Once alcohol is swallowed, it is not digested like food.  A small amount is absorbed directly by the lining in our mouth.  Alcohol is absorbed into the blood stream through the tissue lining in the stomach and small intestine.  Food, water, and fruit juice help to slow this absorption, while carbonated beverages work to speed absorption.

Once in the blood stream, alcohol is carried to all the organs of your body.  In the majority of healthy people, blood circulates through the body in 90 seconds, thereby allowing alcohol to affect your brain and all other organs in 90 seconds.

Your body attempts to change alcohol into a non-harmful substance.  10% of the alcohol is eliminated through sweat, breath, and urine.  Your liver must detoxify the remaining alcohol.  The liver detoxifies alcohol at a rate of one half ounce per hour.  Some people cannot detoxify that much alcohol in an hour.  Nothing will speed this rate.  When the rate of alcohol consumed exceeds the liver’s detoxification rate, the amount of alcohol in the bloodstream continues to increase, further impairing the brain, causing intoxication, coma, or possibly death.

Alcohol robs brain cells of water and glucose, the brain’s food, contributing to a hangover the next day.

     Taibbi, R.(1994). How alcohol affects you.Current Health 2, p.16-19