Though traditionally considered a depressant, alcohol actually has a wide spectrum of contradicatory effects. It may depress or stimulate, tranquilize or agitate. Medically alcohol was long prescribed as a tonic, a sedative and a soporific. Its traditional role in medicines has now been taken over by barbiturates, minor tranquilizers and other sedatives and hypnotics.

Alcohol is a clear colorless liquid found in beer, wine and liquor. Ethyl alcohol or ethanol is used for human consumption. Some drinks have more alcohol than others. Beer has the least amount, wine has more than twice that of beer, and liquor has the highest content of all- up to eight times that of beer. When alcohol is consumed it goes directly into the stomach.

Alcohol does not need to be digested. It goes straight from the stomach to intestines into the bloodstream. From there, it is carried to every portion of the body. The liver is then responsible for eliminating the alcohol from the body. It does this changing the alcohol into water and carbon dioxide. It takes the liver about one hour to process the alcohol from one drink.

A person gets drunk or intoxicated by drinking alcohol faster than the liver can dispose of it.Alcohol addiction is utterly destructive to the human mind and similarly destructive to the human body. Over use can lead to irreversible brain and liver damage. Most people know that alcohol can cause headache and vomiting. But alcohol can also hurt the heart, the liver, the kidneys, the brain, and the stomach. It can cause loss of memory and some kind of cancer.

When a pregnent woman drinks alcohol, it is passed on to the developing fetus. This often can lead physical or mental problems with the child.Alcohol is significant factor in the ?battered child or spouse? syndromes. In a high percent age of cases where some one is beaten so severely that hospitalization is required or death ensures, the prepetrator was drunk at the time. The relationship between alcohol and suicide is also very high.