How Alcoholism Works

twenty twenty. Nice job. You just use multiplications, right, But like I said when I first sat down, it doesn't even have a fark sound. So how good of a noise machine could it be? How does it not? It's got a burp? I mean they make sound machines. They just have that sound. Well, yeah, it's called a whoopie cushion. Yeah, I don't know if that's a machine though probably not. Okay, device, I don't think I said this stuff you should know in case you hadn't figured it out. Well, someone just

stumbled upon this and they're horrified. They turned it off a good minute ago. Yeah, and we're gonna talk about alcoholism and there's nothing more fun than that, right, This one should be a laugh riot. Right, Well, you can definitely perk things up with your little noise machine over there. I wouldn't do that. Uh, so alcoholism, Chuck turns out, in researching this, um, we should say, let us shout out to some previous episodes that really tie into this totally.

We did prohibition. Colin turns out America really loves to drink. That was one episode we did addiction, Yeah, good one. Uh. And we did one on rehab yep, another good one. Um. Yeah. And then if you want to count like beer, yeah, the booze ones or I think we did one on moonshine, we did one on and Whiskey Runners. Do we do one on Whiskey Runners? We ended up doing like two somehow on Whiskey Runners. Yeah? What else? Oh, I'm sure there are others, but I think the ones on addiction

and rehab definitely factor in. Indeed so um. In running across this though, I was reminded that yes, America loves drinking, the world does, but not necessarily. I saw a statistic that blew me away. Sixties six percent of the human beings over age. I believe fifteen worldwide have not had a drink in the last twelve months, according to a

major survey like World Health Organization Type level survey. I don't remember where I saw it because I saw so many different statistics here there, but like, the majority of the population of the Earth has not had a drink in the last twelve months. Interesting. Yeah, I thought that was interesting too. And of course there's entire countries that are basically teetotally, yeah, And there are entire countries that are drunk, right, so, UM in America is definitely one

of them. Right, America loves to drink. We drink very regularly. At other countries, they don't drink necessarily during the week, but they really plow into it on the weekends. UM, and all of this falls, it turns out, falls under this umbrella called UM. Alcohol use disorders, binge drinking, alcohol abuse, and alcoholism three different things they are. Although you could say that binge drinking is a type of alcohol abuse,

it's a behavioral pattern drinking behavior UM. But yes, alcohol abuse is not necessarily alcoholism, and neither has binge drinking. Alcoholism is its own thing. Yeah, alcohol abuse is if you are drinking, if there's a problem with your drinking. Um, it's affecting your school, your work, your personal life, your family, your friends. You could be an alcohol abuser. Um. Alcoholism is a chronic disease where you are physically dependent on alcohol.

You need to drink, You've got to have that drink. Once you start drinking, you have a hard time stopping. You develop a tolerance for drinking, so you need to drink more. And if you stop drinking, you suffer withdrawal symptoms. That's alcoholism, right, And you suffer withdrawal symptoms because, like you said, you've become physically dependent on it. And we'll talk about how in this episode. But yes, alcohol abuse, that just means you need to get your your act

together big time. Sure. Alcoholism a chronic disease. Yeah, it means you need medical help. And and beyond medical help psychological help, you need treatment. Yeah. You're probably not going to be able to do it on your own now, and with alcohol abuse you may need treatment as well. Everyone's different. Uh yeah, Yeah. I don't think we should chase people away from seeking treatment alcohol abusers and not

necessarily alcoholics. I think probably if you're a serious abuser of alcohol, you probably feel like an alcohol like in a lot of ways. Yeah. I mean, if you woke up this morning and you don't remember where you were last night for five hours, abuser of alcohol, you may want to you know, check into that a little bit,

or you may not. Well, yeah, and it depends. I think a lot of people think that, um, if they if they are an abuser of alcohol, that they have to just stop entirely for the rest of their lives. Not necessarily. I mean back in nineteen yes, that was probably the case. These days, there's been a different approach to managing alcoholism and alcohol abuse to where you definitely don't have to abstain, although it's still like the model. And again it depends on the person. Some people can

do that. Um. Some people can drink socially, uh and never have a problem. Some people can have a problem go back to just drinking socially. And some people need to just they just can't have it anymore. And they know that, you know. And the key is to find out what kind of person you are, you know, Yes, by stopping, that's how you find out. Probably, so you

see what happens when you stop, Yeah, exactly. Uh. There are more than seventeen million Americans who are either alcoholic or abuse alcohol more men than women, um, apparently ten percent to three to five. And uh, this says that if you have fourteen or more drinks a week as a man, or seven or more drinks per week as

