Eli5 If alcohol is a poison why does it make us feel good?
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Alcohol makes you suffer due to many reasons:
1) dehydration: alcohol dehydrates anything is touches. It removes the water from the cells and hence destroying it sometimes. This is one of the reasons why it is called as disinfecting agent. This also makes your body have less water where it needs to have. Thereby hampering a lot of important functions.
2) neurological agent: alcohol changes the chemistry of your nervous system, thereby blocking it slowing down your nervous system. Your perception and reaction both slow down. Hence your brain is confused, because there is a level of de-synchronisation in your motor nervous system (responsible for movement).
3) metabolism: alcohol is a fuel for the body, in the sense that cells can convert the alcohol to carbohydrates for energy. But this also is done mostly in your liver. If this process (metabolisation of alcohol) is slow, alcohol stays in your blood and keeps showing its side effects.
However, alcohol makes you feel good because:
1) it slows down your nervous system thereby reducing the distress signals and sensory overload in the system. It slows both the good and the bad things in the nervous system. This makes your brain and spinal cord less stressed and perception of important yet distressing signals are reduced. Your brain suddenly thinks your body is doing great because there are less things concerning. This is one of the reasons why your body feels more capable when you are under influence.
2) your body needs some time to absorb the alcohol into your blood. This means there is a delay between when you consume alcohol and your blood alcohol level actually reaching levels where your body is completely “down”. Until that time, the length of alcohol is considerable enough to make you feel great but not enough to dehydrate you and make you feel bad.
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