"Those who drink beer will think beer," states Washington Irving. Alcohol has many effects on people, including hangovers, family problems, and high risks of some diseases. There are numerous negative effects of drinking, and most of the American population has experienced these at one time or another. In America, a person's first use of alcohol usually begins around the age of thirteen. Junior and senior high school students drink thirty-five percent of all wine coolers sold in the U.S. and consume 1.1 billion cans of beer. .
Consuming alcohol has both negative short- and long-term effects. Some of the short-term effects include hangovers, social drinking, and binge drinking. Most of the time, people consume alcohol in moderation. On occasion, people overindulge and take in too much alcohol and then get what is most commonly known as a hangover, or the sick flu-like symptoms that many people experience the day after drinking. One cause of a hangover is dehydration. Alcohol is a diuretic, a drug that increases urination and flushes fluids from the body. Too much alcohol depletes the body of necessary substances required to stay healthy, including blood sugar, vitamins and minerals that keep a person alert and not tired. There is good evidence emerging that the main cause of hangover is acute withdrawal from alcohol, which causes cells in the brain to physically change in response to the alcohol's presence. When the alcohol is gone, a person goes through withdrawal until those cells get used to doing without the alcohol. Withdraw is when a cell is used to something in it's environment, and that something such as alcohol is removed, causing a person to sometimes shake, vomit, or sweat uncontrollably in response to the removal. .
Drinking problems take a lot of forms and include social drinking, binge drinking, and alcohol poisoning. Social drinking, a term kids and drinkers have become accustom to, is defined by one standard drink per hour, and no more than three per day.
