Posted by Larry Hoover on April 9, 2005, at 11:53:02
In reply to Re: Alcohol (questions) for Lar, chemist, posted by AMD on April 2, 2005, at 22:10:23
> I appreciate your posts for many reasons, Lar, but I especially love the knowledge and tidbits of wisdom you pass on in the form of quotations or word etymology. I am fascinated by the magic of words and language.
Thanks. I do collect aphorisms in my brain. They are very useful. Sometimes I make up my own.
I am simply fascinated.
I had trouble getting into the 12-step thing, but most especially with the influence of a Christian/God thing. I appreciate religion for what it can do to guide people towards a certain quality of life, but the 12-steps are a spiritual program. Not religious, spiritual.
So, I had to re-write the 12-steps from the get go. Everywhere it said God, I substituted "good". I do believe in Good. It's my spirit, joined with yours, and all others. It's a voice within us all, sometimes drowned out in the cacophony of turmoiled thought, but it's always there. Quiet, patient, but determined, it's always there.
I actually first joined the 12-steps as an Adult Child of an Alcoholic, but we'll save that for another day.
> I am feeling a little better today.
Yes, the sequelae are time-limited. For example, unlike other toxic substances, your elimination of alcohol is linear. No matter the dose, the average person can eliminate only about one standard drink per hour. It's a flat-rate. The more you ingest, the longer it takes to get it all outta there. The elimination process consumes some very precious substances that we call vitamins. Also, the antioxidant glutathione.....which protects organs from damage caused by the intermediate metabolic product, acetaldehyde. It's the depletion of glutathione that is the critical element in damage from alcohol.
The other thing is the consumption of NAD+, a key energy molecule in numerous essential metabolic processes....two molecules of NAD+ for every molecule of alcohol.....and... that's about 18,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 NAD+s per hour. The whole liver goes into maximal stress mode to handle the alcohol. Everything else the liver does gets pretty much shoved aside.
More than you ever wanted to know about the metabolism of alcohol:
http://www.rsoa.org/lectures/2_01/2_01.pdfChronic users of alcohol do cause the up-regulation of CYP2E1, but that's also another story. However, it does explain the resistance of alcoholics to medication that might stabilize them during detox and rehab.
> Your experience, by the way, seems to be an argument /for/ drinking! ;)
>
> amdI fail to see that, myself. Who knows what I might otherwise have been like, had I never abused substances. Whatever the effect of drug and alcohol abuse on me, they led me to a spiritual path of self-examination. One of internal discovery. Most people in life never get that chance. All those "normals" out there, who live in ignorance of spiritual self-awareness. I have wished they had the need to come into our rooms....
I don't go to meetings just now....but I'm always living as if I'm at one.
Best,
Lar
poster:Larry Hoover
thread:478894
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/subs/20050323/msgs/481998.html