Leland,
Recently enjoyed a 6 hour AAA driver safety class... and I actually did
enjoy it. They showed a graph that related levels of sobriety in respect
of content of alcohol consummed. It was fairly interesting to me the
length of time from last drink till one is no longer progressive in loss
of sobriety. It was a longer percentage of the experience time than I
ever thought it was. So about the time that we think to give away the
keys we are already headed much further into non-sobriety even if we
stop drinking.
As to butter, or any food, the alcohol is not miraculously absorbed by
the food and the idea that our innards are slowed down by a lump of
grease (why not try creme d' menthe w/ Vasilene as an experiment? or
consume peach-brandy butter whipped up in the food processor?) seems
like fun, but I am not sure of the bio-chemistry here. The butter won't
act to attract or block the alcohol molecules. As to having a full
stomach, as in eating a meal, the food would absorb a portion of the
liquids including the acohol, but the sum total of the alcohol entered
into the body would not decrease and would enter into the bloodstream
eventually, or be filtered through vital organs if their is too much of
an excess.
In the reverse, though, I do believe that if one combines a high sugar
content with the alcohol that it accelerates the intake into the
bloodstream. I used to make a tarragon liquer with 180 proof vodka with
it in mind that with the flow of sugar-alcohol that the various toxins
of the tarragon would be carried along more quickly into the
bloodstream. Think wormwood & absinthe (and I suspect that I did have
absinthe one time). I may still have the bottle of greenish sweet
tarragon brew around here somewhere if you want it as the sugars, if not
the alcohol, will kill me. This sugar-alcohol combination is why many
patent medicines contained alcohol, let alone that folks wanted to
consume the alcohol it was a delivery mechanism for the herbal drugs. My
curiousity was to make a THC laden liquer, but I never went that far
with it. The most exotic I ever got with that was the bee pollen.
I have had for years now a 5-gallon jug of dandelion wine in the
basement. I enjoy making non-grape wines and this was an especially good
batch. I used a Champaigne yeast and as a result the percentage of
alcohol was kicked up pretty good over a normal table wine. I like to
see how far I can go to push the little yeastys to produce alcohol and
reduce sugar content of the wine. The alcohol is essentially yeast shit
and as they shit the alcohol kills them off -- sort of like we are all
doing with our CO2. Over the last year I began to wonder why I was
keeping this brew... whenever I handed a friend a mason jar of it their
first question was if I was giving them a jar of cat piss. Regardless, I
decided to take my time to drink it, with or without friends. Every once
in a while I get the hankering and go down in the basement and siphon
out a jar of it. Well, that jar usually goes down a bit too smoothly and
by the time I am through it my inhibitions have me babbling in the
living room then writing really strange missives to BP in order to
assure my self-designated failure as a sane person. Whereas your
grandmother advised you to be a gentleman, my pool shark jesus loving
grandfather told me (I paraphrase his wisdom) if you are going to make a
drunken ass of yourself then do it at home where people cannot see you
-- and these days I would add don't do it near your computer either.
My next future wine will be rose petal. It is taking a long time to
collect the petals.
As to moderation and excess. There is the use of alcohol as a social
activity to release inhibitions as you mention. I have certainly had
many pleasureable and rewarding times with family and friends while we
were all drinking. More extreme is the use of alcohol as self-medication
for psychological reasons. Alcohol consumption is contra-indicated for
depression. I feel that a lot of alcoholism has to do with a lack of
self esteem, a difficulty in maintaining a sense of self worth or
confidence. Everyone that I know that drinks too much too often has
serious problems with a lack of self-confidence. It goes beyond that to
physiologic effects.
][<en
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