When people hear the word "drug," they usually think of illegal substances such as marijuana, cocaine, heroin, or any other drug that can be found on the street. Most never categorize alcohol as a drug, primarily because it is socially accepted. But, in fact, alcohol is responsible for destroying many people's lives and those around them, just like illegal drugs can. Alcoholism ranks as one of our four major health problems, and reliable national surveys show that there are over 5,000,000 alcoholics in the United States today. Their illness affects 20,000,000 other people including families, employers, and friends of the sufferers. Yet there is no major disease about which the public is more ignorant. Although moderate use of alcohol can actually lower some health risks, it becomes dangerous when alcohol is abused. Alcohol can have negative effects on some aspects of a person ranging from health problems to social problems to family problems.
             To fully understand the effects of alcohol, one must first understand exactly what alcohol is. Ethanol, or ethyl alcohol, is a poisonous liquid that the body can "deactivate large amounts of without succumbing to its lethal effects" (Block 118). Ethanol can penetrate through any of the body tissue easily, thus every part of the body is affected. It is sometimes called a downer because the brain is no longer able to utilize all of its functions. Alcohol is immediately absorbed into the bloodstream and the rest is processed in the stomach. Once the stomach has absorbed the rest of the alcohol, a person will be at his/her peak intoxication for that amount of alcohol. It may take anywhere from thirty to ninety minutes, depending on the amount of alcohol, to peak (Block 132).
             Alcohol not only harms the consumer's body but also the people close to that person. It has been proven that most alcoholic marr...