[0:00]Beer, wine, whisky, and vodka. What is the difference between all these drinks? Can any of these alcoholic drinks be called healthy based on science?
[0:14]What is the safe limit for drinking alcohol? There is an interesting reason behind getting drunk from alcohol. When your liver's speed of removing alcohol from the blood becomes less than your brain's speed of absorbing alcohol, then gradually this intoxication starts to wear off. When we used to hear about it in childhood, we used to think what a high-fi drink this is that humans have made. But actually, friends, alcohol is a very natural thing. Its history is older than the history of humans. Unfortunately, the unfortunate thing is that today, in most villages and urban slums of the country, it is difficult to get clean water, but alcohol is easily available.
[0:50]Hello friends, this is the story of an ordinary middle-class family. In childhood, Amit was that child whom everyone in the house and neighborhood used to call an ideal son. Intelligent in studies, cultured, and his mother's favorite. Amit had neither ever drunk alcohol, nor was he interested in drinking alcohol. In fact, he hated alcoholics. He used to often think after seeing alcoholics, what pathetic people they are, they keep stealing money, they keep getting beaten by the police, they ruin their family's name. But at the age of 18, after completing 12th, Amit gets admission in a good college and there he meets his new friends. For the first time in his life, Amit was away from home. He was in a new city and there was no pressure from his parents. And here Amit drinks his first drink, as a celebration. The thing was that in the first test of college, Amit had scored very good marks. His new friends were very impressed seeing this. They invite him for a party on Friday night, as a celebration. From here, slowly, his occasional drinking started. By regularly attending these parties, he also made new friends. He also got a girlfriend. But gradually, this occasional drinking turned into weekend drinking. Every Friday evening, he started drinking. His friends started praising his drinking capacity. Look how much he can drink. Your condition gets bad with one glass of beer. Look at Amit, he drinks vodka as if he is drinking water. For many months, for a year, it kept going like this. But then one day comes when suddenly Amit's girlfriend breaks up with him. His friends say, 'It's okay, buddy, leave her.' Let's go, let's have a drink today to celebrate this sorrow. Because of this sadness, to reduce his sorrow, Amit started drinking alcohol every day. His performance in studies also started declining. But Amit noticed one interesting thing. Whenever he drank alcohol, he felt a sense of peace inside him.
[2:49]He would forget all this tension, all this stress. This feeling was not only special to Amit. It is scientifically proven that people who drink alcohol regularly in this way, actually feel peace. The tension that they have in their mind, in their heart, all that goes away temporarily. But the problem is that with time, to get the same level of peace, a larger amount of alcohol has to be consumed. Exactly what is the scientific reason behind this, we will talk about it further in the video, but Amit experienced one more thing. After about six to eight hours of this feeling of peace, his sadness returned. And then he would regret it, feel ashamed of himself. And anxiety and panic attacks would also be seen. When Amit returned home, his parents were shocked to see him. After all, what condition had their darling made of himself? His mother tried everything. Temple, pilgrimage, psychiatrist. Even Amit was given horse urine so that his addiction could be cured. But nothing worked. With time, like any other hardcore alcoholic, Amit was also becoming more short-tempered. He used to get very angry over small things. After some time, Amit gets married. An arranged marriage is arranged. But within two days of the marriage, his wife comes to know how big an alcoholic Amit is. His wife and his mother tried their best to reform him, but nothing worked. And then one day, Amit quarrels with his wife. And in this quarrel, he gets angry and raises his hand on his wife and breaks the TV in the house. The next morning, when he woke up from his hangover, he saw that his mother and wife were packing their belongings. His mother tells him directly, 'I will become a maid with my daughter-in-law, but I will not stay with you.' This story, friends, is based on a true incident. I have changed that person's name to Amit to protect his privacy. But the thing is that this story is not just Amit's. In India, thousands, millions of homes have a similar story. Such families, such people whose future once seemed very bright, but alcohol ruined everything. Alcohol addiction has put especially those families in the most trouble where the sole earning member of the family becomes its victim.
[5:01]This causes both mental stress and financial problems. Because the time and money of the alcoholic are both spent on alcohol. Due to excessive drinking, people are not only getting financially ruined, but people are also losing their lives. So before such a bad habit develops, think about your family and first secure their future. For this, I would recommend term insurance, which is the purest form of life insurance. Its biggest advantage is that the earlier you take it, the less premium you will have to pay and then that premium will be locked for a lifetime. That is, the cost of your premium will not increase for you again. Many of you who drink alcohol occasionally must be thinking thankfully I am not an addict. If you think so, then after watching this video, your eyes are going to open.
