Don't drink yourself helpless in beer gardens. You speak and don't know what you say. You fall and break your neck and no one helps you. Your drinking companions say "Away with this drunkard." Egyptian temperance tract 1000BC
The guy who removes cigarette butts from the urinal also puts the ice in your drinks.
Alcohol use began when prehistoric people accidentally discovered fruit or berry mash left in warm dark corners fermented with airborne yeast. Distilling developed in Europe in the 1400s, producing "spirits of wines". Early beverages conserved nutrients. Modern refining of old recipes to increase quantity conserves few nutrients. Alcohol is a prime source of nonnutritional calories. Alcohol has no curative powers but was used for centuries for sedation and pain relief. Alcohol in religious services since antiquity saluted gods and with sacred drink received "divine" powers producing respectability in secular life and celebrations. Alcohol was used more excessively then because clean drinking water was unavailable. In 1619 Virginia passed its first drunk laws. Benjamin Franklin's Drinker's Dictionary published in the Pennsylvania Gazette Jan 6 1737 listed 230 names for drunkards. Intemperance - alcoholism - was first recognized as a disease in the 1785 essay "Effects of Ardent Spirits" by Declaration of Independence signer Benjamin Rusk, the first physician general in Washington's Continental Army.
Arctic highs
You probably know you shouldn't drink alcohol on a really cold day because it makes you feel warmer but it delays shivering, a normal method of generating body heat. Alcohol also gives a false sense of confidence which can lead to doing foolish things. It's a diuretic, reducing blood volume. While dangerous at moderately low temperatures alcohol still has benefits under arctic conditions: it protects against rapid heartbeat that usually appears after exposure to very low temperatures and against tissue freezing at polar temperatures.
Alcohol is a depressant, not a stimulant. Relaxation, pleasure and stimulation derive from alcohol's depressant effects on the central nervous system. Wine before meals stimulates appetite by causing secretion of gastric juices. Too much wine irritates gastric linings. Alcohol, increasing heart rate and blood pressure, decreases the heart's pumping power and causes an irregular EKG. Blood vessels in muscles constrict while those at the surface expand, causing flushing. Heat is lost as body temperature decreases and limbs become numb, producing a false sense of warmth. Alcohol absorbs slowly if diluted such as with food. The faster alcohol is swallowed the faster it accumulates and peak Blood Alcohol Content (BAC) is reached. Alcohol metabolizes at a constant rate. With food, alcohol is absorbed slower, takes longer to reach peak BAC. Alcohol's empty calories decrease appetite for food, causing malnutrition. Alcohol decreases food absorption.
Drinking alcohol increases tolerance. Alcohol reaches the liver through the bloodstream faster in women, having less of the enzyme metabolizing alcohol so more alcohol enters the bloodstream. Alcohol tolerance occurs when more enzymes are produced to metabolize it faster. Cross tolerance to other drugs such as anesthetics increases when sober, decreases when not. Muscle weight (not fat) decreases BAC. Cirrhosis of the liver is a common cause of alcohol related deaths, second only to traffic accidents. Alcohol causes brain damage by interfering with thiamine absorption. Interaction of alcohol with drugs especially barbituates kills by respiratory and circulatory failure. Cancer risk increases when alcohol is used with tobacco. Time is the only disposal of alcohol. Coffee, showers, fresh air are myths. After years of alcohol use you can't remember anything new. Diagnosis of alcoholism only applies to people with specific symptoms of alcohol addiction. Alcoholism is not a symptom of other diseases.
A single drinking binge by a pregnant woman permanently damages her unborn child's brain. Children born to drinking mothers have learning disabilities and other brain disorders. Alcohol-related neurological damage is worst when developing brain cells furiously build connections needed for memory, learning and thought.
The Grim Reaper leads a "living dead" student from class in a DUI prevention program. Every 15 minutes in the U S somebody dies as a result of a DUI accident. For each student taken, an obituary was read and a rose put on his/her desk.