Roderick28

on your health than if you stick to one. In my few years of heavy drinking i've drank different types of drink most days a few types a day, i'm just wondering if because your system is constantly guessing what it's got to deal with, like for example hops in beer, fruit in wine red/white/rose irish cream, grain in whisky, scotch, bourbon etc rather than sticking to one type at a time. After all the different types and mixers and brands etc the number of different drinks must be in the thousands.
Is such a variation of drinks any more detrimental to your health than sticking to the same amount of alcohol just in one or two types of drinks. I am in extremely poor health at the moment and no cause is found as of yet after many scans, i'm was/am on and off a heavy drinker and have been for about 4 years 20/30 units a day but most people last a lot longer before any serious health conditions from this amount, it may well not be the drink but the unhealthy lifestyle cant have helped, anyway just wondering your thoughts on such varied drinking.
Thanks.

Carlotta

Whatever type of alcoholic beverage you drink, this is what ultimately you are ingesting:
Ethanol /ˈɛθɑːnɒl/, also called ethyl alcohol /ˈɛθɪl/, pure alcohol, grain alcohol, or drinking alcohol, is a volatile, flammable, colorless liquid with the structural formula CH3CH2OH, often abbreviated as C2H5OH or C2H6O. A psychoactive drug and one of the oldest recreational drugs known, ethanol produces a state known as alcohol intoxication when consumed as a beverage. Best known as the type of alcohol found in alcoholic beverages, it is also used in thermometers, as a solvent, and as a fuel. In common usage, it is often referred to simply as alcohol or spirits.

alphaomega

This reminds me of Chumbawumbas "I Get knocked down"

"He drinks a whiskey drink, he drinks a vodka drink, he drinks a lager drink, he drinks an cider drink".

My DOC's were wine and gin <<<shudder>>>.

I'd get wicked sick from rum, tequila made me loco, vodka tasted like rubbing alcohol, whiskey made me feel like a cowboy, scotch supposedly doesn't give hangovers (WRONG) and beer would make me pee like a steer.

So I do believe there may be some validity to all of them having their own recipe for intoxication.

Subtle differences but all equal opportunity destroyers in their own special ways.

Over it.

MattM316

You feel drunk quicker if you mix drinks in the same 'session' but overall I don't think it makes much difference, it's all alcohol at the end of the day.

GroundhogDay

What is really bad is repeatedly stopping and starting again. Google "kindling."

Skye2

Thanks Alpha, I've got that piggin song stuck in my head now

DAB

I know for myself, mixing alcohol in one night made my hangovers much worse.
Over the long run, I have no idea.
My guess would be the stronger the drinks, the worse it is for your health, especially when consuming copiously.

choublak

Oh god that song took me back LOL

Dee74

Hi Roderick28

alcohol is alcohol - it'll get you in the end if you abuse it.

We're all different tho - I drank more than some but not as much as others - I drank beer and wine rather than spirits...but it still nearly killed me.

If you feel your poor health is in anyway connected to your drinking, it makes sense to stop, yeah?

D

Boleo

In my last years of drinking I stuck pretty much to vodka and tonic. It had the advantage of minimizing my hangovers and reducing my puking. However, it allowed me to drink more in any given period of time.

IMO I was better off mixing types of alcohol and puking, it slowed me down at least. And a really bad hangover would force me to take a day or two off once in a while.

suki44883

Well, to the brain, alcohol is alcohol. Mixing your drinks sure can make you sick though.

Carlotta

I would make myself puke on purpose so I could drink more and not gain weigh. Sometimes reading those posts about what we did to ourselves makes me very sad.

Roderick28

Thanks for all the replies people.
I should have clarified i understand alcohol is alcohol but just wondered if all that mixing of different types of sugars carbs etc can do extra damage to your system with different things constantly being chucked down.
Man the chumbawamba song took me back as well.

Muns

My opinion:

Once the alcohol is consumed and the base ethanol is metabolized the things that matter (liver, pancreas, kidneys etc.) only see and process the common poison. Now I do think that different fermentation techniques and additives will affect the hangover and buzz associated with the drink of choice which is why wine and brown spirits never became my thing. (miserable hangovers for me) I loved the cold lite beers and my favorite vice evolved into vodka. Which leads me to ponder...
VODKA
I see over and over where that's the drink of choice here. I drank it because my wife would have no part of over indulgence of beer IE: cans everywhere in front of family and children. I mentioned I don't care for dark liquor so I tried vodka and man it was love at first sip with comparatively minor hangovers (at first). I didn't dawn on me in the beginning that this stuff gets me loaded and is almost undetectable to many but as I continued to transition to mostly drinking vodka I realized man this stuff really does get me loaded and hardly any one realizes it unless you get carried away. There in lies the problem... We all know the rest of the story (blackouts suck) but blacking out a few times led me to listen to the wife and begin this process. Thank god for her.

MattM316

I used to know a girl who thought that because she had a double vodka and coke, she'd be consuming less alcohol than if she just had a straight double vodka.
I couldn't convince her she was talking nonsense.

jaynie04

Actually, she was likely getting drunker faster. Drinking alcohol with a carbonated mixer speeds absorption into the bloodstream. How I know that...no clue. Scary.

MattM316

Plus it's easier to down alcohol with a mixer because you don't taste the alcohol so much.
I mean does anyone actually like the taste of vodka? I never have but I drank a hell of a lot of it just for the effect.

jaynie04

True. I drank wine for decades, and only started drinking vodka in the last year or so. I would pour it into a diet gatorade bottle. I would actually shudder when I took the first sip. When I think about it, I think it was analogous to taking medicine...I see the aspects of what had become a disease so clearly now.

dwtbd

I always started with beer and switched to whiskey cowboy-style. If we had hosted a social gathering in the recent past and I ran out of whiskey I would look around for what was left. Usually vodka, so no bourbon pour a couple of fingers of vodka , it always surprised me at how 'smooth' it was, but I was a cigar smoker for years, maybe my taste buds are fried.

Renarde

I think the damage on our bodies has to do with our own genetics and the amount we drink, not the combination of types of alcohol. It's like if two diabetics have the same poor blood sugar control, one may develop complications earlier than the other, they may develop different complications, one may never develop complications, etc. It's our own personal makeup interacting with the poison. Just my opinion.