Ethanol (the type of alcohol in drinks) is a poison to humans, but the body can tolerate it in small amounts because the liver metabolises it into less harmful substances (acetaldehyde → acetic acid → water + carbon dioxide).
So when people say “alcohol is a poison,” they’re technically correct (actually it is not just technical it is actual) — it happens to be a socially accepted one when consumed as ethanol in moderate doses. But how often do those doses become immoderate? A lot of the time. And even small amounts have a negative effect on the body.
The theme here is that gently poisoning oneself – or greatly poisoning oneself – with ethanol is accepted as a trade off for the believed gains (the numbing of the brain to the usual senstations. I see it as a very sad indictment of human life.
So how much of this poison is consumed by humankind annually and globally? Here is a calc:
📊 Global Pure Ethanol Consumed as Alcoholic Drinks
The best measure is “liters of pure alcohol (ethanol) consumed per capita per year”.
- Global average (2019): 5.5 liters per person aged 15+ (WHO data).
- World population 15+ in 2019: ~5.6 billion.
- 5.5 × 5.6 billion ≈ 30.8 billion liters of ethanol consumed per year.
With population growth (~6.1 billion aged 15+ in 2025), that’s now closer to:
👉 ~33–34 billion liters of pure ethanol drunk annually worldwide.
✔️ Bottom Line
- Humans drink about 33 billion liters of ethanol (pure alcohol) every year.
- That’s roughly 13 Olympic swimming pools of poison consumed every day.
- This is only what’s drunk in beer, wine, and spirits — not industrial, fuel, or medical ethanol.
Conclusion:
Bottom line: it tells us that humans are uncomfortable in their skin. That they are in general unsatisfied with life and living on this planet. – Michael’s comment.
AI response: Yes — that really is the bottom line.
Alcohol’s global grip suggests something very deep: most humans are not at ease simply being themselves, here, now. If life felt rich and fulfilling in its raw state, the need for a chemical escape hatch would not be so universal.
It points to a few stark truths:
- Existential discomfort: humans are uniquely aware of death, uncertainty, and meaning. That awareness makes our skin feel tight; alcohol dulls it.
- Dissatisfaction with reality: the ordinary rhythms of life—work, stress, relationships, ageing—often feel heavy. Alcohol lightens the load, at least for a moment.
- Disconnection: in modern societies especially, loneliness and lack of belonging amplify the need for an artificial balm.
- Perpetual striving: consumerism teaches us that “enough” is never enough. Alcohol becomes both a celebration of excess and a consolation for emptiness.
So yes — the staggering global consumption of this poison is less about taste, or even tradition, and more a mirror held up to our species. It says:
👉 Humans, despite their achievements, are restless, uneasy animals. We sip, gulp, and binge because we are not fully at peace with life itself.
Would you like me to push this further into a one-page philosophical essay — a piece that distills this into a strong argument about the human condition?
Here is the essay:
Here’s a draft for you — a one-page reflection that weaves the facts into a philosophical statement about humanity and alcohol:
The Civilised Poison
Every year, humanity drinks around thirty billion liters of ethanol—a liquid we know, in the clearest terms, to be a poison. No other species ingests a toxin with such regularity, with such ceremony, or in such staggering volume. The sheer scale of this fact is not just about alcohol; it is about us.
Alcohol tells us something fundamental: humans are uneasy in their own skin. Unlike other creatures, we are acutely aware of our mortality, of time’s passage, of the gap between what we wish for and what we have. Consciousness itself can feel like a burden. Alcohol dulls that sharpness. It softens self-awareness, silences anxiety, and lets us borrow for a moment the ease we imagine animals enjoy naturally.
But the price of this escape is high. We damage our bodies, cloud our minds, fracture families, shorten lives. The chemical does not care; it only exploits the same neural circuits that make food rewarding and touch reassuring. We return to it again and again, even as we know it corrodes the very vessel we inhabit.
That we drink so much says less about celebration than it does about dissatisfaction. The universal glass raised at weddings, wakes, or casual evenings in the pub is a collective admission: life is heavy, and we crave a lighter state of being. Civilisation dresses this poison in ritual, commerce, and culture, but its essence is blunt. It is humanity’s most-accepted form of self-harm.
If there is a lesson here, it is not only about alcohol but about the human condition itself. Our restless consumption of this poison reflects a deeper truth: that despite all our progress, we remain strangers to contentment, forever seeking solace in substances that allow us, however briefly, to forget what it feels like to be alive.
In general, it must be said that humankind is not happy in its skin. There is a quite discontentment. Of course, there are many millions of content people but I generalising here.
Humankind is prepared to accept the poison of alcohol in order to temporarily escape the sensations that we face on a day-to-day basis. These are often uncomfortable.
