 That's right. Ethel and methyl. Isn't Ethel alcohol the only kind you can drink? Right. Now who knows what can happen if you drink any other kind of alcohol but Ethel alcohol. They had people and if you just take a little bit it can really mess up your mind. Someone told me that you could kill your brain cells if you took the wrong kind of alcohol like one of those up there. Yeah. Ah, alcohol project. I read where this guy he got into a medicine cabinet as this little kid and he drank some rubbing alcohol and it killed him. Right. In fact if you drink any of the other kinds of alcohol but Ethel alcohol you can destroy all the nerve cells in your body and maybe even go blind. Now some of you may have read in the newspapers about people drinking antifreeze, industrial alcohol, rubbing alcohol. These are not for drinking purposes. If you drink them you may die. Now only Ethel alcohol is beverage alcohol. Well nobody drinks it straight. Ethel alcohol is used in making liquor, beer and wine. Straight it tastes lousy. Now what's going on back there boys? Ernie. Willie. Oh nothing Mr. Bach. It's just that Bobby's dog patches he's just outside the window and... And what? He's got a hangover. What do you mean he has a hangover? Isn't there anything you can give him Mr. Bach? There must be a way to cure his hangover. Bobby you go and bring patches inside here. In here? Yeah we'll see what we can do about this hangover of his. Great. Now the rest of you get back to your seats. Now can anybody tell me how Bobby's dog got drunk? It happened yesterday at Bobby's sister's wedding. Bobby's mother said he could have a few of his kids over for the reception afterwards and it was fantastic. Bobby's mother had it catered and everything. There must have been a hundred people in. And what happened? Here he is Mr. Bach. He looks pretty miserable doesn't he? That's so loud he's got a headache. Willie and Ernie were just beginning to tell us how Patrick's got drunk yesterday. Well we were sort of walking around at the reception after the wedding ceremony. Everybody was wishing my sister and Hal the guy she married good luck and all that stuff. Of course my mom or dad wouldn't let me Willie or Ernie have any alcohol. But since it was a special occasion we could have a glass of champagne for good luck. And I don't know how it happened but Patrick started drinking too. We didn't think much about it or anything. We thought it was acting funny and he did seem to like it a lot. Come on tell me what happened then. As soon as the champagne hit him Patrick thought he was a regular guest at the party. But the champagne finally got to him and it just sat there with a dumb look on his face. And he went to sleep right after that and didn't wake up until this morning. And now he has this terrible hangover. Isn't there anything you can give him Mr. Barker? A hangover cue to make him feel better? Now hold it, hold it. Brother about my alcohol project and he says the best thing we do to relieve the hangover is to go in a dark room and just lay down and go to sleep. When my father has a hangover he drinks a raw egg and some tomato juice. What if you stuff yourself with a gigantic breakfast? Somewhere that giant superdoses of vitamins can cure a hangover in an hour. Well none of these things work. Maybe if the hangover is giving you a headache you can take a couple of aspirin to ease the pain. But there are no hangover cures. Is it the same for patches as it is for us? Exactly the same. How long your hangover lasts and how drunk you get? Depends upon your size and weight, what you've been drinking, how much you've been drinking and how much drinking you've done in your life before. But why did Patches get so drunk? Yeah he's pretty big. Yeah he's not only big he's fat. Quiet down. Now who can tell us why Patches got drunk? Well he drank a lot the more he drank the more he drank. Alcohol and champagne. Okay, now who can tell us how much alcohol is in the different kinds of drinks? Hi, Ken. The bartenders I've talked to told me that all hard liquor has between 40% and 50% alcohol in it. They showed me the bar where it says the word proof, and told me that half of whatever's written on the label is a percentage of alcohol. But what about the champagne that Patches drank? My project showed that all wines have about 10% to 15% alcohol in them. How about beer? I talked to a beer company that told me that beer has only about 4% alcohol in it. All right, now let's see what this really means. If you were to drink one glass of hard liquor, you would be getting just about as much alcohol as if you drank three and a half to four glasses of wine or about 10 to 15 glasses of beer. Wow! So you can see that if Patches had drunk as much beer as he did champagne, he would be less drunk. While if he had drunk as much hard liquor as he did champagne. Man, he would have been miserable. And very, very sick. Oh, word. He's in the room, inside of his body. I mean, did