Consequently, most liquid medications are in an alcohol base to more thoroughly dissolve the solid ingredients. Alcohol is a drying agent. The burning sensation often associated with swallowing undiluted distilled liquor results from the drying out of mucous membranes in the throat. Since most of our brothers are underage during their undergraduate years, serving alcohol and permitting its use on site are subjecting our fraternity to questionable ethical and legal practices. It is characterized by tolerance and physical dependency, pathologic organ changes, or both, all of which are the direct consequences of alcohol ingested.
Alcoholism is chronic.
Chronic conditions are lingering and susceptible to being activated whenever certain conditions obtain. In the case of alcoholism as with diabetes, another chronic disease, we do not speak of being cured. The disease may be arrested through abstinence from alcohol and the alcohol-like drugs. Resuming the use of alcohol or other such drugs, even in the most moderate amounts, threatens the reactivation of the active disease. Alcoholism is progressive.