True Lies About Alcohol

By Noel Dallow

I recently had the chance to witness close up the truly astounding effects of excess alcohol consumption. A gentleman, who shall remain nameless, had returned from some time abroad and then proceeded to single-handedly try and bankrupt Freedom, a local pay-NT$500-and-drink-until-you-explode joint. This by itself was impressive but the best was yet to come. Some hours after his entrance, he exited and tried to do two things at once: namely walk and breathe. Impossible. The considerable mirth he generated as he staggered semi-comatosely around was only tempered by his attempt to spray his detractors with urine, a task which led to a hasty retreat by his friends and to his girlfriend covering her face with her hands in horror.

Well, he was young, and he lived to drink another day so no harm done (apart from the photos…). But let’s face it. Drink is good. Say it out loud. Celebrate being an ADULT with all its privileges, like eating cake for breakfast, (something Moms worldwide forbid). I well remember the first time I had an apartment and was able to sit down in my own living room with a large pizza and a crate of ice-cold Waitemata Pale Ale. Such glorious new-found freedom!

We considered running a competition this month based around our theme. Ideas included first time drunk, worst hangover, best hangover cure, worst atrocity committed while drunk, greatest amount of alcohol consumed at a single sitting and so forth, but honestly, the thought of wading through pages of lies and exaggerations put us right off. We simply suggest you open the topic for discussion on your next night out, and see if you can tell when your pals are lying (yes, their lips are moving is the right answer).

Alcohol has been a pervasive force in society for a long time. Both the Egyptians and the Babylonians made frequent reference to it, the former being fond of calling their children names like “As-Drunk-As-Cheops”. This has continued to the present day even in Taiwan where, Stella is a popular English name for Taiwanese girls, obviously not having anything to do with the Latin word for star. The Babylonians gave us the word honeymoon from the custom of giving newlyweds a month’s supply of mead (basically a strong-ish honey beer) and then rating the brewer on how many offspring resulted nine months later. Obviously fetal alcohol syndrome was not a big worry back then or this would have been a bit of a non-starter.

In Ancient Greece there were many gods. Two of them were Apollo and Dionysus. Apollo viewed the doings of humanity with cool aloofness from afar, detached and uninvolved. Dionysus on the other hand was into revelry on a large scale - not for him the boring Olympian heights when there was feasting and imbibing to be done - he was right there in the thick of it! These two extremes are still with us as a pair of opposites or a polarity. It’s important to get the big picture of things, but you also need to be able to understand the inner machinations by being right there, in the cut and thrust. The trick is not to get stuck in one or the other modes of perception. So, despite rumors to the contrary, the Greeks may have been a rather moderate lot.

Archaeological evidence points to the first use of alcohol in China around 6000 years ago and as can be seen by the large number of ceremonial vessels in the National Palace Museum, had a hugely important religious connection. One of the classic examples of the ceremonial use of alcohol is described in the famous story "Romance of the Three Kingdoms". The three heroes in the epic tale, become blood brothers by drinking bowls of wine into which they have mixed drops of their own blood from cuts in their fingers.

There is a sad statistic behind the drinking of alcohol in Asia though, and that is that nearly nine-tenths of the population have an atypical alcohol dehydrogenase (who knew?). Simply put, digesting alcohol goes through two stages:

alcohol -> poison -> vinegar

Enzymes do this work for most people quite well, but the folk with the atypical enzyme have the poison stage lingering in their system for too long and to make a long story short, they blush. Yes, blush. So when you take your date out and insist on a drink to break the ice, they may not suddenly be red-faced with barely suppressed ardor. Don’t say you haven’t been warned! In the future this could be a well-funded area where gene-therapy could make all the difference and I’m sure Guinness, Annheiser-Busch and a few others would gladly chip in whatever was required…

Continued...