[5:47]Actually, how harmful is alcohol for you? What is the safe limit for drinking alcohol? After all, why does alcohol cause intoxication and what is the difference between beer, vodka, whiskey and rum? Let's know the answers to all these questions in depth in today's video.
[6:07]Actually friends, the history of alcohol is older than the history of humans. In childhood, it seems like what a big high-fi thing this alcohol must be, what is this thing that humans have made. But in reality, alcohol is a very natural thing that has existed even before the evolution of homo sapiens. What actually happens is that when fruits growing on trees become too ripe, they contain a lot of sugar. This sugar attracts yeast, a single-celled fungus, a microorganism. This fungus, this yeast eats these sugars as its food and in this, a chemical reaction takes place.
[6:44]In which carbon dioxide and alcohol come out. This whole process, you must have studied in school, is called fermentation. Now carbon dioxide is released into the air, but alcohol remains in the same fruit. Scientists believe that millions of years ago, the ancestors of humans, monkeys and apes, saw these overripe fruits on trees and ate them greedily. Initially, they must have felt dizzy, stumbled a bit, but after thousands of years of evolution, their tolerance to eating these fermented fruits must have increased. And because of this, today humans have been able to tolerate and like alcohol. Scientists call this the Drunken Monkey Hypothesis.
[7:32]This is still a hypothesis that has not been 100% proven, because when wild fruits ferment, the amount of alcohol formed is very less. Less than 2% alcohol is present in these wild fruits after fermentation. But after humans came, it is also not difficult to imagine in what other natural ways fermentation would have happened. Archaeologists have found pottery from 7000 BC in the ancient village of Jiahu in Henan province of China, in which they saw traces of drinks made from rice, grapes and honey. Similarly, 13,000-year-old beer proofs have also been found in a prehistoric cave in Haifa, Israel-Palestine. When grains like wheat or barley are soaked in water in the open air, if the conditions are optimal, that is, the temperature is right, then the yeast present in the air reacts with it and fermentation starts. In a similar way, beer is made. So to make the first beer, no human had to work hard, no one had to think. By mistake, beer was made automatically from the grains kept outside. In the same way, when grapes, that is, grapes are fermented, the alcohol that is formed from there is called wine. This whole process can happen naturally by itself. Basically, every food item that contains natural sugar or starch, fermentation can be seen in that food item and its own alcohol can be made from that food item. Like wheat fermentation makes beer, grape fermentation makes wine, rice fermentation makes rice wine, apple fermentation makes cider, banana fermentation makes banana beer, which is very popular in many regions of Africa. Corn fermentation makes chicha, which is very popular in South America. Coconut sap fermentation makes toddy, and flour fermentation makes this sourdough bread, which has holes and more flavor. Here actually, a very trace, negligible amount of alcohol is present. Mainly, the byproduct made by yeast here is lactic acid. So yes, you should also know this that the fermentation of different things, the alcohol that is produced, is also produced in different amounts. Wine has 9-15% alcohol. Beer usually has 4-8%. Rice wine has 12-16%. Apple cider has 4-8%. And it is also worth noting here that the fermentation of many fruits produces not only ethanol alcohol but also methanol, and methanol is directly fatal. If you consume it in a certain quantity, you can instantly die and become blind. So don't try to eat rotten, fermented fruits too much. Natural doesn't mean it's safe for you. Now, one thing humans discovered is that all these natural alcoholic drinks that are being made by fermentation, the alcohol percentage in them is not rising above 18-19%. Because more than this alcohol becomes toxic for yeasts, which kills them, and when this happens, the fermentation process stops by itself. So seeing this, someone thought of a way that if you boil that made alcohol further and try to boil it, then alcohol heats up faster than water and turns into vapor. And if you capture that vapor and then cool it down, then actually the liquid that remains will have an even higher percentage of alcohol.
