Advantages and Disadvantages of Drinking Alcoholic Beverages

Alcohol is popularly known to the people even from very ancient period. It is basically referred to as ethyl or ethanol alcohol. It was and is still used in our daily lives up until now as it has a lot of purposes aside from human consumption.

While a lot of people have varying opinions regarding alcohol consumption, alcohol still has other uses aside from consumption and is inevitable in present society.

Still, alcoholic drinks are manufactured and legally distributed in a wide scale under strict regulations of the government. In order to minimize the misuse of alcoholic beverages, governments impose heavy excise taxes as well as also employ excise officer to carefully check the alcohol production, usage and transport in the society. As a matter of fact, alcohol beverages tax is one of the biggest revenue sources to the government in most countries.

Advantages of Alcohol Consumption

A lot of people, especially youngsters, in Asian and Western countries consume alcohol and are in dilemma about it. While not all of these are already proven by studies, people who prefer to consume alcoholic drinks believe that they are getting these advantages:

1. It Relieves Mental Stress. Alcohol is believed to give instant relief from mental tension after tiring and stressful daily activities.
2. It Provides Better Sleep. Since alcohol has a sedative effect, consuming it promotes better sleep.
3. It Increases Appetite. Alcohol can raise the blood flow to the gut and stomach and can cause a slight irritation to the inside of your stomach. This can make you hungry and thereby increases your food consumption.
4. It Keeps Your Body Warm in Cold Conditions and During Winter. Alcohol helps raise the blood flow to the skin, producing warmth all over your body.
5. It Helps You Gain Weight. Alcohol produces a relatively high amount of calories through metabolism in the body. Because of that, it adds fat deposits to your body, making it beneficial for those people who want to put on some weight.
6. It Helps Neglect Severe Pain. If you have an injury or been into an accident, consuming alcohol can make you less sensitive to physical pain. It is because those brain centers that can feel the pain are being sedated; therefore becomes numb.

Disadvantages of Alcohol Consumption

1. Damage to liver. Heavy alcohol consumption can severely damage the organs and systems of the body. Specifically, liver, brain and stomach are the most affected parts. It can even lead to cardiovascular troubles such as high blood pressure. Therefore, having a diet that is rich in protein is important to rejuvenate the liver.
2. Loss of self-control. Drinking alcohol can make you lose self-control and can usually lead to accident. DUI arrest is definitely the least you want to happen. If this is the case, it is best to hire a DUI attorney.
3. Nerve damage. Alcohol causes progressive and slow degeneration of nervous system. In chemical terms, alcohol is highly lipophilic, which means it can well penetrate into fatty tissues such as in the brain. When an alcohol is at a high concentration, it can cause damage to the neurons.
4. Addictive. Alcohol is addictive and humans are prone to it, leading to chaos in an otherwise normal lifestyle.

Uses of Alcohol Aside from Consumption

1. It is a good solvent for a lot of extraction procedures. Since alcohol is an organic solvent, it’s suitable for extraction of drugs, nutrients as well as plan constituents.
2. Alcohol is a good sterilizing, disinfectant and anti-septic agent. At a level of 70% concentration, alcohol is an effective disinfectant that can kill all kinds of germs. Because of that, alcohol is incorporated in most antiperspirants and deodorants. It’s also believed to reduce heavy sweating.
3. Alcohol is a good preservative. Its presence in all medical preparations is extremely important since alcohol acts as a good preservative, making medical or drugs preparation stay safe for a long period of time.
4. It is a good astringent. Alcohol denatures and precipitates surface proteins, which is why it makes the tissues soft. In patients who are bed ridden for a long period of time, alcohol is used to harder bony areas of the back.
5. Alcohol acts as a cooling agent. It acts as a refrigerant as it can cool the surface where it is applied to. When a pack that is immersed in alcohol is damped on head, it creates a cooling sensation and can be effectively used in times of fever especially if the patient has high fever.