Drinking and body temperature

Factual Questions
#1

Over the years ive noticed that after drinking quite a bit, ill wake up in the middle of the night feeling hot/sweating etc…and then once i cool down, i fall back to sleep. ive always assumed that for some reason the alcohol heated my body temperature up a bit.

well last night, after putting back a few, and waking up in my normal heat flash, i finally measured my body temperature…and the result surprised me. my normal body temp is around 36.7 or so…but when i measured my temp it was actually 36.0… so it seems as if my body is not being heated by the alcohol but being cooled by it and because of this, the body is heating to readjust it.

Does any of this make sense?

#2

Yes, it does. Alcohol dilates blood vessels and can produce a warming sensation as the heat escapes from your skin at an increased rate. However, at the same time, it tends to make one lose heat faster overall.

Common lore suggests that hard alcohol can be used to warm you up on a cold night. This effect is superficial if it occurs at all and it can actually increase the rate that one gets hypothermia in extreme cases.