a woman, you are at risk for alcoholism. And do you know why because the National Institutes of Health themselves define moderate drinking as fourteen drinks a week or less for a man, in seven drinks a week or less for a woman. Like, that's moderate drinking in the United States as far as like a couple of beers a night. Yeah, that seems about right to me. It does. And if you're if you are um enraged by this gender disparity, yeah, let's all just calm down because it has to do

with uh usually body type and metabolism. Yeah, of course. And it's not like, little lady, do you only get half the drinks because we're drinking the rest I've done, We're drinking your share. None some ladies that can drink me under the table. Sure, but it's the average, that's right. Um. It is more prevalent among younger folks than older people as well. Uh, and it will touch many people's lives,

whether or not you or an abuser an alcoholic. Uh. They say that more than Americans have been exposed to alcoholism somewhere in their family. Um, I'm surprised it's not a little more than that. I was surprised by that statistic too. I wonder, um, this this article is fairly old. We had to go through an update some of the stats. But UM, I'm wondering if if that's more or less

these days, because it does seem low. Yeah, I mean if you're talking about your extended family, because it doesn't say idiot family, and and that's I mean, that brings up you know, one of the things. One of the reasons everybody's like you shouldn't be an alcoholic. Alcoholism is a problem is not just because of what it does to the individual, but because the effects that has on people who are raised by alcoholics. Yeah, you're I think four times more likely to become an alcoholic if one

of your parents is an alcoholic. Yeah, you also are more likely to experience anxiety, depression, behavioral problems. And um, there's a lot of programs that are geared towards helping children of alcoholics cope. Yeah, my grand paternal grandfather was a nasty drunk. Uh. He died when I was like five, so I didn't know him very well. But um as went with my father. My father like didn't drink. So it can go both ways. You know, you might become an alcoholic or you might be like, no, no, no,

that was your dad's dad. Yeah, I'm not touching that stuff. And uh, I don't think my dad. Maybe he drinks a little bit here and there now, but he pretty much was just like now, Like, I grew up in a household withou no alcohol because my mom didn't drink either, So I wonder what happened to me. I went to college. That was I was gonna say, I don't have anybody in my family who with a history like that. Yeah.

I will say this though, and going through the adoption process, it really makes you take a look at your own lineage and not be super precious about it. Oh yeah, yeah, because you pick out tolerances of what you will accept in birth parents, like if they have disease or mental illness or alcoholism or drug abuse and there, and you start to think about your own family and extended family.

You're like, oh, wait a minute, there's alcoholism and drug abuse and mental illness and suicide attempts, and it makes you think, oh, well, it's not like my seed is anything special, you know. So I thought it was pretty interesting. Uh does a growing experience. It was a growing experience. So um, some people, like we said, can drink and it doesn't become a problem as an abuser or as

an alcoholic. Some people do and they think there are give me a combination of factors including genetic, physiological, psychological, and social. Yeah, the genes they haven't. They don't know the gene. They're pretty sure that there is a genetic link. Yeah. I thought, surely this article is old enough that if I just do a search now I'll find well, they know this gene and this gene are involved. Now I couldn't find any genes named. The reason why they think

there's a genetic link is thanks to twins studies. They found that alcoholism is more prevalent among identical twins than among fraternal twins, which suggests that there is a genetic component to it. And they also think that genes play a role in for for like an individual whose um pleasure circuit is like just really highly tuned. Ye, So physiologically, if you're dope, I mean just goes off the charts more than someone else's might, then you might be more

at risks. Yeah, you're gonna be like, I want to do that again, Give me another, give me another beer? Right whatever or ten? Right? Yeah. Well yeah, and that's another thing we didn't necessarily point out early on, is an alcoholic there's no stopping. Like stopping equals like falling over and blacking out or being arrested or um running out of um alcohol in the entire house and not

being able to like find their keys to go get more. Uh. Yeah, I don't know if that's like a daily thing, like there are alcoholics who drink every night and don't drink too blackout proportions, um, but that certainly can happen. Uh Psychologically, Um, if you suffer from depression or if you don't feel very good about yourself, you have low self esteem, you probably be more likely to develop alcoholism as a drinker.

