Alcohol Explained

by William Porter

When the drinker reaches this stage, one drink will have virtually no beneficial effect at all and will leave the drinker feeling more uptight and insecure than had they not drunk at all. This is because their bodies are so used to alcohol being imbibed to a fairly high level whenever it is imbibed, that the first drink will simply send the signal that an onslaught of booze is incoming, and the reaction to that one drink will be a high flow of the stimulant designed to counteract far more than the one drink they have actually consumed, leaving the drinker feeling worse off than had they had nothing. So it is not just the case that one drink causes a feeling of relaxation that disperses, leaving a corresponding feeling of anxiety that needs continual topping up, but that for many people that one drink does nothing at all other than cause them to want several more. You start to need several drinks to obtain the feeling of relaxation and calmness that used to be obtained from one drink. This is why, as our drinking progresses, we tend to drink stronger drinks, larger measures, more quickly, or most usually a combination of all three.