Is it true that different alcoholic beverages have different effects on mood? Why do drinks of an unusual color cause more intoxication? What's the worst hangover?
I will never forget that creepy party I went to when I was an inexperienced teenage girl. There was music, a lot of fun, and a huge bowl of fruit punch the size of a duck pond. Our counselors thought it would be fun to tell us that alcohol was added to the punch. The punch had a weird sour taste that turned out to be a brandy-flavored flavor. Most likely, the counselors stood on the sidelines and watched as the party turned into an uncontrollable crowd of violent animals.
Imaginary drunkenness
But our young counselors, who were not that much older than us, did not suspect that if they were in our place, they would have believed in the same way that they were really drinking alcohol. There is an incredible amount of facts that prove how easy it is to convince people that they are drunk. Moreover, intoxication is so contagious that even those people who are absolutely sure that they themselves are sober begin to feel drunken delight and come off under the influence of alcoholic excitement of drunk party guests.
This placebo effect of alcohol not only disinhibits people and makes them fool around. It also affects memory and reasoning ability. In 2003, a group of students were convinced that what they were drinking at that moment was not gin and tonic, but vodka. Everything was convincing enough - they were sitting in a real bar, where the drink was served in sealed vodka bottles. And just to think, the unsuspecting students easily fell for the bait and then could hardly remember what happened to them. And their friends, who were told that they drank gin and tonic, did not experience such memory problems.
Drunken tears after whiskey and white devils after white wine
Each person has a list of "forbidden" drinks, because of which he falls into sadness or madness. There is no need to tell you that gin, for example, is notoriously infamous as a tear-knocking drink. But ask any biologist, and he will tell you that the main active ingredient in gin - ethanol - works the same in any alcoholic beverage. The only difference is what is its concentration, how easily it is absorbed, how it is consumed and what effect we want to get from the drink. And tequila can wake up a kickboxer in you, and if you drink any alcoholic drink just for show, and everyone around you urges and persuades you to drink more, then it is likely that you will behave more or less wildly and aggressively.
It should be recognized that science does not have enough empirical data on this issue. To obtain the necessary information, science, apparently, needs to prove that they can serve the good of society or be useful for commercial purposes. In addition, scientific people no longer see the need to seek further evidence that alcohol is alcohol. True, in 1970, scientists still conducted a study to compare the effects of vodka and bourbon on alcoholics who were homeless together for 18 days. As part of the experiment, alcoholics drank bourbon for nine days, and vodka for the next nine days. Suffice it to say that "no significant differences in behavior" were found. Participants in the experiment consumed vodka and bourbon in equal amounts, and under the influence of both drinks, they first became more sociable, and then gradually plunged into a state of anxiety, depression and hostility. According to the observation of scientists, those alcoholics who were in a state of stronger intoxication even showed signs of "pronounced psychosis." So the next time you're sitting in a bar and wondering whether to drink vodka or bourbon, wondering how it will affect your mood, it will be enough to just flip a coin.
However, it seems that alcoholic beverages of an unusual color cause more intoxication in people. Oxford-based experimental psychologist Charles Spence cites a 1997 study by a group of scientists at the University of Southampton that found that people who were asked to drink an unfamiliar drink (a blue mixture containing peppermint concentrate), there was a stronger intoxication. At the same time, with such tasks as, for example, searching for words, they coped much worse than those who drank beer of the same strength. “And that, of course, can be seen on St. Patrick's Day when people drink light green beer,” says Spencer.
What is the drink, so is the hangover
Well, okay, I agree that wines, beer and alcohol contain not only ethanol, but other substances as well. And they are the ones that affect our well-being. But the difference is not that some make us dance better, and others make us better at the races - it's just that some are more toxic and lead to heavier hangovers than others. Of course, you can always drink absinthe, which contains the psychotropic substance thujone, but only in a harmless non-toxic concentration (although let's not debunk the myths associated with alcohol).
Roger Corder, professor at Barts School of Medicine and Dentistry and London, and author of the wine diet, says that "cheap wines are creepy and cause severe hangovers." And the popular belief that darker drinks (whiskey, beer, red wine) cause more unpleasant sensations the next day is quite justified: they usually contain congeners - accompanying chemical compounds formed simultaneously with ethyl alcohol during fermentation, which give the drink aroma and taste.
One such congener that deserves special attention is methanol. It is similar to ethanol, but more toxic and is found in excess amounts in brandy, dark wine, and even some red wines. According to Corder, methanol is not metabolized until the ethanol is eliminated from the body. "And it will just 'walk' in the body until it turns into formaldehyde and formic acid, which are neurotoxins." It is they who cause poor health. Methanol is considered safe at a concentration of less than 200 milligrams per liter. “But sometimes this concentration is exceeded,” says Corder.
Many people say that the worst hangover comes after champagne. Apparently, this is due to the fact that people drink it on an empty stomach when they come to a party in a joyful, excited state. At the same time, there is evidence that champagne induces intoxication faster than other drinks. Philosophy professor Barry Smith, who heads the Center for the Study of Sensory Sensations at the University of London, writes about wine (as a man of encyclopedic knowledge) and is of the opinion that under the influence of bubbles the pylorus of the stomach (which opens when the stomach is full) is triggered, even if the stomach is empty. Therefore, only a small amount of alcohol is absorbed in the stomach, and most of it - 80% - is absorbed in the intestines.
By the way, Smith is also studying the effect of music on the emotional state of champagne drinking. He found that syncopated music had the best effect on the bursting - or rather sparkling - bubbles that envelop the tongue. “If the musical rhythm coincides with the play of bubbles, the brain, apparently, senses it and, let's say, adjusts, reacts to this correspondence. If the brain senses the synchronization of these rhythms, it tunes in to these rhythms and begins to work more actively. Therefore, it is best to drink sparkling wines accompanied by jazz.
But listen, we all know very well what this is all about: if you have a severe hangover, or you were covered to tears at a Christmas party, then you were just drunk. Or I'm wrong?