And then socially, of course, Uh, we talked to I don't think we've done one just on pure pressure, but we talked about it a lot. Yeah, and that's a big reason why kids will uh start drinking and then factor in what they see around them every day, having advertisements and TV and movies like whatever, Bill or whatever. Um, I think it's like bud Light, like they put together a whole town that's just like one big party all

the time, fueled by by light. Yeah. Man, And then like these new absolute ads that are's just like these crazy like eyes wide shut parties and everybody's like it's just so incredibly rich and glamorous and having like like they're just so out of control having a great time. They're they're also clearly like snorting ecstasy or something too. But like it's an absolute ad, you know. So yeah, if you're like fourteen, you're like, I want to be

at that party. As a matter of fact, maybe if I open this bottle of absolute right here and invite a few friends or that party will start in my house. They definitely said to the wrong message, And I'm surprised that this stuff is allowed and not a little bit more. You know, I guess I can't do anything. There are regulations for alcohol advertisements, but yes, you can't. You can't suggest that alcohol is fun. You like, you might have

to rethink every campaign we've ever done. Uh, some signs that you may have be an alcoholic is if you I don't want to eat anymore, you don't really care about food, if you drink alone, that's one of the big ones. They say. If you're lying about your drinking or secretly drinking. Um, that's a big one. Like if you're telling you know your family like have stopped, have stopped, and you're mixing the vodka with orange juice in the morning, You've got like a bad sign. Yeah, very bad signs.

What are you gonna say, you got like booze stashed around the house. Uh. And then if you're drinking to forget your problems, which I think that's why a lot of people drink. If you're unhappy when you're not drinking and super touchy and irritable, or if you're suffering from those blackouts, if you're blacking out a lot. Then although alcohol efficts some people differently, I'm not a blackouter. Um, even though I've had times where I've had way too

much to drink, I never really black out. But some people black out pretty easily. So that might be a sign that alcohol affects you differently. You might want to take a look. Yeah, and that's another argument in favor of genetics. It's people experience things differently, you know. Um, so we are going to dive into your body, the body of the alcoholics right after this message, So chuck. The drink has been taken. Um. And the first thing that happens when it hits the gut as it starts

getting absorbed. Well, the first thing that happens is it says here I am, and it starts irritating your stomach. Lining. Yeah, it's funny that that. It's not funny. But like you take an alcohol in your body, and your body immediately it's like, no, it's not like your body doesn't want the alcohol, right right. It starts trying to get rid of it in every way possible as soon as it enters your body. Yeah. So alcohol is a poison start with,

but your body metabolizes it into an even worse poison. Yeah. Um, and yeah, it wants to get rid of it immediately, so which is why you vomit sometimes. That's right. It is absorbed in the stomach and the other is absorbed in the small intestine. And depending what you're drinking, it's going to be absorbed quicker or more slowly. So like vodka will be absorbed faster than beer because vodka has a higher alcoholic content. That's right. It's a concentration of

alcohol higher than beer. That's right. When you go, when your body starts to metabolize it, Um, about ten as removed in urine and breath by the kidneys and lungs, and then your liver takes care of the rest. Yeah, and it takes takes a beating in the process. Yeah, because again it's a toxin. It's also a carcinogen. Did you know that? I found that out researching this um. And as your lungs are or as your liver is trying to just get rid of all this stuff and

metabolize it and break it down into other parts. Um, you're you're drinking more and more and more, which can kill you, Like in a night, it can kill you can die very easily from consuming too much alcohol in a single sitting. Yeah, apparently they have that quantified um is your blood alcohol content or blood alcohol concentration goes up.

That's where you drink faster than your liver is able to metabolize it and process the alcohol, which results in you're getting drunker and drunker, right, Um, but after you get to a blood alcohol content of point three five um, two point five percent, which I guess is like if you just take any and like a cube excent a leader of blood point three of that would be alcohol. That seems like a lot. Well, that's what puts you in an alcohol induced coma, So I would think it's

a lot. So up to a half of a percent, you're you're only at risk of a coma. After a half of a percent, you're facing death. Like Alexander the Great. Uh oh did he die from alcohol poison? Allegedly he did from a wine drinking contest. That's never a good idea food and drinking contest in general. We did one on those on food contests, but I don't think those are ever a good idea. No, you know who else does it? Ryan Reynolds hates eating contests? Oh really? Yeah?

