A Drink? But Not In This Form!

  When I was a teenager, the usual way my friends had alcohol was via a drink from a bottle of wine or beer.  Apparently, people have discovered a new way of imbibing it without it every passing their lips. 

You don't drink it, you inhale it.  You read that right.  Someone created a machine which takes liquid alcohol and changes it into a mist you can inhale.

Unfortunately when alcohol is consumed this way, it tends to be absorbed into the blood stream faster and reaches the brain sooner so you get drunk quicker.  If the alcohol fumes are heated or poured over dry ice, they can damage the lungs.

The way it works is alcohol is turned into a warm mist that people inhale into their lungs.  It is instantly absorbed into the lungs causing a quick and intense "high" because it is almost instantly delivered to the brain.  This means that people only need a small amount of alcohol to get drunk and its easy to become drunker than by drinking the alcohol.

One of the claims advertisers use for this method is that you can enjoy alcohol without absorbing the calories but that is not true.  A person will get the calories weather in liquid or mist form but the claim of no calories appeals to people who want the buzz without the calories and there is no hangover.

Some of the problems in consuming alcohol in this manner are:

1.  It can damage the brain which is not good in teenagers and young adults because the brain does not finish developing until around the age of 25.

2.  Normally, alcohol can irritate the stomach and cause vomiting which limits the amount of alcohol that is absorbed but when its in mist form, it bypasses the stomach and there is not vomiting so the amount of alcohol being absorbed is not limited. 

3. The inhalation of alcohol can damage the lungs, and the brain.

4.  The alcohol potency is not diminished when delivered in this manner.

5.  The chances of alcohol poisoning and overdosing increases.

6.  You don't know exactly how much alcohol you are taking into your system because you cannot measure it.

Although there are no definitive human studies out on this yet, the studies done on rats have shown several disturbing things.

1.  After inhaling alcohol, rats displayed more alcohol seeking behaviors.
2.  They displayed more anxious behaviors.
3.  Alcohol in this form becomes addictive
4.  As rats consumed alcohol in this form, they needed more and more to get the same buzz because the brain was changing.
5.  They also exhibited alcohol withdrawal symptoms when they didn't get the alcohol.

I guess this is one of the "new" ways of getting drunk but I wouldn't recommend it to anyone and just for the record, I do not drink and am not interested in drinking but I felt this topic was important enough to cover it here.  It is worth a chat with your kids just so they know what could happen.

Let me know what you think, I'd love to hear.  Have a great day.