Alcoholic intoxication
| Alcohol intoxication | |
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| The Drunkenness of Noah by Michelangelo | |
| Specialty | Toxicology, psychiatry |
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Alcohol intoxication, also known as drunkenness among other names, is a physiological condition that may result in psychological alterations of consciousness. Symptoms of alcohol intoxication include euphoria, flushed skin, and decreased social inhibition at lower doses, with larger doses producing progressively severe impairments of balance, and decision-making ability as well as nausea or vomiting from alcohol's disruptive effect on the semicircular canals of the inner ear and chemical irritation of the gastric mucosa. Extreme levels of blood-borne alcohol may result in coma or death.
Alcohol intoxication is the result of drinking alcohol such that it enters the bloodstream faster than it can be metabolized by the body. Metabolism results in breaking down the ethanol into non-intoxicating byproducts.
Some effects of alcohol intoxication, such as euphoria and lowered social inhibition, are central to alcohol's desirability as a beverage. Throughout history it has been one of the world's most widespread recreational drugs. Despite this widespread use and alcohol's legality in most countries, many medical sources tend to describe any level of alcohol intoxication as a form of poisoning due to ethanol's damaging effects on the body in large doses. Some religions consider alcohol intoxication to be a sin.
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