Alcohol and its effects on adolescents
Alcohol diminishes the sense of responsibility, makes us more imprudent and can elevate aggression. Most boys and girls who drink alcohol do so because it helps them relate to others, or they use it to celebrate happy times or overcome sad ones.
Children and adolescents absorb alcohol more quickly than adults and their livers metabolize it less effectively. The adolescents themselves recognize that they do not drink socially, as adults usually do, but to take the punctuation or get drunk.
Drinking alcohol, attraction for the forbidden
Adolescence and preadolescence is the time in which the person grows and develops physically, psychologically, emotionally and socially. It is a dynamic period of renewal and continuous changes, an authentic hormonal revolution and a storm of contradictory feelings. It is considered an unstable emotional and nutritional stage, with strong attraction for what is considered prohibited, dangerous and susceptible to risk. The psychic vulnerability of the adolescent is very influenced by the media on trends, fashions, music, diets, refreshing or alcoholic beverages, which influence behavioral, nutritional and lifestyle behavior patterns.
Alcohol and social relationships
Most of the boys and girls who drink alcohol at parties or bottles, and do so because it helps them relate to others, or use it to celebrate happy times or overcome sad ones. When you become intoxicated with alcohol, it is obvious to everyone, even if you insist on screaming to ensure that he is not drunk. That does not hold up the next morning, when you suffer a terrible headache, you have bloodshot eyes, sweating, nausea, tremors, memory loss and the extreme symptoms of the diuretic effect of alcohol.
Alcohol, unlike other drugs such as marijuana and LSD, has the virtue of giving us numerous signs of the damage it is causing. Initially, alcohol can make the world a better place; After a while, however, the sedative effects win the battle to the stimulants and the pleasant effects are canceled.
A symptom of poisoning: the hangover
Acetaldehyde is a poison. It acts as a cellular irritant and in high concentrations causes damage, spilling into the bloodstream and traveling to the brain, where it interferes with the amino acids in the brain that act as neurotransmitters. The varied symptoms of acetaldehyde poisoning are known by everyone as a hangover. Persistent poisoning by this substance causes the liver cells to function poorly: some die and are replaced with fat and fiber. This is cirrhosis of the liver.
The most recent studies on the effect of alcohol show that over time, ethanol reduces the metabolic activity of the brain. It directly depresses the neurons of the respiratory center in the brainstem, reducing oxygen uptake and making breathing less efficient. When oxygen levels in the blood become progressively poorer, the first stage is euphoria. Then comes sedation, drowsiness, sleep, insensibility, coma and, sometimes, death. As the sense of responsibility diminishes, it makes us more imprudent and can elevate aggression; Intoxication is potentially a threat to life, especially when it comes into play with testosterone, the male hormone of aggression.
Other effects of alcohol
1. Slow functioning of the central nervous system. Alcohol is a depressant, which means it slows down the functioning of the central nervous system. In fact, it blocks some of the messages that try to reach the brain, altering the perceptions, emotions, movements, sight and hearing of a person. Alcohol reduces our reaction time by 10% to 30%. What happens is simply that the messages take more time to get from our eyes to the brain. The processing of information becomes more difficult and the orders to the muscles do not circulate so fast. In addition, it reduces the ability to do two or more tasks at a time and the ability to see distant objects.
2. Night vision can be reduced by 25% and blurred vision, double vision, or peripheral vision may be lost. On the other hand, alcohol causes us to have a false sense of security, of overconfidence and that everything is controlled, so that people who drink are the ones who put themselves at the most risk. Young people also have a lower tolerance to alcohol, which makes the risk curve dramatically worse when drinking more than the bill.
3. Increase the chances of getting fat. Likewise, adolescents who drink are also more likely to gain weight or suffer from health problems.A study conducted by the University of Washington revealed that people who normally consumed five or more alcoholic beverages, one after the other, from age 13, were more prone to overweight or hypertension at the age of 24, than those who They did not drink alcohol. People who continue to drink a lot of alcohol during adulthood are at risk of damaging organs such as the liver, heart or brain.
Alcohol affects women more
Alcohol has a low molecular mass. It dissolves easily in water, but less in fat. Once it is consumed, alcohol is distributed throughout the body's water. Women, who have less muscle mass and more adipose tissue than men, have less water in the body to dissolve alcohol, so it stays in the bloodstream in higher concentrations than would a man of the same weight.
A British medical association showed that a pitcher of beer raises the blood alcohol level to a minimum of 60 mg. in men, but up to over 135 mg. in the women. When ingested orally, it is rapidly absorbed into the bloodstream from the stomach and small intestine and travels directly to the liver, where most of it is broken down into acetaldehyde. If six drinks are taken in an hour, one of them becomes acetaldehyde in the liver, while the other five will splash like ethanol in the blood.
Ana Aznar
Advisor: Alcohol and Society Foundation
