The Alcohol Problem: What Do You Think? (1973)

[Music] [Music] and alcohol is a double brain poison it's just as truly a habit farming poison as more CH it lowers the defensive power to white blood suer it decreases the oxygen absorbing and oxygen carrying power the red it inflames the stomach it hardens the art it weakens the heart it sens the bra it clogs it rots the kidneys and if you drink enough of it it will give you a green brain and a red nose and a white liver and a black heart for the yellow Street clear through you to drink or not to drink this dilemma tore America apart for many decades until in 199 the nation voted the 18th Amendment to the Constitution into law prohibiting manufactur and sale of alcoholic beverages in the USA for 13 years not to drink was the law of the land but the controversy continued in 1932 the Democratic Party's candidate for president proclaimed we Advocate the repal of the 18th Amendment now President Roosevelt in the cabinet room the White House is about to sign the long awaited beer Bill the president signs the bill why do you drink to get high and loaded truly pleas when I got a problem drink get in with the in Crow I'm at a party or something and everyone else is drinking it helps me relax cuz I like the DAT of I drink for socializing that's about [Music] all drink my wine with milk eat o friends drink ye drink abundantly oh beloved since the earliest recorded times man has cultivated the grape and brewed alcoholic [Music] beverages wine is part of man's culture of his religious and social ceremony and last but not least of his economy well I wake up every morning each year more is spent on alcohol than on [Music] education the earnings of some Nations depend on the export of liquor alcohol is Big Business yes I keep on drinking drive my Blues Away alcohol is such an ingrained aspect of our culture that its presence is rarely [Music] questioned we begin at a very early age to develop our social interaction around an alcohol situation yes keep on drinking drive my through the way why are there vast sums of money spent on alcohol why do we drink microscopic cells of yeast are the agents that produce alcohol alol when mixed with sugar and water they attack the sugar in a process called fermentation and ethyl alcohol is given off as a side product after fermentation a sugary mixture such as grape juice contains about 14% alcohol when it is heated to 172.5 De F the alcohol boils off as Vapor as the alcohol vapor cools it condenses the result is a more concentrated solution of ethyl alcohol called ethanol for short it is a clear colorless liquid used most often for making alcoholic beverages my secretary's got a ba and a really bu May sent her down to the Xerox machine when an alcoholic beverage is swallowed it goes first to the stomach where about 20% of the alcohol is absorbed it requires no digestion but simply passes through the stomach walls into veins that lead to the liver Hitler had a soul isn't really that saying the same thing Hitler did have a soul we gowhere food in the stomach delays passage of the drink to the intestines where the rest of the alcohol is absorbed it then passes to the liver where its metabolism or destruction is begun because the liver can destroy only a drop or two of alcohol at a time about 1third of an ounce per hour most of it passes into the bloodstream within a matter of minutes the alcohol in blood reaches the brain where it produces changes in mood and she's not promiscuous only other people are an experiment with 80 proof vodka will show some of the effects alcohol has on coordination first the ball player drinks 4 ounces of vodka mixed with orange juice 30 minutes later this device called a breathalyzer is used to calculate the amount of Al alcohol in the ball player's Blood by measuring the alcohol in his breath there is a constant relationship of the alcohol in the Alvi in the lungs and the percentage of alcohol in the blood the alcohol in the ball player's blood is 05% oh I'm me pretty good 30 minutes later the ball player drinks four more ounces now the alcohol in the ball player's blood is 9% okay the ball player drinks four more ounces now a total of 12 30 minutes later his blood alcohol level reaches 13% yeah the ball player's reaction time is slowing down for this man to drive an automobile in such a condition would be suicidal easy easy watch your step there you always carry your sunglasses and your jacket okay let's turn around have a seat in that chair and relax for a couple of [Applause] minutes okay Mr vard this is the breathalizer test that we're going to give you do you understand that okay and take the sample okay Mr V here you go why don't you come over here put your mouth on the little hole there and give it a good strong blow laws differ from state to state and the percentages of alcohol in the blood which determine whether a person is legally Under the Influence you're right at a 0.11% okay how to do it you're going to be booked for driving under the influence of alcohol the breathalizer has given indication that you would be Under the Influence as was previously suspected in most people it takes only a few beers or glasses of wine to be declared legally Under the [Applause] Influence cases involving drunken driving and violence under the influence of alcohol are filling the courtrooms and Jails of the nation have you given any thought to your drinking habits and what your responsibilities are if you drink the American Medical