What did he make a stand? Like? Uh, just a social media stand? Probably? No. He wrote a essay in the Huffington Post about how just disgraceful and what a waste it is. It's just it's such an arrogant thing to do in eating contest while people are starving. And then you would love this essay and he put a picture of his six pack. Abs said, plus, you can't look like this, bam uh. Let's talk about the brain,

because it definitely affects your brain. Specifically, it is going to alter the levels of your neurotransmitters, and those are what sends those chemical messages all around and your body. And that's why you're gonna end up slurring and stumbling and losing motor function because it's dumbing you down. Yeah, your brain is not able to communicate with itself or the rest of your body the way it's supposed to because the neuro transmitters are being affected, and two in

particular are being affected. Gabba, our friend that puts us to sleep, is increased. Gabba release or GABA production is increased when alcohol is introduced to the body. Right, and then glutamate actually, which is an excitatory neurotransmitter get you up, up up, gives you some PEP, is actually reduced when you drink alcohol. So you go from sleepy to sloppy

because gabas increased and glutamates decreased. Yeah, and this whole time you go from sleepy to sloppy, but your dopamine is through the roof so sleepy or slappy you're going, isn't this great? This is the best thing ever. Speaking of great, I think you're great. Uh. And that's all because of dopamine. You know. When I saw this, now I saw glutamate. It makes me wonder if the brain has a new mommy taste to it. Gross, But don't you wonder though you need brains? Yeah you can. You

can get them in like a can at the grocery store. Yeah, you can get You can get them in a fancy restaurant else, other places that you quick trip, quick trip. Sure you can get everything a quick trip. And that was impotted meat. I'm sure there's some impot of meat, but I think potted meat makes like a brains brand,

a brains brand brains. Yeah, so gross. I used to work at the Golden Pantry, you know, in Athens, and we had dudes that would come in there, like you know, road workers that would get their like pack of salt teas and potted meat was there lunch. They would get on the way to work and like a ninety eight ounce mountain dew that's healthy living, brother, their arm would just fall off on their way out the door. Yeah.

And a few packs of cigarettes to probably um. So how specifically their regions of the brain that are specifically affected in different ways. I guess we should go over that too. Sure, Like the cerebral cortex, Well, the cerebral cortex, right, that's your That's where your executive function is located. That's where things like maybe I should stop drinking for the night decisions are located, or um, maybe I shouldn't get in a fight with that cop um, or maybe I

shouldn't start that fire. Whatever. All of this stuff is located here in your prefrontal cortex, right, and it becomes impaired again because your neurotransmitters are reduced, they're being affected, and your brain is not communicating with itself any longer. So the boss, the executive function is basically silenced, and that actually has a one to punch as far as

alcohol consumption is concerned. Not only is your judgment impaired, meaning you're behavior just takes all sorts of left turns while you're drunk, right, but also remember we said the reward pathway is activated by alcohol and your dope means going crazy. Well, your prefrontal cortex is also responsible for um judging whether a pleasurable experience has an adaptive um

benefit to it. Yeah, whether it's worth it. The thing is, when this is impaired, you're that part of your brain is not able to judge drinking is not worth it. So it's all totally worth it. So it's all pleasure. So it has like this this really um, this crazy effect. I mean, alcohol is so smart. It knows what it's doing. Yeah, I mean it lowers your inhibitions and that. Uh, if you're abusing alcohol, that's a bad thing. Um, if you have a glass of wine before you have to, you know,

go up on stage, that's a different thing. Oh, well you're the exception. I guess. Huh that said a glass of wine, not twelve classes. Why I was speaking of this is fresh air I've been meaning to listen to with an author named, um oh, Sarah Hippola or Hippola.

I haven't listened yet, so I don't know how to say her last name, but she as a recovering alcoholic and she apparently, it says in the description she got up and spoke in front of like a crowd of three hundred um and was so drunk that she had no recollection of it the next day. Can you imagine that? Man, that's my worst nightmare. I mean, like going on on stage. You're like, okay, am I all right, Like I'm relaxed, but I'm not too relaxed, right, Like being blackout drunk

on stage. That's wow, that is a scary thought. So, Chuck, that's just the prefrontal cortex we've been talking about. There's other regions of the brain that gets smacked around by alcohol's effect. That's right, the cerebellum. That's your movement and balance. So that's why you're stumbling around because that is impaired. Uh, your hypothalamus, simpituitare e um hormone release and automatic brain functions. So they depressed the nerves and the hypothalamus and they

we're talking about sexual arousal. You might be more aroused, but you might not be able to perform sexually at the same time. So that's a it's very negative. That's a mixed message alcoholics. You know, like, hey, go talk to that that girl over there and uh, maybe see what happens. And then physically you're like, well, nothing's happening. It's embarrass yourself time. Yeah, Like what you set me

up alcohol. And then there's the medulla. That's right. The medulla is located at the in the brain stem, so it's a very um ancient part of the human brain, right, and it controls things like breathing, body temperature, UM, really important stuff, automatic stuff, right, And alcohol impairs this the medulla's function, so you may pass out and stop breathing. Your body temperature can go hey wire, which can lead

to all sorts of other problems. UM. And your gag reflex is centered in your medulla, so you could end up like John Bottom passed out, throwing up and um choking to death. Yes, that's sad stuff. Uh, we've already talked a little bit about blackouts. But you can have that short term memory loss or it can lead to long term uh memory loss and like onset of dementia.

