First of all, to mitigate its effects, it sucks vital fluids from your organs to dilute the poison (diuretic). Then it activates the adrenal glands to speed up your metabolism so as to remove this poison as fast as possible (euphoria).

If you continue drinking, (it's called alcohol abuse), you run out of vital body fluid with which to dilute the alcohol, and your body becomes dehydrated. In comes more alcohol, and the body has a choice. It can either keep the alcohol in your body and let it destroy brain cells, or it can sacrifice its remaining bodily fluids which contain this poison, dehydrate itself further, and die from dehydration. Your body is stuck....so what does it do?.....it throws up!

Ah bot look at zee French! Numerous studies on what is called the "French Paradox"; consumption of large quantities of saturated fats and high cholesterol foods, the very things we know contribute to heart disease, show that their death rate from heart disease is about half of ours. As noted elsewhere in ABSOLUTE HEALTH, people who refuse to consume large quantities of RAW fruits and vegetables are eating a Standard American Diet, "SAD" and certain poisons which in this case may contain phyto-chemicals from the grapes may mitigate the effects of the SAD diet to some extent. That doesn't make it good.

Most Alcohols contain sulfites to preserve them and maintain consistency of color, and these are not good for us either. Sulfites can cause nerve damage and dehydrate your body. So when you dehydrate your body your brain shrinks. And when you wake up in the morning what you feel is your blood pumping through your dehydrated brain and putting pressure on the damaged nerves there. Alcohol also inhibits calcium absorption.

Alcohol acts not as a stimulant, as is often supposed, but a a depressant. It switches off nerve impulses to areas of the brain involved in memory, judgment, and coordination. Alcohol damages your internal organs such as your brain, liver and kidneys, and can cause permanent mental impairment. This should not be surprising, since its major use is as a commercial solvent. ( Ever had a long conversation with a commercial painter?), It's name comes from the ancient Arabic word "al-kuhl" which means "a powder for painting the eyelids."

The EPA mandates that workers use protective gloves to keep commercial solvents from touching their skin. Does it make any sense to put that same solvent in your arteries and veins? If it does, you've had too much to drink.  

According to "The Wine Spectator", December 15, 2001,  at least 30,000 people DIE each year in Italy of alcohol-induced diseases such as cirrhosis of the liver. This is not particularly good news for alcohol lovers, but the publication then sites all of the considerable research done by the wine industry to show that wine is much better for you than alcohol, and may actually help protect against serious health risks such as heart attack, stroke, cancer and Alzheimer's disease.

The Wine Spectator's senior editor Per-Henrik Manson has a 13 year career of finding good news about wine drinking starting with his article "Good News for Moderate Wine Drinkers" in March 1989. This latest issue publishes three articles by Mr. Mason, all well written, all noting the fact that "wine drinkers may owe their superior health partly to their general lifestyle. Epidemiological studies found that wine drinkers are better educated, eat more healthfully, smoke less, and exercise more than people who prefer beer and spirits. " One suspects that those who buy this $5 magazine are more than just spectators regarding wine.

Needless to say, the wine industry has a vested interest in promoting the healthy aspects of alcohol consumption. Public interest in the health benefits of wine exploded a decade ago when CBS's 60 Minutes interviewed Serge Renaud about the French Paradox. Renaud described how the French had an unexpectedly low rate of fatal heart attacks given the amount of animal fat that they ate and he explained that it was due to the large amounts of alcohol they consumed in the form of wine. Supermarket wine sales shot up 26% in the next two weeks. This sort of statistic naturally loosens corporate purse strings toward further favorable research.

Ton Cleophas, a researcher from Albert Schweitzer Hospital in Dordrecht, the Nederlands, isolated the psychological benefits of drinking wine in moderation and found that wine drinkers enjoyed a more relaxed way of living. Cleophas reported that savior-vivre, which he likened to the "French Way of Life", was the real reason why wine was found to offer protection against heart attacks superior to  that of beer and spirits. (Beer and spirits offer protection against heart attacks?  .. . . I would suggest just the opposite)

Evem Gronbaek, the Danish epidemiologist , doubts that wine can be isolated as the independent factor that produces wine drinkers superior health, and he points to a generally healthy lifestyle as another important reason.

Buried in one of the three "Wine Spectator" articles was this enlightening statement:

"It would be interesting to know what comes first: Do those who live healthy lifestyles integrate wine as part of their diet? Or do wine drinkers tend to embrace a healthy lifestyle?   But the answer to this chicken or egg question doesn't really matter.
Research shows that wine and health go together."                                     

 tell that to the families of the 30,000

In deference to my brother-in law who writes a column on wine for a wine magazine, I did read of all the considerable research being done on the subject of Red wine being a part of a healthy lifestyle (in "The Wine Spectator") and have to admit the possibility that Red wine, in moderation, actually can provide health benefits to some people who insist on eating food that is not good for them. Unfortunately I can not agree that taking some of the components of wine (Polyphenols for instance) and testing them for health benefits proves that wine is healthy to drink. Some of the studies did use actual Red wine and the drinkers showed an improvement over the non-drinking test group, and the beer & spirits group, all groups on the same bad diet.

The whole question seems to be one of comparing apples to oranges. It's like hitting yourself on the head with a hammer and debating whether a foam pad or a rubber pad cushions the blow more. If you like hitting yourself on the head with a hammer, (drinking), then you are going to do it any way, and the question of which pad to use is important.
On this page I just try to point out that mitigating a poor diet with alcohol is a questionable concept even if it gives one great pleasure. See: "Starting to drink late in life isn't smart."

I do agree that the Mediterranean Diet is probably the best diet for most people as exemplified by the citizens of Crete who harvest their own vineyards, (exercise), ate four times more bread than the Americans, 30 times more green beans and legumes, two times more fruit, and six times more fish, but they consumed one sixth the amount of meat.
They do drink their own red wine, but they also consume more olive oil than any other population in the world: 50 liters of cold-pressed, extra virgin olive oil per person.

"The Wine Spectator" is well written and attempts to give a balanced view of this controversial subject, but obviously believes that wine and good health go together.
One would not expect anything else from a magazine for wine lovers.

In summary, I don't recommend drinking alcohol, especially in large quantities, but occasionally us semi-tea-totalers forget that our tolerance to alcohol is minimal and get carried away (in a manner of speaking), and overindulge. A good friend of mine named (of all things) "River" went out last week with a friend and had WAY too much (she never drinks). Being a trained nutritionist, when she got home, she downed 12 of my concentrated vegetable capsules at once, and woke up the next morning feeling GREAT! (Her fellow drinker couldn't even get herself out of bed.) "MORAL": Eat more fruits and vegetables!

Perhaps you would like to hear about OLESTRA next?