[10:48]It will be a very hard alcohol. This process is called distillation and from this, spirits like whiskey, rum, vodka and brandy were made. In all of them, the alcohol percentage can now reach 30, 40, 50, 60%. If you want to understand the meanings of the names specifically, then wine distilled to make brandy, beer distilled to make whiskey. Sugarcane fermented plus distilled made rum, and potatoes distilled made vodka. It is also interesting here that the natural fermentation of potatoes produces something that we cannot drink directly, it is not drinkable. Similarly, distillation of blue agave plant makes tequila, and now you must be understanding, friends, where all these names came from. Then someone started making different combinations of all these, sometimes with soda, sometimes with some other juice, and here came different types of cocktails. But the thing is that in all these different types of drinks, one thing is common and that is ethanol, which we call alcohol. Now the question arises what effect does it have on your body when you consume alcohol. Alcohol passes through your mouth and goes down the food pipe into the stomach. The stomach can absorb only a little of it, about 20%. The real work of its digestion takes place in the small intestine. From here, alcohol quickly dissolves in our blood. Between our stomach and small intestine, there is a muscle like a door, which is called the pyloric sphincter. This controls how quickly things go from the stomach to the small intestine. If you have eaten food, the stomach gets full. Then this muscle remains closed for some time so that the food can be digested in the stomach. In such a situation, if you drink alcohol, the alcohol remains in the stomach for a longer time and slowly goes into the blood. But if you drink alcohol on an empty stomach, then this door is open and the alcohol quickly reaches the small intestine and quickly dissolves in your blood. That's why drinking alcohol on an empty stomach causes intoxication faster. But drinks that contain carbon dioxide, such as whiskey, soda or champagne, cause intoxication even faster because carbon dioxide puts pressure on the stomach. Due to this, alcohol reaches the small intestine and blood from the stomach even faster. And what happens after reaching the blood? Your blood is spread throughout the body. Especially in those places where your blood flow is high, alcohol gets more concentrated there. Like in the liver and brain. The liver is a very important organ of our body that works to clean dirt and toxic substances. The liver has special enzymes that work to break down alcohol, and this work happens in two steps. One enzyme, named ADH, converts alcohol into acetaldehyde. Acetaldehyde is a toxic chemical and because of this, you get a hangover and headaches after drinking alcohol. Then another enzyme, named ALDH, converts this toxic acetaldehyde into a harmless acetate. Acetate is good for the body and it does not matter, it later breaks down into water and carbon dioxide by itself. So when your headache and hangover are over, it is because your liver has done the work of eliminating this poison in your body. But our liver can clean alcohol at a fixed speed only. Like if you drink a very small drink within one to two hours, which no one realistically drinks, then because the liver cannot work at this speed, this alcohol keeps accumulating in your blood and your blood alcohol concentration keeps increasing. The higher your blood alcohol concentration, the more intoxicated you will feel. This is what the police measure when they are catching drunk driving. That breathalyzer machine tells your blood alcohol concentration. It can detect alcohol present in your breath. Now, alcohol has the most effect on our brain. Our brain is made up of lots of neurons. These neurons use neurotransmitters to talk to each other. Alcohol specifically affects two neurotransmitters. The first is GABA. This is the brain's brake pedal. It slows down the speed of the brain and calms us down. And the second is glutamate. This is the brain's race pedal. It keeps the brain active and fast. Drinking alcohol increases GABA and reduces glutamate. Due to this, the neurons of our brain cannot form connections properly and the processing speed of our brain slows down. This is why we feel peace. We also feel relaxed. If you drink too much, you also start feeling sleepy, and if you drink too much, important functions of the brain like breathing can also stop, which is actually fatal. Apart from this, drinking alcohol also releases a neurotransmitter called dopamine in the brain. Dopamine makes us feel happy and good. Similarly, chemicals called endorphins are also released. Endorphins are our body's painkillers and mood-enhancing chemicals. The happiness and relaxation that are felt after drinking alcohol, one reason for that is also these endorphins. When the liver's speed of removing alcohol from the blood becomes more than the brain's speed of absorbing alcohol, then gradually the intoxication starts to wear off. Roughly speaking, alcohol can stay in your system for 6 to 72 hours. In blood for 12 hours, in breath for 12 to 24 hours, in urine for 12 to 24 hours, if you drink more, it can stay for 72 hours, in saliva for 12 hours and in hair for 90 days, traces of alcohol can be seen. Now after hearing all this, you might think that everything is fine, our body can deal with it well. In the long term, if you keep drinking alcohol regularly, then its impact on your body will become even more harmful. The brain starts shrinking. It gets a little smaller. Neurons become smaller or die. The frontal lobe of the brain, which helps in decision making, focus and emotional control, is most damaged by alcohol. That's why long-term alcoholics cannot control their emotions. They get angry very easily. The hippocampus, which is the part of the brain that is connected to memory and reasoning, also shrinks due to drinking alcohol. Apart from this, the more alcohol you drink, the more risk of alcohol-induced blackouts increases. That is, after drinking, not being able to remember anything that happened. This happens because alcohol temporarily blocks the transfer of memories from short-term to long-term storage. That means you literally become a Ghajini. Apart from the brain, the liver also gets damaged by repeatedly trying to filter out this poison. There are four stages of liver damage. The first is fatty liver, in which fat cells start accumulating in the liver. If you stop drinking alcohol at this stage, the liver can recover. But if you don't stop, then the second stage comes, hepatitis. In this, the liver swells and pain starts. Then comes the third stage, fibrosis, in which scar tissue, wounds start forming on your liver. If the damage continues to increase, then the last stage of cirrhosis comes.
