I’ve seen people claim that getting drunk off of X causes them to party, while getting drunk off of Y causes them to sleep, and getting drunk off of Z causes them to be more depressed, but X causes them to be more happy, etc.
Is this actually true? If so,
– I presume it’s dependent on the person, so what physical or mental differences in a person make them more or less likely?
– What about the alcohols could affect this?
– How does what you mix it with take a role? (Like do Citrus mix-ins have a different effect than caffeine mix-ins, etc).
If it’s not true:
– Why do people claim that it’s true so fervently?
Edit: So the consensus seems to be “The difference comes from the atmosphere and emotions you have going in. The alcohol itself likely has little difference. However, some alcohol has more or less histamines, melatonin, or are often paired with things with more sugar or caffeine, or contain more or less fluids to hydrate, so these all may play roles”.
In: Chemistry
The ethanol in the drinks is all the same and is going to have the same general effect on their body chemistry. However, the composition of the drink is going to matter for three big reasons. First, it can affect how fast people get the alcohol into their bodies. Drinks with a lower alcohol content are typically going to take longer to get you drunk simply because they take longer to drink (practices like chugging beer notwithstanding). Drinks served with something else that gives you energy (sugar from mixers or cocktail ingredients, caffeine, to a lesser extent the unfermented carbs in beer and wine) mean that you’ll have that energy available when you’re drunk. Finally, social/economic factors may affect how quickly you drink different things. You *can* drink a glass of scotch in one gulp, but you usually sip and savor it because it’s expensive and has a notable flavor. You *can* nurse a shot of well vodka all night, but you usually drink it all at once because it’s cheap and doesn’t taste like much.
None of this adds up to big, general statements about how certain liquors will “make you happy” and others “make you sad,” etc. That’s probably driven entirely by the drinker’s past experience and the social contexts in which they have certain drinks. But even holding all of that constant, you are likely to have a slightly different experience from a big fruity cocktail than you are from a snifter of bourbon.
I think most people don’t say the alcohol affects them differently in the moment, its the after effects.
“I drank wine last night, and now I have a hang over, should have sticked to beer.”
And hang overs are generally just dehydration to some degree, which is my theory. If you drink X amount of wine by alcohol, you are getting Y amount of water. If you drink X amount of beer, you are getting 3 * Y amount of water per X amount of beer by alcohol.
In effect, when you drink beer you are drinking more water with your beer, particularly if you are drinking lighter beers.
I imagine taste/smell becomes attached to memories of experiences with those drinks creating a stress loop if the memories weren’t good which turns into projected stress and blame on the drink itself.
No, they don’t, unless it *really is* a different alcohol, like isopropanol or methanol. 🙂
Like some people already pointed out, there can be things other than alcohol in the drink (even if it’s unmixed), like histamines (dark beers have a lot) and sulfites, and those can affect people, but they won’t make you more drunk. If you drink a lot of stuff mixed with things that are acidic, that will have *some* effect on irritation of the mouth, esophagus and stomach.
The biggest difference in my experience is how well the drink “masks” the alcohol content, certain flavor profiles (anything with lots of sugar, or high malt in beer, fruity, creamy, etc.) taste a lot less “boozy” than others so you might drink more and drink more quickly.
Also, these days you can routinely come across some pretty tasty beers in the 11-12% ABV range (and some as high as 17-18%), so I’m sure there’s some people out there who didn’t pay attention and think beer aged in Bourbon barrels makes them super drunk…
I know scientifically it seems to be all-but-proven that alcohol is just alcohol. However, I will say, that when I drink vodka alone in my room and try to play video games, I do well. I’m more alert than, say, with Rum, especially with rum I feel very sluggish and typically just put the game down due to my lack of being able to perform, keep my eyes open, process information. But with vodka… could game all night. No preconceptions, nothing in my head about it, just drinking 2 different kinds and going off how I felt. With the change in alcohol being the only differentiating factor between the identical situations, I’ve always believed different alcohols impact you differently.
Alcohol is the same molecule whether it’s in tequila or beer or sourdough bread. People love an excuse for poor self control and bad behaviors.
Alcohol is a simple chemical with complex effects. The balance of those effects varies from person to person, and it also varies with the rate of absorption and the rate at which alcohol is metabolized.
The *first* effect of alcohol is to give a boost of energy. (Your body can burn alcohol even faster than sugar.) The sedative/depressant effects come on a bit more slowly, and build over some time, while the energy effect drops off quickly. This gives rise to the odd effect that the more you drink, the more you feel like you “need another drink” to restore your energy. You’re chasing the energy boost (one effect) to fight off the sedation (another effect).
Two common things that seem to affect the metabolism of alcohol are water and sugar. You’ll clear alcohol more quickly if you’re well hydrated. Sugar seems to slow the clearance of alcohol. So beer, for example, in addition to having hops (which have a mild psychoactive component), ensures you’re getting plenty of water along with your alcohol. That will change the balance of effects compared to, say, drinking straight shots of whiskey.
It’s entirely plausible that different mixes affect the same person differently, and that different people are affected differently, because of the complex interplay between the various effects of alcohol and the influence any other changes in body condition can have on absorption and metabolism. I see no reason to doubt people’s observations of their own experience.
(However, people are misattributing the *cause* of the differences if they think the alcohol itself is different — ethanol, the alcohol people drink, is one single, specific chemical. There are no differences in the alcohol itself.)
It’s all dosage and behavior dependent.
People sit and drink beer, sip wine, and do shot after shot of spirits… put this all in the context of time, and a half hour, yeah, that hi-proof is gonna do a lot in terms of dopamine and drunkalot.
I think the easiest difference to quantify is ABV and how fast/slow you get through drinks. If you’re primarily a beer drinker, drinking wine for a night will probably leave you completely sloshed cause of how easy it is to drink with much higher ABV. Same with doing shots or generous mixed drinks for a night. Going in reverse, drinking beer might make you feel full quicker or you might not even realize you’re getting drunk because of how slower it can be to come on.
Differences between tequila vs whiskey I think has more to do with the vibe of the setting or shots vs mixed vs well. I think it just comes down to how fast/slow you’re taking in the alcohol.
People haven’t really talked about it in this thread but one thing that DOES really impact drunkeness is mixing with caffeine and specifically a lot of caffeine.
The amount you are getting in your cola mix is not enough to dramatically impact the drunk experience, but if you are drinking constant jagerbombs, old formula four loko or energy drinks in any kind of large amount with your alcohol you can enter a blackout phase where without the caffeine you would have passed out and with it, you are now conscious, not remebering anything, and quite significantly drunk.
I assume other stimulants can do the same, most people don’t get slammed while smoking meth, but cocaine and alcohol has a long history and some actually converts to a different drug in vivo. Cocaine addicts who don’t use alongside drinking seem to have an easier time quitting than those who use while drinking regularly.
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