While heavy drinkers can tolerate a specific amount of alcohol higher than light or moderate drinkers, the concept of “holding your liquor” is more nuanced than commonly believed, in keeping with recent research from the University of Chicago.

The researchers conducted the study with three groups of young adults of their 20s with different drinking patterns. They found that drinkers with alcohol use disorder (or AUD, traditionally referred to as alcoholism) displayed less impairment on wonderful motor and cognitive tasks than light or heavy social drinkers after consuming a regular intoxicating dose-;corresponding to 4 to 5 drinks that produce breathalyzer readings of 0.08-0.09%, i.e., the brink for drunk driving. Yet when those drinkers with AUD consumed a better amount akin to their usual drinking habits-;corresponding to seven to eight drinks and breathalyzer readings of 0.13%–they showed significant impairment on those self same tasks, greater than double their impairment at the usual intoxicating dose that didn’t return to baseline performance three hours after drinking.

There’s a whole lot of considering that when experienced drinkers (those with AUD) devour alcohol, they’re tolerant to its impairing effects. We supported that a bit, but with a whole lot of nuances. After they drank alcohol in our study at a dose just like their usual drinking pattern, we saw significant impairments on each the wonderful motor and cognitive tests that was much more impairment than a light-weight drinker gets on the intoxicating dose.”

Andrea King, PhD, Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neuroscience at UChicago and Study’s Senior Creator

A study of various drinking patterns

The brand new paper, published this week in Alcohol: Clinical and Experimental Research, is a component of the Chicago Social Drinking Project, an ongoing research study began by King in 2004 that examines the consequences of common substances like alcohol, caffeine, and antihistamines on mood, performance, and behavior in individuals with a wide selection of alcohol drinking patterns. For the most recent research, they worked with three groups of participants based on their binge drinking patterns, i.e., consuming five or more drinks for a person or 4 or more for a lady. The groups were light drinkers who don’t binge drink, heavy social drinkers who binge drink several times a month, and drinkers who meet the factors for AUD and binge drink regularly, at the very least one third or more days in a typical month.

In a clinical setting, the research team told participants they’d be receiving a drink containing either alcohol, a stimulant, a sedative, or a placebo. The alcoholic beverage was a flavored drink mix in water with 190-proof alcohol at 16% volume based on body weight, which was corresponding to 4 to 5 drinks, a high dose considered enough to intoxicate a typical drinker (female participants received a dose that was 85% of that for males to regulate for sex differences in metabolism). The participants consumed the drink over a 15-minute period.

At 30, 60, 120, and 180 minutes after drinking the beverage, the participants took a breathalyzer test and accomplished two performance tasks. The primary was a wonderful motor task that asked them to retrieve, rotate, and insert a grooved metal peg into 25 randomly slotted holes on a 4×4″ metal board; participants were scored on how long it took to fill all 25 holes. The second test was paper and pencil task to check cognitive skill, during which the participants had 90 seconds to input symbols from a key pair onto a numbered grid and were scored on what number of correct symbols they provided.

On the 30- and 180-minute intervals, participants were also asked to report how impaired they felt, from “in no way” to “extremely.” The AUD and heavy social drinkers each reported feeling less impaired than the sunshine drinkers. While they did show less overall alcohol impairment on the motor and cognitive tests, on the 30-minute interval that they had similar slowing on the wonderful motor test as the sunshine drinkers. Additionally they recovered quicker to their baseline levels, supporting the notion that that they had more tolerance and may “hold their liquor” higher than individuals who don’t drink as much.

Nevertheless, individuals with AUD do hardly stop drinking at 4 or five drinks and have interaction in high intensity drinking. Thus, a subset of the drinkers with AUD within the study participated in a separate session where they drank a beverage more consistent with their regular drinking habits, corresponding to about seven or eight drinks. At this higher dose of alcohol, they showed greater than double the quantity of mental and motor impairment than after that they had the usual intoxicating dose. Additionally they never got back to their baseline level of performance, even after three hours. Their level of impairment even exceeded that of the sunshine drinkers who consumed the usual dose, suggesting that the physical effects of the alcohol add up the more someone drinks, experienced or not.

“I used to be surprised at how much impairment that group needed to that larger dose, because while it’s 50% greater than the primary dose, we’re seeing greater than double the impairment,” King said.

The double-edged sword of intoxication

King’s group has conducted other research showing that heavy social drinkers and people with AUD are more sensitive to the pleasurable effects of alcohol, and wish to drink more alcohol than their lighter drinking counterparts, compounding the difficulty. “They’re having the will or craving to drink increasingly, despite the fact that it’s impairing them. It’s really a double-edged sword,” she said.

Annual deaths brought on by drunk driving have fallen significantly after the national minimum drinking age was set at 21 in 1984 and the general public awareness campaigns that followed. Despite these successes, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that greater than 140,000 people die from excessive alcohol use within the U.S. annually, and 30% of traffic fatalities still involve alcohol intoxication. King says that a more nuanced understanding of the consequences of intoxication could begin to stop more harm.

“It’s costly to our society for therefore many reasons, that is why this study is just so essential to know more,” she said. “I’m hoping we will educate people who find themselves experienced high-intensity drinkers who think that they are holding their liquor or that they are tolerant and won’t experience accidents or injury from drinking. Their experience with alcohol only goes to this point, and excessive drinkers account for a lot of the burden of alcohol-related accidents and injury in society. That is preventable with education and treatment”

The study, “Holding your liquor: Comparison of alcohol-induced psychomotor impairment in drinkers with and without alcohol use disorder,” was supported by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism and the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Additional authors include Nathan Didier, Ashley Vena, Abigayle Feather, and Jon Grant from the University of Chicago.

Source:

Journal reference:

Didier, N., et al. (2023) Holding your liquor: Comparison of alcohol-induced psychomotor impairment in drinkers with and without alcohol use disorder. Alcoholism Clinical and Experimental Research. doi.org/10.1111/acer.15080.