You've heard of or may have even known people that have been described as pickled from alcohol, and uh that's just you know that someone whose body is just not in brain are not functioning. Yeah, there's actually there's a specific vitamin deficiency that can come from alcohol because UM prolonged exposure to alcohol or prolonged consumption of alcohol over the years, UM reduces your body's ability to absorb diamin or vitamin B. And vitamin B is a very important

vitamin that you need. It's an assent a vitamin, meaning that you need to get it elsewhere, like you need to eat it because your body is either doesn't produce or it doesn't produce enough. So UM, with vitamin B it helps brain cells UM turn carbs into energy, very important.

It also helps nerves transmit information, also very important. And when you have a thiamine deficiency, you can end up with what's called UM We're Nikki cors Coughs syndrome where basically your brain shrinks, you become confused, disoriented, UM, you essentially lose your mind in a lot of ways because your brain is no longer able to function correctly or communicate with itself, not just while you're drunk overall. Yeah,

they call it wet brain UH. And there are actually two different things that are often described together Wernicke's UH and cephalopit and cephalopathy and Corsicov syndrome, but they often go hand in hand. And one of the scary things about this is it's has a very high rate of UH being not diagnosed. So like I think only of cases are diagnosed before death, and a lot more after they're like, oh, it turns out they had wet brain. Nothing you can do about it now. So that is

certainly also sad as our withdrawal symptoms. If you have an actual dependence and you're an alcoholic, when you stop drinking um within a day to three days, probably closer to a day, UM, you're gonna be experiencing some pretty nasty withdrawal syndromes, right. And the reason why is because your your brain becomes dependent on alcohol. Right. It basically says, Okay, this guy's gonna drink all the time. I don't see

a time when he's ever gonna stop drinking. So I need to adjust my output of neurotransmitters to change my brain chemistry completely to account for this, this introduction of alcohol. Because the body seeks homeostasis, right, this is its way of adjusting itself to see homeostasis in the presence, the constant presence of alcohol. Um. And so when you remove that alcohol, the brains chemistry has been altered over time.

And now you're probably suddenly removing alcohol and you are going to go through withdrawal symptoms and actually people have died from acute alcohol withdrawal. Oh, I'm sure where they They probably should have weaned themselves off rather than just quit drinking cold turkey, because again, the wholemark of alcoholism is a physical dependence on it, and that part of your your physical dependence is your brain chemistry. Yeah, and there's a lot more more and more people are thinking

that weaning off is a safer approach. Well, I think that's what happened to Amy Winehouse. Like you just quit cold turkey and died very quickly. Yeah. Uh. In withdrawal, you're gonna get this be disoriented. Um, you might have hallucinations, nausea, sweating, seizures, delirium tremens. The d T s uh actually has the same effect as a lot of these hallucinations. Sweating. Your heart rate is gonna be funky. You're gonna be shaking and shivering. Uh. Just watch Leaving Las Vegas and Aunt

Nicholas Cage if you want to be scared away from booze. Yeah, that was a tough movie. It was What about when a Man Loves a Woman? That was a tough one. Yeah. Days of Wine and Roses. I never saw that classic. I think it was Jack Lemon was an alcoholic in that one. Uh twenty eight days, not to be confused, twenty days later days that's when Sandra Bullock played a zombie a right, right, just kidding, Uh what else? There's surely there's more. Oh yeah, it seemed flight. Have you

seen Flight with Denzel Yeah, that was pretty good. But here's a big time alcohol that was shot here in Atlanta. Um, yes he was and uh clean and sober, the Michael Keaton movie. These are all off the top of my head, but there've been it's been an off covered subject and it's they're usually very tough to watch. Agreed. So let's take a break in uh hug each other so we can get through the rest of this thing and we'll talk a little bit more about what alcohol does to

your body and things you can do to uh stop. Yes, all right, So we talked a lot about the health damage you're going to suffer as an alcoholic. Um in the brain. Yeah, internally, you're gonna your liver is gonna take a beating. So your kidneys, your heart, your brain, your central nervous system, your liver. Actually you can the first step two bad alcohol damage is alcoholic hep titus, which is inflammation of the liver, and then you have about a seventy chance if you have alcoholic hepatitis to

develop full blown cirrhosis. And that is when a little bit by a little bit, your liver just turns into scar tissue and it becomes an unusable organ and it is nasty if you see pictures of like cirrosis damaged livers. Yeah, because again, your your liver while it's metabolizing alcohol turns it into acetylale hyde, which is really toxic. Like alcohol is toxic, but for some reason, while we process it, we turn it into something even more toxic, and the

