I’m sure we’ve all heard and read endless anecdotes about the guy who got pulled over and blew a .46, or someone that can drink entire bottle of vodka. Or Ric Flair, for example, who told a story in a documentary about a time when he drank a six-pack of beer before arriving at an airport, drank 10 double tequila, cranberry and sodas before the flight at the airport bar, had eight bloody Mary’s on the flight, and drank another six-pack of beer upon landing. Like, how does that not kill someone?
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Your body likes to work at max efficiency. It’s not going to waste time, energy, and space on something it doesn’t need. When you first start drinking, you don’t have any, or very few, proteins in your liver cells that are required to break down alcohol. It has never needed these proteins before and why would it create them if it doesn’t need them? This is why you can get drunk with only a few drinks when you’re new to drinking. As you continue to drink, more liver cells produce and keep these proteins. This is how a tolerance starts. Your body can break down alcohol much faster than it used to because it has a built up supply of liver cells that are capable of breaking it down.
I started drinking when I was ~19, and I hit the ground running. I was drinking like 5-6 night a week with my friends. The first time I drank, I had 3 Bud Lights and was significantly buzzed, but by the time I was like 22, my friends and I could easily take 15+ shots and not blackout. People like Ric Flair probably have some genetic help, but its mostly just commitment to drinking. If you drink excessively, every night, your body gets used to alcohol and breaking it down. (It also becomes dependent on alcohol, but that’s a different story).
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