quit wrestling in the late ‘80s, he accepted the role of Fezzik in Rob Reiner’s movie The Princess Bride. Everyone on the set loved the big man, with the possible exception of Reiner himself.
Ever the sociable fellow, he kept fellow cast members Mandy Patinkin and Carey Elwes out night after night, drinking and otherwise goofing around. The actors were incapable of matching Andre’s intake, but certainly gave it a serious try. As a result, they often showed up on set still loaded or suffering from the sort of hangovers that make death seem a pleasant alternative.
Reiner tried to get Andre to leave the actors alone, but Andre could only be Andre, and the other cast members continued to pay the price. The shooting schedule required Andre to be in England for about a month. When his part wrapped, Andre checked out of his suite at the Hyatt in London and flew back to his ranch in North Carolina.
- His bar bill for the month-long stay? Just a shade over $40,000.
- Now, if everything I’ve described so far isn’t proof enough that Andre the Giant was the greatest drunkard who ever lived, these last two stories should set my claim in granite.
- You won’t find it in the Guinness Book of World Records, but Andre the Giant holds the world record for the largest number of beers consumed in a single sitting.
These were standard 12-ounce bottles of beer, nothing fancy, but during a six-hour period Andre drank 119 of them. It was one of the few times Andre got drunk enough to pass out, which he did in a hallway at his hotel. His companions, quite drunk themselves, couldn’t move the big man.
- Fearing trouble with cops, they stole a piano cover from the lounge and draped it over Andre’s inert form.
- He slept peacefully until morning, unmolested by anyone.
- Perhaps the hotel people thought he was a piece of furniture.
- Think about it: 119 beers in six hours.
- That’s a beer every three minutes, non stop.
That’s beyond epic. It’s beyond the ken of mortal men. It’s god-like. Giants are not made long for this world, and toward the end of his life injuries and health problems caused by the acromegaly caught up with Andre. It became difficult just to walk, let alone wrestle, so he retired to his North Carolina ranch to drink wine and watch the countryside.
- He declined myriad requests for a comeback, despite promises of lavish payoffs.
- He was simply in too much pain to perform at the level he demanded of himself.
- Then he received a call from Vince McMahon Jr.
- McMahon was in the midst of taking his WWF promotion national.
- He’d scored big-time with his Wrestlemania events on pay-per-view, and as Wrestlemania III approached, Vince Jr.
was hot to make it the biggest thing yet. To make that happen, he needed Andre the Giant. Andre was in France visiting his ailing father when the call came. He thanked Vince Jr. but said there was no way he could get back in a ring, even though he very much wanted to.
- Not willing to give up, Vince Jr.
- Flew to France to speak with Andre in person.
- He took Andre to see doctors specializing in back and knee maladies.
- Radical back surgery was proposed.
- If successful, the procedure would lessen Andre’s pain and perhaps make it possible for him to get in the ring for Wrestlemania.
If Andre was game, Vince Jr. agreed to pay for the entire cost of the surgery. The time arrived, and the anesthesiologist was frantic. He had never put a person of Andre’s size under the gas before and had no idea how much to use. Various experts were brought in but no solution presented itself until one of the doctors asked Andre if he was a drinker.
Andre responded that, yes, he’d been known to tip a glass from time to time. The doctor then wanted to know how much Andre drank and how much it took to get him drunk. “Well,” rumbled the Giant, “It usually takes two liters of vodka just to make me feel warm inside.” And thus was a solution found. The gas-passer was able to extrapolate a correct mixture for Andre by analyzing his alcohol intake.
It was a medical breakthrough, and the system is still used to this day. Five months later, Andre the Giant wrestled a “body-slam” match against Hulk Hogan and brought down the house. Two liters of vodka. Warm and fuzzy. Side by side like that, the two sentences hardly make any sense.
For most of us, two liters of vodka means a one-way ticket to Blackout Island aboard the good ship Regurgitania, After Wrestlemania, Andre retired for good. His beloved father died in 1993 and Andre returned to France to be with his family. He was still there when, on January 26th, 1993, Andre died in his sleep of heart failure at the age of 47.
The key to Andre the Giant is this — even as a youth he knew that his disease would dramatically shorten his life. He knew there was no cure, and lived every day with the understanding that death could shamble around the very next corner. Knowledge of this sort can darken a life.
It did not darken Andre’s. He chose instead to pack his days with as much insane, drunken fun as they could hold. Instead of languishing in the darkness, he chose to walk in the sun. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again now. Andre the Giant was an inspiration. I would pay a fortune for the opportunity to go back in time 30 years to watch such a master practice his craft, in the ring and at the bar.
Andre the Giant was the very embodiment of what being a drunkard is all about. —Richard English (Note: The Author is indebted to the works of Brian Solomon, Ric Flair, Terry Funk, “Superstar” Billy Graham, Dave Meltzer, Bobby “The Brain” Heenan, and Hulk Hogan.)
Does alcohol get burned first?
2. Alcohol is used as a primary source of fuel – There are also other elements that can cause weight gain outside of calorie content. When alcohol is consumed, it’s burned first as a fuel source before your body uses anything else. This includes glucose from carbohydrates or lipids from fats.
How fast does alcohol reach the brain?
Alcohol in Your Body – Alcohol affects your body quickly. It is absorbed through the lining of your stomach into your bloodstream. Once there, it spreads into tissues throughout your body. Alcohol reaches your brain in only five minutes, and starts to affect you within 10 minutes.
After 20 minutes, your liver starts processing alcohol. On average, the liver can metabolize 1 ounce of alcohol every hour. A blood alcohol level of 0.08, the legal limit for drinking, takes around five and a half hours to leave your system, Alcohol will stay in urine for up to 80 hours and in hair follicles for up to three months.
“Intoxication occurs when alcohol intake exceeds your body’s ability to metabolize alcohol and break it down,” states Jeffrey T. Johnson, DO, Northwestern Medicine Regional Medical Group board-certified specialist in addiction medicine.