Asians–Built For Effeciency
My coworker just came back from a show in New Orleans and was telling me how on Valentine’s Day, he had 4 Hurricanes and 2 Hand Grenades to drown his sorrows (his wife and kids were back here in LA). It started me thinking again that maybe there’s a pleasure to drinking that I can’t relate to, because halfway into 1 drink, 1 beer, 1 glass of wine, whatever…my face is red, my head is throbbing, I’m feeling queasy, and my eyes hurt. And yet I soldier on because I thought this is how everyone feels and yet everyone else seems to enjoy drinking. I know that Asians lack an enzyme that helps break down alcohol, but then I would talk to other Asians, and they didn’t seem to have the same symptoms unless they drank a huge amount.
I decided to do a search on google for “allergic to alcohol” and pulled up up this explanation:
When a person drinks alcohol, it is absorbed into the bloodstream and broken down in a series of chemical reactions which take place with the help of enzymes. One of the intermediate breakdown products is a fairly toxic chemical called acetaldehyde. Most people have enough of an enzyme called “acetaldehyde dehydrogenase” to keep the level of acetaldehyde which accumulates in the system fairly low. Some people (often they are ethnically Asian) are born with very low quantities of acetaldehyde dehydrogenase. When they drink, they get sick, because too much acetaldehyde accumulates. The anti-alcoholism medication Antabuse (disulfiram) works by inhibiting acetaldehyde dehydrogenase. You are having an Antabuse reaction without the Antabuse. So don’t drink, and consider yourself lucky that you don’t need to worry about becoming an alcoholic.
I’ve read about Antabuse. It’s supposed to be a pretty good deterrent for alcoholics. If being on Antabuse is how I feel when I drink, then I’m not actually having fun when I drink, which makes a lot of sense. The strangest thing is that I accepted all the negative symptoms because I assumed everyone felt them, but because people LOVE drinking, then the human standard was that the symptoms were worth the price of the buzz and therefore, I enjoyed drinking, too. This explains why I don’t really like drinking and don’t go out of my way to engage in the act of drinking, though I’ll nurse one if I need something to do with my hands at a party or for social reasons. But it never occurred to me to think about how I don’t enjoy drinking and that maybe I was having much more negative physical reactions than other people. Strangely, tequila has minimal negative effects. I can handle tequila better than anything, but only if it’s straight.
I think that’s great though…that Asians have this built in setting to prevent them from becoming alcoholics. Because if you’re an alcoholic, you can’t work overtime. It’s brilliant! But somehow, I don’t think that the plan was for them to get their kicks on other recreational drugs. Raise your hand if you know Asians who are X addicts. Yeah, they love that stuff. I personally stay away from it because I’m afraid if I tried it, I’d like it too much.