Social drinkers consume several drinks in succession. If the common beta blockers or aspirin are also taken, blood alcohol levels are heightened. Alcohol also increases the levels of tranquilizers or barbiturates. Alcohol in the body breaks down to the acetaldehyde, a pungent irritant that decreases the activity of key enzymes in the liver and interferes with oxygen use in all mitochondria or energy generating sites. Proteins made in microtubules of the liver cells cannot be released and lead to enlarged balloon-like cells, the hallmark of alcoholic liver disease.
Similar effects can occur in the fetus, leading to the fetal alcohol syndrome.
I hope I scared the Hades out of you. Personally, as I grow older, I tend more towards my mother's teetotalism and away from my father's moderate drinking. Don't pickle your brain in alcohol. All rights reserved.