How does building up alcohol tolerance work? The more consistently you drink alcohol the more tolerance you build to it, so over a long time it will take more alcohol to get you drunk. Just curious how this works.
In: Biology
Two things are happening, and I will do my best to explain like you’re five:
1) You have receptors on your brain cells. They are a lock and alcohol is the key. If enough keys fit into enough locks, the brain cells start making you feel drunk. If you drink a lot, your brain cells are like “oh dang so many keys! Let’s make some more locks”. And at that point more locks have to be unlocked to make you feel drunk.
2) As others have said, your liver has enzymes that destroy alcohol (because it’s legit poison). When you drink more, your liver is like “oh shit, more poison! Let’s get better at destroying this poison”. So it makes more enzymes to break down more alcohol.
So long story short, tolerance occurs because it takes more alcohol to get drunk, while it is also being removed the body faster.
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