he do any real damage? Now that's a good question, Bobby. Let's get him over here in front of the room so the whole class can see and we'll have a good look at him. Okay, the first process we all know of is when alcohol enters the body. How does that happen? We drink it. Okay, at the stomach and the small intestine, absorption happens. What's that? Alcohol enters into the bloodstream through the walls of the stomach and through tiny little blood vessels through the walls of the small intestine. Once it is in the bloodstream, it is free to move about the body. As it's traveling along, a portion of the alcohol is taken in by some of the body tissue it passes along the way. Do some parts get more alcohol than others? Good question. Yes, they do. It seems that the body tissues with more water take in more alcohol. So parts like the brain get a lot of alcohol because it has a lot of water in it. The bones have very little water until they get almost no alcohol. What happens then? Oxidation. What's oxidation? Most of the alcohol in our bodies gets combined with oxygen. What this means is that the alcohol gets broken down into water and carbon dioxide. Now, the liver can only oxidize a little bit of alcohol at a time. It's a tough process. So the rest of the alcohol keeps moving around in our bloodstream. What if he had less to drink? Can the liver work faster? Nope. No matter how much alcohol you drink or what kind or how big or small you are, the liver can only oxidize a certain amount at a time. And it's a very slow process. That's why patches has a hangover. Right. The rest is traveling around in his bloodstream giving him the headache and the crummy feeling of a hangover. Where does the alcohol go then? Well, this water and carbon dioxide are now waste products. They leave the body like all other waste matters through the lungs and the kidneys. Hey, we only talked about where it goes in Patch's body. What does it do to it? Alcohol has an effect in different places in the body. The greatest effect is in the brain and central nervous system. First, it affects the part of the brain that controls our judgment and thought. That actually affects Patch's ability to understand, to remember, and to make decisions. Let's say Patches is under the influence of too much alcohol, right? Yeah. Now, let's say he sees a cat. Go get him, Patches. So Patch's eyes send a message to the brain that there's a cat up ahead. Only the alcohol has dulled the brain and blocks the urgent message of descending to Patch's legs to get moving and chase that cat. So by the time Patches finally reacts and gets going, the cat is long gone. Alcohol has slowed down his eyes, his ears, his legs, even his bark. Anything else happen? As more and more alcohol is being consumed, it gets to more parts of the brain, like the parts that control hearing. You don't hear as well when you drink a lot? That's right. Also, the parts that affect seeing, speaking, and moving around. If you still drink some more, you get to the parts of the brain that control breathing, heartbeat, temperature. And if you go all the way, you can stop your breathing altogether. Your heart, too. Your alcohol is a drug. What do the rest of you think of that? OK, what about over here? Alcohol, it hurts your mind, and it also hurts your body. So sometimes I think it's worse than drugs. Well, I went to hospital the other day, and I talked to a doctor. And he said, definitely, that alcohol is a drug. Alcohol is a drug in the sense that any chemical that you take into your body and affects the way your body functions is a drug. But in a very specific way, alcohol is a drug that affects the way your mind works. It acts as a sedative in the sense that it slows down the activity within your brain, the messages from one part of the brain to the other and whatnot. In this slowing down, then your thinking, your ability to make decisions, that all slows down, too. Yeah, Brian? Well, we've gotten into alcohol as a drug and all that other stuff. But isn't there anything we can do for patches? I don't know what Mr. Barker said. Nobody can only get rid of a certain amount of alcohol regularly. Patches is just going to have to wait this one out. And if you'd known more about alcohol before, you could have kept Patches from getting drunk. Yeah, but I didn't know. Oh, come on. He's sure to have kept himself in a place like that, a reception for a wedding. Bobby, all three of those boys should have been watching. Patches should have put him in the hell. If you see your dog drinking about a gallon of champagne, what would you do? Just let him drink it? Hold it just one more minute. One more minute before you go. Remember, you have to learn these things about alcohol because it does affect your brain and your body. But learn when enough is enough, or you'll end up just like Patches here. All right, see you tomorrow. Bye-bye. Patches, I'm really sorry. What do you say we go get a hamburger? OK? I'm sorry.