[17:27]In this, the liver becomes so hard and damaged that it cannot even do its work properly. This is an irreversible stage and due to this, the liver can completely fail. All these stages are enough to take you to the hospital, and once you reach there, you will immediately get a bill of lakhs in your hand. In such a situation, what will happen to you and your family? Will it be easy to bear such a sudden expense? Many families lose their lifelong savings in this and often have to take a loan. But if you have health insurance, then the entire cost is paid by the insurance company and you can get your treatment done without any worries. By paying a premium of only 400 to 500 rupees per month, you will get a large coverage, along with a 30-minute claim support guarantee. But remember, your insurance company can ask you if you drink alcohol. Then don't lie, always tell the truth. There are some plans in health insurance that also give you maternity benefits. In this, a 6-month pregnant lady can also take insurance because the waiting period is only three months. This means that a claim can be made only after three months. And if we talk about term insurance, then its premium is even half the price of your average liquor bottle, only 600 to 700 rupees per month. This gives crores of coverage to your family in your absence. That's why insurance should be taken at the right time. The link is given in the description where you can compare all the trusted partners and by taking it online, you can also get a discount of up to 15 to 25%. Because there is no guarantee of life, but preparation can be done with insurance. Now the effect of alcohol on our health, friends, is not limited only to the brain and liver. I said that wherever the blood is more concentrated, the effect will be seen there. Our heart muscles also become weak due to drinking alcohol. Due to alcohol, the heartbeat can become irregular. It can go up and down. Long-term alcohol consumption can cause high blood pressure and other heart diseases. Heart attack and stroke can also occur. Inside our digestive system, there is an organ, the pancreas. It produces essential enzymes that digest food. Due to alcohol, these enzymes start working inside the pancreas itself. That is, the pancreas starts digesting itself. Apart from this, drinking alcohol can also damage the kidneys. In the liver, bile juice production also increases, which can cause diarrhea. And long-term alcohol use can cause ulcers, wounds, which are painful and can also cause internal bleeding in your body. Now you might think that I am safe, I only drink alcohol occasionally. I am not a long-term drinker, so all these things will not happen to me. But do you know that even drinking once can weaken your immune system for the next 24 hours? Regular occasional drinking can also permanently weaken it, that's why heavy drinkers get more flu, cold and other infections. This is a very big myth about alcohol that one glass of alcohol does nothing. Actually, the World Health Organization says that no amount of alcohol consumption is safe for our health. That is, no matter how much you drink, no matter how little, you will always be at risk. Drinking alcohol occasionally may sound harmless, but biologically, it always comes at a price. Be it mild inflammation, increase in blood pressure the next day, or increase in the risk of getting sick. Next time if someone tells you that what will happen with one peg, then do share this video with them. There is also another myth that has been popular for many years, that red wine is good for health. People say that look, people in France drink so much wine, yet they remain so healthy because red wine has antioxidants. It is true that red wine has antioxidants that are good for health, but the reason behind that is that those antioxidants are in grapes. If you eat grapes, you will get those antioxidants in the same way and in even larger quantities. And these antioxidants present in red wine do not counter the negative effects of alcohol. The negative impact of ethanol present in red wine is much greater compared to the antioxidants present in red wine. A study in 2025 stated that there is no significant difference in cancer risk between red wine and white wine overall. Actually, no type of wine is safe to drink. A third myth is about hard liquor. As I said, alcoholic drinks like beer and wine are made by fermentation. Liquors like vodka and brandy are made by distillation, in which the amount of alcohol is much higher. So some people think that because fermentation is a natural process, drinks like beer and wine are safe because they have become soft drinks compared to hard liquor. But the truth is that your liver cannot differentiate between them. Where differences in the amount of alcohol are seen in all these, but people's consumption patterns also change accordingly. One pint of strong beer, one glass of wine and one shot of whiskey. All of them contain almost the same amount of ethanol, about 10 to 14 grams. So this perception that wine or beer is healthy and cannot cause alcoholism is completely false. Now when all these excuses fail, some people say that all this should go to hell, I will do whatever I want in my life. This argument is also not a justification.
[22:56]Because drinking alcohol is not only harmful for your health, but it is also harmful for your closest people. In India, domestic violence due to alcohol is a big serious issue. According to a study, women whose husbands drink alcohol have a more than three times higher chance of experiencing domestic violence. Apart from this, drunk driving accidents claim the lives of innocent people. In the year 2020, more than 8000 accidents happened across the country, in which 3322 people died. More than 3000 people, just imagine what happened to their families.