liver suffers as a result. Your stomach, the lining of the stomach can just get eaten away, and your intestines can lead to ulcers and obviously in the moment nausea and vomiting your pancreas could lead to pancreatitis and cancer like you mentioned, Yeah, because cancer. Alcohol is a carcinogen and exposure over the years by being an alcoholic um can result in all a bunch of different alcohol alcoholic cancers or what they're called. Like you can get him

of the throat of the larynx um. You can get liver cancer obviously, just from being exposed to alcohol over and over again. I had no idea you could get cancer from alcohol. It makes sense, but I just never thought of as a carcinogen. Uh. If you're over sixty five, you're in bigger trouble because your body just doesn't metabolize alcohol as well at that point. Um, And like we said,

men have a little better time metabolizing alcohol than women, right. Um. I remember that my bar in l A, the drawing room, there was this old drunk there. I won't say his name because I found out he's still alive. But it was just remarkable to me that this guy was alive. Yeah, I mean he was into a seventies and just dropped dead drunk every single time I saw him. And I checked back, and this was in the late nineties, and

then I was in l A last year. I went to the bar asked if he was still around, and they said, oh, yeah, he will be here in a few hours. Wow. I was like, man, how is he alive? Milk thistle? What's that? It's a like it's a I think you make a tea out of it or whatever. It's a very famous um liver cleanser. Interesting. Maybe he's on the milk thistle. Milk thistle and he's eating a lot of meat, so he's getting tons of vitamin B.

That's how that guy is alive. Maybe he was a straight vodka guy, which is always a kind of a can be an indication. I think that that helps though. Also, if I remember from one of our other episodes, like the clearer the alcohol usually the fewer the impurities. Maybe that's what it is that's keeping him alive, the vodka, and he didn't mix it with anything. But I mean, look at like Boris Yell. Some people like he was

old when he died. Yeah, he that knows. It was like a cantaloupe the gin blossom, which doesn't necessarily mean you're an alcoholic. People take it for that though. Yeah, I mean that's rosation, but alcoholism definitely will. It doesn't help the gin blossom situation. Um. And then there's fetal alcohol syndrome, which is the saddest thing you can imagine. Yes, it sets here that um fete. Fetal alcohol syndrome is the number one preventable cause of mental impairment. What yeah,

what Wow, it's pretty amazing. So if you're drinking too much, you should't drink at all when you're pregnant. You some in Europe there like you can have a glassworm here as well too, Like apparently you know, it's it's gained acceptance that like you can you can have something occasionally or whatever, like wine usually is what they say. Right But um, and I realized this article is old, but it's specifically says like the Surgeon General is like, do

not drink while you're pregnant. Well, I think that's the fallback recommendation is. I think that if it feels like a tricky thing to say, well, you can maybe drink this a little bit here and there, I think it's easier for them to say just don't drink for nine months and and everybody says it's easy for you to say. In general, then you have zero chance of any complications

like this, right, well, at least fetal alcoholic syndrome. Yeah, so that's when your your little baby's brain cells are developing, uh, informing connections in utero and alcohol explosion there is going to disrupt that from the get go and lead to um, you can have a physical problems like your head might be smaller than normal microce, you might have some facial abnormalities. Uh, and then later in life you could be in big trouble as far as cognitive functioning, memory, learning disability. So

it's a it's a pretty rough one. And it's all because alcohol impedes cellular division during development. Right, So when the fetus is exposed to alcohol, which easily crosses the placental barrier um the cellular division, it doesn't go according

to plan. So not good. And again with adoption, that's one of the things you have to consider because most of these birth mothers have some sort of issue with drugs or alcohol and fetal alcohol syndrome that's the one that even the agencies says, like, you don't want to mess with that really, Yeah, like do your research on drugs and how they affect the baby and you'd probably be surprised. Alcohol is worse than unfetal development. Absolutely, yeah,

it's the worst. Um, yeah, it's pretty it's pretty scary. So this number I don't think is right anymore. Eight five billion per year in medical expenses. It's either to okay, and that's in the United States, and that's crime, lost productivity, accidents, medical expenses. The economic impact of alcoholis Yeah, that is close to three billion dollars. That's amazing, all right, So what can you do? There's a a pot of gold

at the end of this rainbow. There's a For many, many years, there was, um, your only hope was Alcoholics Anonymous, not even twelve step programs, specifically Alcoholics Anonymous, which is founded in either nineteen thirty or nineteen thirty five. Do you remember, Um, there's some pretty great articles about Alcoholics Anonymous, and you know it's effectiveness that it's a tributes to it just it's this, it's its own thing, and it's

helped undoubtedly tons of people. Um. But there's been alternatives that have developed over the years, but it took a while. Supposedly it wasn't until like the sixties or seventies that alternatives to a a grew up. Um. And some of them say, no, you don't need to believe in a higher power to get over alcoholism. You can find that in yourself. Um. Other people like UM, I think one's called moderation management. So you don't have to abstain from life.

