Who Gets Drunk & Why

Drunkometers and other gizmos favored by highway police say that a man is drunk if his breath or blood shows a certain concentration of alcohol. But some men and women get reeling drunk on a couple of drinks while others can swig a fifth and not show it. Also, a man who has been putting away half a dozen highballs every evening for years without batting an eyelash may suddenly find himself getting the staggers after one cocktail. Why?

Some of the reasons, writes Dutch-born Psychiatrist Joost A. M. Meerloo in Postgraduate Medicine, are physical and general. In a crowded, unventilated room there is less oxygen to burn the alcohol in the blood, so the effects of two or three drinks pile up and may make even a seasoned drinker drunk. There is also lower oxygen tension at high altitudes, so drinking is risky in the mountains or in unpressurized airplanes (Dr. Meerloo is not sure about pressurized cabins). In the humid tropics the easy burning of alcohol may cause "an uneasy feeling of congestion" and give the drinker a lower tolerance.

Dr. Meerloo accepts the popular view that drinking on an empty stomach is risky; food slows the absorption of alcohol into the blood (but fruit, which produces alcohol during digestion, aggravates the problem). He also gives some support to the gagsters who insist that it isn't the whisky in a highball that does the damage but the soda--carbonation, he says, speeds the passage of alcohol through the stomach and into the blood.

Then there are individual and highly variable reactions. A man who has had brain concussion cannot tolerate alcohol for a long time afterward. Others cannot tolerate it if they have taken antihistamine or ataractic drugs. It is not that the drugs themselves are dangerous, but that individuals with abnormal sensitivity react dangerously. Steady use of barbiturates is a more predictable peril, says Dr. Meerloo: it makes the midbrain more sensitive to the intoxication of chronic alcoholism, and many alcoholics, far from being put to sleep by barbiturates, become wildly excited after taking them.

Inconsistent sensitivity to alcohol in a supposedly normal individual may be an aftereffect of infectious disease, Dr. Meerloo notes. Or it may follow exhaustion or starvation. A probable precipitant is the combination of a potent cocktail with some protein (just what, no one knows) in the canapes. Battle fatigue and anxiety neurosis have been shown to make victims react violently to a soothing drink or drugs. In several cases that Dr. Meerloo has seen, he suspects that intense fear altered the subjects' metabolism completely. It may be, he suggests, that any kind of stress, including the fear of getting drunk and looking ridiculous, increases the danger that it will happen.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.