Association has recently stated unequivocally that alcoholism is a disease there are two distinct features to this disease the first is the psychological disposition of the alcoholic that compels him to return to his bottle the second feature is actual physical dependence or addiction I'm working on physical dependence to alcohol and mice what we do is to put the mice into a no choice situation in which the air that they breathe contains alcohol these are mice that have been for 3 Days In The Vapor box and have now been out of the alcohol Vapor for several hours and they're beginning to show the physical sickness that we recognize the signs of physical dependence and the specific sign that we can see most easily is a specific type of convulsion that the animals get when we pick them up by the tail he pulls his front legs together and spreads his back legs out his head goes back and there's a peculiar Grimace on his face all the time he's trembling when an animal or a person stops taking any drug that he's become addicted to he gets sick really physically sick not just that they want more alcohol but they're physically sick if they don't have it very little is known about the causes of addiction and dependency therefore little can be done to prevent or interrupt dependency by clinical means The Chronic alcoholic is not necessarily a skid R bump but he craves his drink just as much you're not a one you're an alcoholic hi he what happened to you what brought you in this time a bunch of kids beat the hell out of me let me have you lie back the alcoholic is so vulnerable to every kind of bacteria every kind of infection that comes along his defense system is usually shot how old are you gosh I don't know have you been eating while you've been drinking this time M maybe a meal a day maybe a meal a day huh well this liver is certainly enlarged I Believe I Can Feel the spleen also the first slide I want to show you is that of a normal liver you will see by the scale in the left hand corner it's of normal size you'll notice the color of the liver and it's uh it's reddish brownish color and it's normal Sheen normal liver next slide is a cross-section through the same liver in a non-alcoholic patient and you'll see under the microscope the liver cells laid out very nicely in a lobular fashion and this then is the structure microscopically of a normal liver let us take the liver now from a patient who has been drinking many years and this slide shows the liver markedly enlarged very fat Laden it has a a different type of a color a purplish tonny color to it and uh this liver is beginning to lose much of its function if the patient now continues in his drinking another 5 10 years we see this appearance the liver is shrunken down markedly scarred very little if any function remaining and finally looking at this under the microscope we see that the normal liver architecture that nice lobular pattern that we saw just before is no longer present instead we see a lot of fibrous tissue lot of scar tissue and you can well imagine then that there's very little left in the way of function for the individual who had this liver when I try to help a patient on the ward sure he may not have as much gastritis or pancreatitis or liver disease but what do we have to offer that patient in life that is better than his drinking no magic pill no quick cure no force of law can changed the fact that many people do drink some of them excessively mothers and fathers people old and young men and women in positions of respect and Leadership I just found I functioned better with it I didn't I didn't know that I needed it and as I look back on it I don't think I was hooked on it you know I don't think I had reached the point of addiction uh I just simply knew that I felt better with the steady or the occasional drinkers never think of themselves as numbers in statistics but any one even two out of 10 drinkers is a potential problem Drinker at one point in every alcoholic's life you find out you no longer just want it you need it for the problem Drinker Society is providing some help the Alcoholics Anonymous the the clinics for alcoholics in major hospitals social services and private Counseling in all of the rarest cases though the individual must take the initiative himself but you started drinking continuously I started drinking as a sport and habit when I was 13 why cuz everyone else did you know in this Counseling Center not only alcoholics but their children and spouses are invited to participate they are the alcoholic environment and their help and understanding are essential make people think you're something that you ain't because you really hate what you think you are my dad was drinking then and you know there was you know was always between him and my mom we were always by ourselves you know never really had that much on me when when you feel all this pressure on you you feel like saying what do you feel like doing get off my back try it again get off my back did you get into it more get off my back yeah say it again get off my back say it louder get off my back louder get off my back louder get off my back you yell it out get off my back how's that I don't know kind of good better huh try something else um could you move since we recognize that alcohol is part of our social scene can't do that the big question is therefore not whether to drink or not to drink but are you ready to make the choice between drinking responsibly or not drinking at all [Music]