How Much Is Too Much?

ALCOHOL can be good or very bad. It can make you glad or very sad. It depends on where it goes and how much gets there. A little wine can be good for your stomach and make your heart glad. (1 Timothy 5:23; Psalm 104:15) Too much can make you miserable all over​—and make those around you miserable too!

In moderation, a cocktail, wine, or beer can relax you and temporarily relieve anxiety, raise your spirits, and make you a more sociable companion. It may even offer some protection from heart attacks, since it relieves stress and raises your HDLs (high-density lipoproteins). But even small amounts of alcohol slow your reflexes, so it is unwise to drive a car after even moderate drinking. And it is loaded with calories, so it is not very compatible if you have a weight problem.

Let’s follow your cocktail as it travels through your body. It does not tarry long in an empty stomach, and in the intestines the alcohol quickly passes into the bloodstream. The blood carries it to the liver, where it is broken down and excreted, thus removing it from the bloodstream. In this way the liver can handle in an hour the alcohol in one cocktail, one glass of wine, or one can of beer.

Drink more than that in an hour, and the alcohol remains in the blood and is carried to the brain. There, a little can make you more sociable, too much may make you obnoxious. If five hundredths of one percent of your total blood volume is alcohol, you will be tipsy; ten to fifteen hundredths will make you officially intoxicated. Toxic is in that word “intoxicated” and means poisons are in your body.

Now, what does this excess of alcohol do as it travels through your system? First stop is your stomach. There it can erode the mucous coating that protects the lining of your stomach from stomach acid. It can also make your stomach produce more acid.

Alcohol takes water out of your body cells. Excessive amounts of alcohol dehydrate the liver cells and eventually destroy them, resulting in cirrhosis. The damaged liver can no longer supply sufficient sugar to the bloodstream, opening the way for hypoglycemia. It becomes less and less efficient in removing alcohol from the blood. Then the alcohol goes throughout the body, dehydrating and killing cells everywhere. The arteries are constricted, less blood flows to the heart, and its muscles are weakened.

When the alcohol reaches your brain, it dehydrates the brain cells and interferes with the generation of electric messages. When the alcohol leaves your system, the brain cells regain their water. Drinking excessive amounts over a long period of time, however, can impair intelligence and memory. Brain size diminishes as cells are destroyed, and IQ drops permanently.

Heavy drinking may cause men to develop female characteristics. Men produce both male and female hormones, but the liver eliminates the female ones. A damaged liver, however, lets them remain. Heavy drinking makes pregnant women more likely to miscarry or deliver a stillborn. If the baby is born alive, there is special risk of birth defects.

For pregnant women and alcoholics, any drinking is too much. For men and women generally, moderate drinking allows only small quantities of alcohol to reach the brain. Several drinks in a short period of time are too much for anyone. One drink for the alcoholic is one too many.

The conclusion of the matter: A little wine for the sake of your stomach, but not too much for the sake of your liver, your heart, and your brain​—and for the sake of those around you.