Just had an old fashioned equaling what I normally drink straight in whiskey over the same time period; why do I feel so much more drunk?
In: 11
The addition of sugar makes alcohol seem much stronger because it increases the proof of the alcohol.
Not a biologist, or even very familiar with anatomy, but it may have something to do with both of them being processed by the liver.
Your liver is responsible for turning consumed sugar into fat for storage, and then fat back into sugar for energy when you haven’t eaten in a while. It also does the same for alcohol, but that alcohol needs to be converted into sugar first, and then into fat.
So my uneducated guess is that sugar basically puts a road block on your alcohol metabolism. You won’t necessarily feel *more* drunk, but you’ll be drunk for longer because the alcohol needs to wait around in your blood until the sugar is taken care of.
It shouldn’t, biologically speaking there isn’t a reason why adding sugar should increase the alcohol content of a drink, I mean unless you try to fermentate your drink, the added sugar won’t do a thing.
So several hypothesis.
1 : It’s stronger alcohol than usual ?
2 : You drank it quicker than you thought. Sugar and alcohol are both rewarding to your brain, they trigger some similar brain regions involved in addictive behavior. Adding sugar to an alcoholic drink could enhance the appetitive aspect of alcohol and make you inconsciously drink it faster and drink it more.
3 : You just had a shitton of sugar in your drink, didn’t quite feel the alcohol because of the sugary taste and drank a lot more without realising it.
4 : A combination of all 3 above
Studies suggest that alcohol consumption can improve insulin secretion. Combine this with the acute insulin release from pure sugar in your drink, and you have a recipe for low blood sugar. It’s likely that your “more drunk” feeling is due to low blood sugar.
According to a QI post I saw recently, sugar causes the stomach to expand, which is why there is always room for ice-cream. .
Presumably a larger surface area absorbs alcohol more quickly?
The addition of sugar covers up the taste of alcohol, which can also make you forget exactly how much alcohol is in that drink. This is doubly true for cold or iced drinks, which also helps to mask the burn of alcohol.
The biggest hangover of life came from a massive iced Mai Tai slushy thing. It tasted like an icee and put me out for the rest of the weekend 🤣
Your imagination. I’m not trying to insult the idea or anything, but often times if you think something is true your brain will go out of its way to make it true, it’s called the placebo effect. Many people have stories of their friends getting “drunk” when they were really drinking non alcoholic drinks like cider. If you think sugar in your drinks will make you feel more drunk then it is quite likely to make you feel more drunk, even when there’s no actual biological reason for it.
As Mary Poppins said, a spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down. Adding sugar to your alcoholic drink masks the taste of the whiskey meaning you drank. Much drank it much quicker than you would have sipped the whiskey if you had it neat
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