You can try to just you know, become a moderate drinker and then if that doesn't work, then yeah, you probably should abstain for life. UM and some others say, twelve step programs are great, but you could also do the same thing with cognitive behavioral therapy UM and so. But some sort of treatment program that involves like a change in behavior through either twelve steps, support groups, one on one counseling. UM. That's the gold standard for treating alcoholism.

But over the years, especially lately, people have been turning more and more to prescription drugs. They become increasingly promising as well, especially as we start to learn how genes interact with specific drugs. The more we can learn about a person genes and how they interact with drugs, the more targeted treatment of alcoholism will be. It seems like, yeah, this article I found in the New York Times, drugs

help tailor alcoholism treatment. That the wish is that one day they will be able to because everyone's different, like we were saying, as far as alcoholism goes, Uh, so you can't have one treatment for such a varied group. So they're hoping one day to be able to tailor drug treatment programs pharmaceuticals for alcohol treatment the same way they do with depression or anxiety or any mental it's like this doesn't work, well, then try this one. That

one's kind of working. We'll add this one in and it's really gonna make it pop, you know. And right now I think there are three approved f d A treatments UM. Two of them now chrekzone and i CAM pro sate reduced cravings to drink. And then there's anti views which I've heard of for a little while. And that's the one that makes you sick when you drink. Yeah, that's pretty rough, Like only a drug like that could find its roots in purity in America, you know. UM,

but that mal trek zone. There's a good article about UM in in the Atlantic called The Irrationality of Alcoholics Anonymous and the author experiments with mal trek zone and finds, like amazingly to her astonishment, like it really works. Yeah, it says in't here um in studies and clinical trials they found one in seven alcoholics. Uh, it works for one and seven alcoholics. Those two now track zone and outcome pro state and with UM mal trek zone, probably

both of them, but definitely with mal trek zone. It targets your pleasure center when alcohol is present, so it targets your pleasure center. But it's not like you go through life like a hedonic. You know, you can still experience joy and happiness and pleasure, but specifically with alcohol, it reduces the effect that it has on the olympic system,

so you don't crave it as much or when you do. Right, and when you do crave it, I think in that New York Times article you found somebody's somebody who takes nail trek zonn as saying I still get cravings, but they're short lived and they're not nearly as intense because of the nail trek. Right, But again it only works for about a seventh of the people who take it. Yeah,

and this is a modern thing. Years ago, offering to treat a drug with another drug was scoffed at, But now people are embracing it a little bit more as like, I guess, a lesser of the evils. Yeah, at least you're not killing your body with alcohol abuse. And one of the things Chuck that came up when we did the Addiction podcast um was that alcoholism and all addictions are chronic disease and relapse are to be expected, as

with any chronic disease. It's you. You go through relapses and apparently Alcoholics Anonymous did a UM survey in two thousand seven of like eight thousand of its members in North America and found that thirty three percent of them were still abstinate after ten years. So a lot of people. Yeah, a lot of people relapse, and I bet, I bet you anything, those are the ones that are still work in that program regularly. Well, yeah, you have to, like part of a A is you still go to meetings

UM at least occasionally years for the rest of your life. Basically. Yeah. There's a really good article that came out in Harper's in two thousand eleven called The Drunks Club The Cult that Cures Totally worth reading. I posted a PDF of it on our site for this podcast page. It is probably the best article it's ever been written about alcoholics Anonymous. Wow. Yeah, it's like a gift because the author is an alcoholic

and Alcoholics Anonymous attendee and an incredible writer. Just a great recovered alcoholic or recovering or I don't remember, because I've probably recovered or recovering. That's why they that tag sticks with you for life. I think that's one of the things they teach you is that you should always consider yourself an alcoholic. Right, you have a disease, but if you're in recovery, then that's, uh, you're on the

right path. Yeah. And there I was reading an article about alternatives to alcoholics anonymous, and one of them was like women on sobriety or something like that. Everything we're saying like that, we don't agree with that, Like that's a temporary tag, it's not for life. Um. And the spokesperson for that organization is saying, like, if I used to smoke and then I quit after a certain time, I'm not like, yeah, I'm a smoker for life, like you you used to smoke, or you just don't even

