Getting drunk, what's happening to the body?

[crazy grady]

I am interested what happens when someone drinks alcohol. What happens to the body when someone drinks alcohol. I have heard that the pleasurable experience that one gets is a by product of the body fighting off the alcohol. How does the liver play in all this?

I hear that the only way to get someone sober is time, but if I am drinking, eating food brings me back down to Earth a little bit. In my experiences with booze, people get hungry during/after drinking and people like to eat heavy/greasy food like pizza, fried chicken or cheeseburgers. Or people like to go to waffle house or IHOP. The greasy food tends to break down the alcohol enzymes (to me).

I have learned with hard experience never to drink alcohol and smoke marijuana, it makes me sick. I do not do the two together. Does anyone else have this experience?

Interested.

[Aankh]

Please see my pitiful attempt (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=179140) at answering the alcohol-hunger relationship question a few months ago. It may or may not be accurate.

Someone more knowledgeable should be along soon.

[BlackKnight]

For more about alcohol than you'll ever want to know:
http://www.newscientist.com/hottopics/alcohol/

Specifically about the hunger / alcohol relationship:
http://www.newscientist.com/hottopics/alcohol/alcohol.jsp?id=lw256

[PlasticVirgil]

I always liked this explanation:

http://science.howstuffworks.com/alcohol1.htm

And yeppirs, Alchohol and Ganj' is a no-no for me. The catatonic, Zombie like stupor I go into lasts about 3 hours and just about always ends at the toilet. 8( .