Hello SharkReefGirl:
It certainly will not come as a surprise that excessive use of alcohol is not favorable to your health. It contributes directly to many problems (social as well as health) and adds useless calories to the diet. No doubt one has heard this preaching before, but it is true. :yelling: I did not pay that much attention either when I was younger.
I will only comment on alcohol and decompression. As far as diving is concerned, and decompression in particular, alcohol has the tendency to dehydrate the body. Naturally, one will ask, how can drinking a fluid that is mostly water cause me to lose water? This is because alcohol inhibits the antidiuretic hormone that causes the kidneys to retain water. Thus the well know effect of drinking beverage alcohol is to cause one numerous trips to the bathroom.
The loss of water from the body has the effect of
reducing the volume of blood for circulation. While this might be good for reducing gas update on the bottom portion of the dive, it will reduce gas elimination on the surface (decompression) phase of the dive.
Further, the ability to form stable gas bubbles, and thus decompression sickness, is related to the amount of surfactant in the blood and tissues (in a way not completely understood).
Removing the SOLVENT has the same effect as increasing the SOLUTE. Everyone knows that adding more soap (a surfactant) to a bathtub increases the number and stability of bubbles.
While alcohol is part of a good time for many people (or so the advertisements would have you believe), daily consumption coupled with daily diving is most likely a bad idea. It is difficult to say what this could do over a long period. I once met a lady, who worked as a dive guide for 28 years, at a DEMA meeting where I was lecturing. She was on crutches, diagnosed by a physician well versed in hyperbaric medicine, as having Dysbaric Osteonecrosis (DON is a disorder well known among compressed air workers). She was not (I believe) a long time user of alcohol, but I could imagine that this habit would not have helped, since alcohol abuse is also one precipitating factor for DON. This practice is another time bomb. :boom:
"Dr Deco"
