Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, March 24, 1993 TAG: 9303240260
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Joel Achenbach
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
SOBER LESSONS WHY A DOWNER CAN GET US HIGH
Q: Why do a couple of alcoholic drinks give you a lift, a high, even though everyone knows that alcohol is a depressant?A: Our own highly scientific investigations over the years indicate that the first two or three beers make the subject more talkative, expansive, uninhibited and sometimes euphoric - stimulated, in short.
But the next two or three beers propel the subject into a different phase, marked by a noticeable decrease in high-cortex brain functioning and a willingness to dance in a ridiculous fashion. After a few more beers the subject loses motor control, and then finally unconsciousness is attained.
Why does alcohol seem to have this sequential and contradictory effect?
Dr. Walter Hunt, a neuropharmacologist at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, gave us the answer. He says there are two things happening at once:
First, the alcohol triggers the release of dopamine in the brain. Dopamine is exactly what it sounds like it is - it's some kind of brain dope that makes you feel good. The brain's "reward system" evolved for nobler purposes, such as reinforcing pair-bonding (that nice, secure feeling you have when you cuddle up with a loved one, that's just the dope flowing). With drugs like alcohol and cocaine we artificially trigger the feel-good response.
Second, the alcohol increases the effectiveness of a neurotransmitter called gamma-aminobutyric acid, known as GABA. This GABA stuff is an inhibitory neurotransmitter, which means it makes you think less, not more. You need some GABA to keep your brain from racing and whirring and humming without pause.
As alcohol makes your brain slow down, the first thing that goes away is anxiety. This is an important point: In your normal daily life your brain is filled with a white noise of anxiety, all those little fears and worries and annoyances. A beer or two will sweep that stuff away. So at that point you're feeling high. But if you drink more, some other kinds of brain activity gets shut down, and you get drowsy and sloppy and can't touch your finger to your nose.
"It's possible that at the lowest concentrations of alcohol you're getting the stimulation associated with dopamine release, so you get that euphoric effect, and you may also at those concentrations have a reduction in anxiety because of the facilitation of GABA transmission," says Hunt, sounding mighty sober, we might add.
Q: Why was whaling so profitable in the 1800s even though a single voyage required dozens of men and lasted four years and they had to sail all over the world chasing a creature that no one wanted to eat anyway?
A: Certain professions seem wildly improbable. Rice farming, for example - you picture people bending over in a paddy, plucking individual grains of rice from grassy stalks, using tweezers perhaps. Encyclopedia publishing is another mystery - so much copy to write and edit, and no tobacco ads to juice the bottom line.
And surely whaling, in the Moby Dick sense, seems ludicrous. It would have made sense, perhaps, if whaling was a variation of fishing, because a whale has a fair bit of meat in it. But the booming American whaling industry of the early 1800s was based on the desire not for food but for energy. Sperm whales have an unusual anatomical feature, an oversized forehead filled with an oily substance called spermaceti that is excellent for burning in lamps. So whaling ships were like oil tankers, only loaded with barrels of whale gunk.
Could it really have been profitable? Indeed, and highly. Whaling historian Richard Kugler broke down the numbers for us:
First, it would cost you about $25,000 in the mid-1800s to build a boat, and it would last for dozens of voyages if you were lucky and it didn't get crushed in an ice floe somewhere. A similar sum would be needed for gear and provisions (sails, ropes, little sea biscuits, salted ham, etc.).
Then came your manpower cost. The secret here was that sailors weren't paid wages, but rather they worked for a percentage of the catch. The risk of the voyage was thus spread out among the workers. There were plenty of hapless souls and adventurers who thought nothing of jumping on a ship for a few years or even a lifetime, because time wasn't as valuable, wasn't as precious (nowadays if you asked a pal to go whaling he'd look at you funny and say, "What, you mean for the entire afternoon?").
So you got your hardware and your manpower and you sail away to the Arctic Ocean or whatnot and harpoon a bunch of whales. Herman Melville in "Moby Dick" reports, "A large whale's case (forehead) generally yields about five hundred gallons of sperm." Kugler says that in the mid-1800s you could get $1.40 a gallon for whale oil. Great price! You see, Exxon didn't yet exist. Not until 1859 was oil discovered in the ground in commercially exploitable quantities, at which point the American whaling industry began to decline.
Do a little math: The oil from a single large whale was worth about $700. (Why, it'd be immoral not to harpoon the dang thing!) Kugler says that a ship would typically bring back 3,000 barrels of oil, with a barrel containing about 31.5 gallons. So that's about, what, upwards of $130,000 worth of oil brought into port. More than enough to pay off your initial $50,000 and keep your sailors in rum for a few weeks.
Why Joel Achenbach writes for the Style section of The Washington Post.
Washington Post Writers Group