perish, and wine unto them that be of
heavy hearts. Let him drink, and forget his
poverty, and remember his misery no
more.
— Proverbs, ca. 500 BCEHow the Body Metabolizes Alcohol
Our bodies eliminate alcohol by breaking it
down in a series of chemical reactions and
using the energy freed by those reactions.
Alcohol’s chemical structure has similarities
to both sugar and fat, and it has a nutritional
value between the two, around 7 calories per
gram (sugar has 4 calories per gram, fat 9). It
provides around 5% of the calories in the
American diet, much more among heavy
drinkers.
Alcohol is broken down and converted into
energy in two organs, the stomach and the
liver. The “first-pass” metabolism of alcohol
in the stomach consumes a portion before it