Your liver can only do so much at once. When you drink more alcohol than your liver can process at the time, it gets released into your bloodstream and into a fluid called the endolymph in your ears. This fluid sloshes around your ears to give you a sense of how your body is oriented in space. If the endolymph is up in the top canal in your ears, then you know you’re upside down; if it is along the side canal, then you know you’re leaning to the side. Alcohol thins out the endolymph so it moves around differently than what your body expects. This process makes you feel dizzy. Knowledge of the scientific processes behind your bodily functions allows you to better monitor your behaviors. You can think back to the biology of alcohol’s effects on your body to know when your liver is overwhelmed and thus when to stop drinking.
Read more in my article published on That’s Life [Science].
Science by Emma Dauster 