[23:33]And apart from all this, children, in homes where alcohol is consumed, it has a deep psychological impact on children. Children of alcoholic parents have more anxiety, depression and self-esteem problems, this has been proven by many scientific studies. Alcoholic parents create a toxic environment for children at home. They either get beaten themselves or have to watch their parents fight among themselves. In both cases, it is a very traumatic experience for them. Perhaps the most dangerous thing about alcohol is its addictive nature. Alcohol hijacks the brain's reward system, and this causes addiction. Due to the release of dopamine and endorphins, the brain starts thinking that alcohol is an easy way to find happiness or reduce stress. Due to this, alcohol slowly becomes a support for a person. He starts finding happiness, confidence and a way to escape from sorrow in it. That's why such jokes are often heard. If there is an occasion of happiness, let's celebrate. Let's have a drink. Oh, you are very sad, you didn't get good marks, let's have a drink. Oh, you are very angry, it's okay, let's have a drink. Oh, you are feeling very tense, oh, it's okay, let's have a drink. In this way, drinking becomes an addiction. And gradually, tolerance power also increases. The more alcohol you drink, the more tolerant the body becomes. And tolerant does not mean that your body is becoming more tolerant, so it is more healthy for you. Tolerant means that to get the same level of intoxication, you will now have to drink more alcohol. This is why alcohol addicts used to feel good after drinking two beers, but now they have to drink four beers. This thing gradually increases and reaches such an extent that even for doing normal work, these people have to drink alcohol. This is called Alcohol Dependence Syndrome.
[25:25]At this level, if you try to quit alcohol, your body will revolt. Hands will start trembling, you will crave alcohol so much that it will become difficult to resist. You will feel such a feeling inside that if you don't drink alcohol, you will get sick. This happens because at this level, your brain's chemistry gets used to alcohol. And when this alcohol is not available, it cannot function properly. The body starts trembling, sweating starts, anxiety increases and you don't even get sleep at night. A lot of anxiety and panic are felt. Some people even start seeing hallucinations, they start having seizures. And at this point, to get rid of these problems, these people have no other option but to drink again. This is a very dangerous trap. This is why, later on, such people die due to excessive drinking of alcohol. But fortunately, Amit's story, which I told you at the beginning of the video, has a happy ending.
[28:23]When Amit's mother and his wife were ready to leave home, Amit folds his hands and asks them for a last chance. Amit's family, as a last attempt, calls Alcoholics Anonymous. Alcoholics Anonymous, short form AA. This is a non-commercial organization spread all over the world that considers alcoholism a disease and helps people get rid of this habit. For Amit, the path to recovery was not easy. For a week, he had to take gastric tablets because due to the lack of alcohol, he was not able to eat even normal food like idli. Many times his body would push him towards relapse, but the promise he made to his mother and wife became his support. Today, even after 10 years, Amit attends AA meetings every day. He believes that the fight against addiction is lifelong. Today, he is 47 years old, he is a successful entrepreneur and he lives a normal life. We learn from his story that it is possible to come out of alcoholism if the right support, commitment and community are found. But an even bigger lesson we learn from his story is this: Never take any addiction lightly. If you or any close person is going through this struggle, then identify this problem and take help. In most cases, people do not actually admit the problem, so it becomes a bigger problem. Admitting the problem is the first step. The second step is that you should not be ashamed to take help. For this, there are multiple resources. You can use the government's toll-free helpline 14446, where confidential counseling is available. Or you can also take help from support groups like Alcoholics Anonymous. These are actually physical meetings. You can go to their website and see where your nearest support group is available. Here you can meet people who have come out of addiction themselves and help each other. This thing is completely free and anonymous. Besides this, professional medical help is also a way to fight addiction. Rehabilitation centers, counseling or detox medication. Secondly, we have to solve this problem at the social level. You people who are watching this video. Promise yourself that you will never drink alcohol. And if any of your friends pressure you to drink alcohol, then do share the link of this video with them. Let them also know what impact their small request has on someone's life. And this does not mean that you cannot attend any parties. You can definitely do it. Just next time you attend a party, instead of a glass of alcohol in your hand, take a glass of water. H2O is not only safer than C2H5OH, tastier, but also more beneficial for your health. No hangover. This mentality that nothing will go wrong with one drink. It has to be challenged. It has to be fought. Because it is the same drink that can start a downward spiral in the lives of thousands, lakhs of people like Amit.
[31:42]Thank you very much.
