 And methyl? Hey, look. I mean, it's a little bit different here. Isn't ethyl alcohol the only kind you can drink? Right. Now, who knows what can happen if you drink any other kind of alcohol but ethyl alcohol? Come on TV one time, and 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 things. Well, when I was doing my alcohol project, I read with 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 ethyl alcohol, you can destroy all the nerve cells in your body and maybe even go blind. 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 ethyl alcohol is beverage alcohol. Well, nobody drinks it straight. Ethyl alcohol is in liquor, beer, and wine. What's going on back there, boys? Willie? Willie? Oh, nothing, Mr. Barker. 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. Barker? 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 a catering and everything. There must have been a hundred people there. And what happened? Here he is, Mr. Barker. He looks pretty miserable, doesn't he? That's a laugh. He's got a headache. Willie and Ernie were just beginning to tell us how Patches got drunk yesterday. Well, we were sort of walking around at the reception after the wedding ceremony. Everybody was wishing my sister-in-house the guy she married. Good luck and all that stuff. I guess the champagne helped everybody relax. It was a celebration anyway. And mom and dad said since it was a special occasion, even Willie, Ernie and me could have a glass of champagne. But good luck. And I don't know how it happened. But Patches began to start drinking too much. We didn't think much about it or anything. We thought he was just acting funny. And he did seem to like it a lot. Come on, tell me what happened next. As soon as the champagne hit him, Patches 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, one at a time. I was talking to my oldest 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. Oh no. When my father has a hangover, he drinks a raw egg and some tomato juice. Yeah. Yeah, and what if you stuff yourself with a gigantic breakfast? I read somewhere that giant superdoses of vitamins can cure a hangover in an hour. Actually, 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. Well, why did Patches get so drunk? Yeah, he's pretty big. Yeah, he's not only big. All right, quiet down. Now, who can tell us why Patches got drunk? Well, he drank a lot. The more he drank, the more he drank. There's a whole lot of alcohol in Champagne. Okay. Now, who can tell us how much alcohol is in the different kinds of drinks? I can. The bartender that I talked to told me that all the hard liquor have 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 50% of alcohol. Well, what about the Champagne that Patches drank? My project shows 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 me show you what that really means. I'm putting one half of an ounce of ethyl or beverage alcohol into this graduated beaker. This represents the amount of alcohol found in this shot glass of hard liquor, in this glass of wine, and in this mug of beer. The point being that the same amount of alcohol is found in a shot glass of hard liquor, a glass of wine, or a mug of beer. So we can see that if Patches had drunk the same amount of beer as he did Champagne, he would have been less drunk. Well, if he had drunk the same amount of hard liquor as he did Champagne. Man, he would have been miserable. And very, very sick, or worse. See, what did the alcohol do to him 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? Okay. Now, 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 in the walls of the small intestines. 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. Can 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 so 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? Couldn't 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 at a time and it's a very slow process. That's why passage 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 and they leave the body like all other waste matters through the lungs and the kidneys. Hey, we only talked about where it goes in passage body. What does it do to it? Alcohol has an effect in different places in the body. The greatest effect is on 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. Now let's say Patch's is under the influence of too much alcohol. Right? Yeah. Now, let's say he sees a cat. Go get him, Patches! Patches' eyes send a message to the brain that there's a cat up in him. Only the alcohol has dulled the brain and blocks the urgent message at ascending to Patch's legs to get moving and chase that cat. Well, by the time Patches finally reacts and gets going, the cat is long gone. Alcohol has slowed down his eyes, his ears, his legs, and even his bark. Anything else happen? As more alcohol is consumed, the effects on the brain are more apparent. Like the effect on the part of the brain that controls hearing. He doesn't hear as well as he did come out. 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, heart beat, temperature. And if you go all the way, you can stop your breathing all together. Your heart too. Fire down all the drums. What do you think of that? Okay, what about over here? Alcohol, it, you know, it hurts your mind and it also hurts your body. So sometimes I think it's worse than drugs. Well, I went to the 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 when you're thinking, your ability to make decisions, that all slows down too. Yeah, Brian. Well, we've gotten into alcohols and drugs and all that other stuff but isn't there anything we can do for patches? No, it's you guys. You 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. It's your dog. He's going to have to find himself in a place like that at a reception for a wedding. Bobby, all three of those books should have been watching. 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. I'm sorry, Patches. I'm really sorry. Maybe you should go get a hamburger. Okay? I'm sorry.