Most people recognize that everyone is different in their own unique way. Some people are taller, some are wider. Everyone’s skin color is a little bit different. There are so many things that make every single person different and unique. One type of difference that often gets overlooked is how our bodies handle different substances. In particular, how our bodies react to alcohol.
Since everyone is a little different in this regard, everyone has a different alcohol tolerance level. Some people get tipsy after a beer or two. Others need to have some hard liquor before they feel anything. These different tolerance levels can greatly affect a person and their abilities after having some drinks.
What Is Alcohol Tolerance
Alcohol tolerance refers to how well or poorly a person’s body is able to process the ethanol found in alcohol. A person’s alcohol tolerance determines how much alcohol a person needs to consume before feeling buzzed or drunk. It also plays a part in how well the person can recover after having those drinks.
Typically, larger people have higher alcohol tolerance levels than smaller people. This is due to the fact that it takes more alcohol to fully affect the larger body. Meanwhile, the same amount of alcohol could easily spread throughout the body of a smaller individual. Since, on average, men are larger than women, men have a tendency to have higher alcohol tolerance levels than women.
Human bodies are designed to adapt. While everyone starts out with a base alcohol tolerance level, that level goes up the more frequently a person drinks. The more alcohol a person consumes, the better their body becomes at processing the alcohol, to a point at least. Too much heavy consumption of alcohol can be damaging to the body. It can lead to a dependency on alcohol, alcoholism, and eventual liver failure. Both of these are not fun ailments to experience, and so a person needs to drink responsibly.
Things To Consider
When a person is drinking, they need to consider a lot of different things. If a person wants to stay healthy, they need to be aware of how much alcohol their body can handle. Knowing this will help them limit themselves and keep things from getting too out of hand.
Another thing to consider is the fact that a person’s alcohol tolerance level determines how well they can recover from a night of drinking. If a person has a low alcohol tolerance, then they should limit their drinking that night if they have plans the following morning.
A person should also have a good idea of their friend’s alcohol tolerance, or at least recognize when that friend has crossed the line. By identifying that moment, the person can help the friend make good decisions, such as not driving home from the bar. After all, anyone who has had too much to drink should not get behind the wheel of a vehicle.
Drink Responsibly
Everyone is a little different. This means that some people can handle alcohol better than others. This can be for any number of reasons. Maybe the person just drinks more frequently, or maybe they are a bit larger. Some studies have even found that since the availability of alcohol did not spread evenly across the world, some ethnicities have higher tolerances to alcohol than others.
No matter the reason for the differences, a person should be aware of their own alcohol tolerance. When they do, they will be less likely to over drink, which is referred to as drinking responsibly. This can keep them out of trouble, because people don’t always make the best decisions when drunk. This can also keep a person healthy by not over exposing themselves to alcohol.