Is there any difference from your livers perspective to drink slower, but still at capacity (i.e. 1 standard drink per hour) or is it the same as drinking a lot of drinks at the same time and the liver getting ‘backed up’? Is one of them better for your liver? Is there a ‘waiting room’ per se?
In: 200
The basic answer is that’s not how capacity works. The higher your alcohol content, the faster your liver works. So if you drink more in one go, you put more strain on the liver for that one go.
When you drink alcohol, it goes into your stomach and then into your liver. Your liver is a very important organ that helps your body get rid of toxins and other harmful substances.
When you drink alcohol, your liver has to work extra hard to break it down and get rid of it from your body. If you drink a lot of alcohol very quickly, your liver can get overwhelmed and it might not be able to break down the alcohol as fast as it is coming in. This can be bad for your liver and can cause liver damage.
On the other hand, if you drink alcohol more slowly, your liver has more time to break it down and get rid of it from your body. This can be easier for your liver and might be less damaging to it.
So, from your liver’s perspective, it is better to drink alcohol more slowly rather than all at once. This can help protect your liver and keep it healthy.
you can drink all day if you space them out, IE: one drink per hour. (source: a few trips to vegas)
have 18 drinks in one hour you’ll likely have more problems than your liver.
its my understanding that chronic drinkers get ‘fatty’ liver because when it deals with too much alcohol it just stores the fats. also the liver is supposed to deal many other daily issues, as well as breaking down many drugs, you shouldn’t take tylenol if drinking a lot because the liver will ignore that while working on the alcohol.
Imagine you had 8 clients booked in at work, and each job would take one hour to complete. If each client arrives on the hour, your day will go smoothly.
However, if all 8 clients arrive first thing in the morning, your day will be very stressful as they are all sitting around waiting.
Similar for your liver in this context
Does anyone have an answer that applies to drinking water/hydration?
Disclaimer: not a professional in any way but I have an anecdotal response.
48yo male and I drink a lot, but rarely get really drunk (maybe once every couple of months I’ll let loose and not remember the night before). Weekends I’ll usually be drinking before midday and on into the night, weekdays maybe 3pm into the night, sometimes start earlier. So I go through a lot of booze, but, again, usually keep it to a moderate rate of consumption. I’ve been doing this for about 15 years. I fully understand that this is not healthy and the next part of what I am about to say should not be taken as a recommendation to my stupid drinking choices/addiction.
I get a blood test once every 6 months or so and my liver function (AST/ALT) to date have always been within normal levels. Ultrasounds have also shown healthy function.
So, (again anecdotally and my single data point) drinking in the manner I described has not had dire consequences to my liver according to the tests mentioned.
Weight gain on the other hand……
YMMV
Yes. You only break down alcohol so fast. One of the intermediate steps of the chain it breaks down into is acetate – nail polish remover. If you are drinking more than you can process you end up with that kind of garbage sitting in queue longer to be broken down and get scarring.
There are also some people who have a gene that dumps excess into the intestine for processing and its much slower and worse at it and it breaks down the bacteria in your gut as a side effect and creates irritants (cytokines) that have inflammatory responses throughout the body. That happens to an extent, regardless, but for “super drinkers” (I can drink a 12 pack and not feel anything!) its because theyre damaging their body in other ways.
A drink an hour is safe but you also only have so many enzymes sitting there waiting to break alcohol down, its a limited reserve. Which is why coffee and eggs is so often appealing is ovoprotein (egg protein) is a component of rebuilding it all. You’re also dehydrated because your liver thinks its being poisoned (it is) and it stops processing liquids which is why you can drink a gallon of water, pee it all out, and not be hydrated still.
Alcohol is a drug and, like any other drug, you can use, misuse, and abuse it. Safe drug use for alcohol is 2-3 drinks at an hour each a few times a week.
There is an interesting documentary [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4953130/](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4953130/) on this topic specifically with two twins drinking 21 units of alcohol a week – one drinking every day, the other drinking it all in one sitting. Very interesting!
Many people in this thread are making the claim that “the more alcohol you drink, the faster your liver works”. This is technically incorrect.
Alcohol falls under “zero-order kinetics” which means a constant amount of alcohol will be eliminated at a constant rate, as opposed to first order which is eliminated faster with higher concentrations of drug.
https://sepia2.unil.ch/pharmacology/parameters/elimination-kinetics/#:~:text=A%20few%20substances%20are%20eliminated,%2C%20Cisplatin%2C%20Fluoxetin%2C%20Omeprazol.
Regardless, lots of alcohol will definitely be worse than drinking less alcohol.
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