it's not even a thing. It's not a label you have to carry around for the rest of your life. I see the value in both, to be honest, in in the reward of being able to say I'm not an alcoholic anymore, right, or the recognition that you used to be and you need to remember that every day or yeah. I think it's probably as as varied as people's reaction to alcohol, Like if that great, if you need to be free of that eventually great. Well said,

if you are an alcoholic, go get help. Like you probably don't have to go any further than your favorite search engine to find a lot of resources that UM can get you help. People are dying to help people kick alcohol and drugs. They love to do that stuff. They're crazy. It's like their life's work. So go meet one of those people. Don't be afraid of them, and don't be afraid of your life after, because you can lead a rich, fulfilling existence. Yeah. I think that keeps

a lot of people from wanting to kick it fun. Yeah, yeah, I know. I'm friends with recovering alcoholics and they're great. Yeah, they love life just the same. Uh if you actually they're better. They're not just the same because they're not blacking out and hungover mad all the time. If you want to know more about alcoholism, you can type that word in the search part how stuff works dot com. And since I said search parts, time to a listener mail. I'm gonna call this letter from from an old Geezer

because he says he's a old geezer. I would never call it of age that this automatically has seen. Hey guys, I'm a Geezer, seventy four years old and a regular listener. I love your show. Listen all of the time when I'm driving. I'm also a musician and living a smallish town restricted to Geezers south of Tucson, and I was just listening to the podcast on auto tune. I share your hatred of it. No, you didn't say that in so many words, but it came out loud and clear.

I'm writing, however, about the little snippet you've been about rever. When I was a senior in high school late nineteen fifties, I was in a rock and roll band in Tucson called the Night Beats. We cut three records for a record company named Zoom Records that was started and run by two of our school friends. The guy who ran the recording studio on Phoenix where we did the session could put echo on the voice in nineteen fifty nine,

long before manufactured reverb was widespread. He did it by placing a speaker and a microphone and an empty water tank behind the studio. He piped in the sound through the speaker and picked it up on the mic to get an actual physical echo or reverb sound for the vocal it's pretty smart for es tu soon aren't too bad? Right? Uh. He even was able to move the mic in and out to change the reverb time for the desired effect.

One more interesting fact is that our singer was Pete Ronstad, his little sister and not yet made it big time. Barbers tried, is she from Arizona? I didn't know that, Linda Ronstad. Yeah, that explains the Spanish language albums. Yeah maybe so, h. I hope you find this senior plow nos Boyano, Well that was that one of the songs. But yeah, she was on one of the Simpsons episode. I hope you find this interesting and worth the time it took to read it. Uh. Sure, it was an

interesting time in my life. Thanks for the great podcast. And that is from land Hoops. Nice Lance, Thank you for that. Yeah, man, I love hearing from our listeners of age. I like hearing from twelve year old and like seventy plus. Yeah, I mean too. I even like hearing from uh, two year old, two hundred and three year old? How about that? Nice? That's I always felt bad, not always, once I came to understand that people live beyond um nine two, that that Christmas song excluded a

lot of people. Oh sure, yeah, oh, and you know we should point out too. I was going to read a full mail on it, but the Pete Frampton effect. Yeah, it's not a vocoder. It's a talk box. And I feel really bad because I know that, and I know you're in the heat of the podcast. Man, I don't feel bad. I say all sorts of stuff where I'm like, man, why did I say that? Or why didn't I address that.

I even thought I said the words talk box, and I just thought you knew something I didn't about a different name for it, or something I should have spoken up. But no, that's what a talk boxes. The tube is acting as it's a rubber tube that runs from a speaker and the sound is going through that tube into your mouth. And so you're basically playing a guitar through a tiny little tube. Yeah, and you're able to make change his the shape of your mouth and his pop

fix prae that you that's a good song. Pe Frampton's opening up for us. He's actually playing the same theater as US, and that oh yeah, yeah, the acoustic to her, he's playing like the week before the week after US. I wonder if he'll play all I want to be as by his thought. Uh, if you want to know more about Pete Frampton and want to get in touch with us, actually we don't know anything more about Pete

Frampton than that. Oh we know a little more, but we don't feel like talking about it on social that. If you want to get in touch with us, though, you can tweet to us at s y s K podcast. You can join us on Facebook, dot com slash stuff you should know. You can send us any else two stuff podcasts at how stuff works dot com, and has always joined us at our home on the web, Stuff First you Know dot com For more on this and thousands of other topics, is it how stuff Works dot com. M