– English Lyrics

Lyrics & Translation

[English]

Alcohol is the most harmful substance on Earth.  Every year it kills more people than terrorism,  

wars, homicides and car accidents combined.  It injures tens of millions in accidents,  

violence and crime; while keeping  hundreds of millions trapped in  

disease. If it didn’t exist already,  inventing it today would be unthinkable.

And yet, more than 2 billion people drink. Most  of us can't imagine a barbecue without beer,  

a wedding without wine or a fancy  soirée without champagne. We have  

a drink at the weekend because it's the  weekend. But also after work. When we  

are stressed and when we are relaxed.  Sad and happy. At home and outside.

Alcohol is kind of a paradox. Why do we cling  so much to the thing that harms us the most?

You After One Drink

Alcohol is a biological weapon that yeast produces  during fermentation to wipe out its competition.  

In alcoholic drinks it’s mixed with water and  flavored with everything from fruits to caramel.

With just one sip, sextillions of alcohol  molecules flood your stomach and small intestine.  

From there they head to your liver – your primary  detox center, and to other organs like the brain.  

But your liver can only process about one  sip of beer every 5 minutes. So unless you  

drink really slowly, it will become overwhelmed  while an ever-growing swarm floods your brain.

Here’s where the chaos begins. The  legion of intruders fills your brain  

and starts messing with neurotransmitters and  receptors. Their sabotage is so complex that  

scientists aren’t fully sure yet about  all their mechanisms. But we know that  

alcohol numbs your neurons, making them  slower and disrupts their communication.

This has several effects. It sedates you, melting  away tension and stress. It stuns your prefrontal  

cortex, your center for decision-making and  self-control, making you more disinhibited  

and prone to say or do things that you normally  wouldn’t. And it releases endorphins – “feel good”  

molecules deeply tied to human connection.  The chemicals that we produce when we laugh,  

sing or dance with others, and which help us  turn fleeting moments into shared memories.

So after a drink or three, the world doesn’t only  feel lighter. It feels lighter with others. The  

invisible walls of insecurity around us begin to  soften and you find yourself becoming a little  

more… you. Less afraid to talk, laugh, sing or  share joys and sorrows. Conversations flow easier,  

smiles last a little longer, and strangers  can become friends or lovers more easily.  

So for a while, it feels like the weight  of being human isn’t yours to carry alone.

Alcohol sits at a sweet spot of gentle  relaxation, mild courage and friendly  

companionship that makes it the perfect social  lubricant. One that comes with quite a few costs.

Your Body on Regular Drinking

For billions, these rounds become more frequent  over time. The occasional drink becomes a weekly  

habit, then a ritual every other day,  catching up with friends or unwinding.  

And there's always this buddy who drinks  way more and has a perfectly normal life.

But as the rounds add up over years, the  damage builds up. The alcohol molecule  

can dissolve in water and fat, which allows  it to invade almost every cell and tissue.  

And when your body breaks it down, it transforms  into acetaldehyde – a chemical that is even more  

toxic than alcohol itself and that wreaks  havoc on your tissues, cells and DNA.

In your brain, this shrinks your  neurons and severs their connections,  

making it harder for different parts of the  brain to communicate. As your brain withers,  

your memories fade, your thinking slows  down and your risk of dementia increases.  

When and how you drink matters – the  younger you are, the wider the damage;  

and the more you drink in one  go, the worse you’ll make it.

The human brain isn’t fully  wired until your mid 20s,  

so drinking before that age is like smashing  wet cement before it has set. In 20-year-olds,  

blackout drinking episodes have been  found to cause mental problems for up  

to a year – forgetting why you entered a room  or having difficulty learning new things. Binge  

drinking in late adolescence is also one of the  highest risk factors for early-onset dementia.

Then there is cancer. Just as smoking  hits your lungs, alcohol causes 8 types of  

cancer – basically everywhere from mouth to bowel,  plus breast cancer in women. Here risks start at  

an average consumption of less than 1 glass  of wine per day. Beyond that, risks increase.  

Worldwide, alcohol causes around 740,000 new  cancer cases per year, leading to 400,000 deaths.

Another victim is your liver. Alcohol disrupts fat  metabolism, causing fat to build up in your liver  

cells. But this often has no symptoms, so you may  go on drinking as your liver slowly turns to fat,  

swells with inflammation and starts to fail. The  final stage is cirrhosis – your liver is full of  

scars and barely functioning. This might take  over 10 years, but once it appears it's largely  

irreversible. Every year, 600,000 people die  because they have a liver destroyed by alcohol.

Drinking also weakens your heart, raises  blood pressure and increases the risk of  

stroke and thrombosis – leading to another 500,000  deaths from cardiovascular diseases every year.

In terms of looks too, alcohol damages  cells around your body, including your  

skin which looks older, sooner. And not only  does alcohol contain a lot of calories itself,  

it also makes many people very hungry. Drinking  is a huge source of weight gain and increases  

the risk of obesity, opening the door  to a cascade of other health problems.

When scientists crunch these numbers,  they see that health problems can start  

at about 1 beer a day, and that the  chances of premature death start  

rising significantly at around 3 beers a  day for men, and less than 2 for women.

If this sounds like a lot to you,  maybe look around. In the EU,  

the average man drinks the equivalent of  almost 3 beers a day. The average woman,  

almost 1. Similar figures  apply to much of the world,  

especially the West. There is no other drug we  consume that gets so close to the edge of harm.

It Isn’t Only Your Body

Alcohol is unique for another reason:  its unmatched ability to destroy others.

Alcohol causes a staggering amount of accidents.  The numbness and disinhibition of a few drinks  

can morph you into a clumsy critter eager  to take really stupid risks – on a balcony,  

at sea, or on the road. Every year,  alcohol-fueled accidents kill 500,000 people;  

300,000 of them in car accidents. But  more than half of the people who died  

in those crashes didn't drink. They  just died because someone else did.

Alcohol is also one of the major causes of  violence, from fights at the pub to domestic  

abuse, other brutal assaults and murder. Figures  differ by country, but essentially 50% of all  

violent crime and sexual assault is committed by  drunk offenders. Each year, alcohol-fueled crime  

kills about 100,000 people. That's a city like  Pisa being massacred every year by a drunk mob.

And then you have all the non-lethal  victims. In England alone, 500,000  

adults are injured every year in accidents  caused by drunk people. Another 800,000 get  

hurt in violent attacks by drunk offenders.  Zoomed out to the rest of the drinking world,  

this means that, every year, dozens of millions  are physically harmed by someone else's drinking.

The most innocent bystanders are the 600,000  babies born every year with fetal alcohol  

spectrum disorder, a devastating lifelong  condition caused by drinking during pregnancy.

Alcohol is nothing short of a global catastrophe.

The Final Toll – The  Hijacking of 400 Million Lives

When your drinking escalates to a point that  it causes real harm to yourself or others,  

you’ve crossed the invisible line to alcoholism.  An estimated 400 million people, 1 in 14 adults,  

are in this territory. The line is very  fuzzy and varies from person to person.  

But if you consistently drink 8 beers per week  as a woman, 15 as a man, or 5 on the same day,  

you’ve either crossed the line or  are dangerously walking towards it.

Of those 400 million, more than half have  fallen into an even deeper trap – dependence.  

When alcohol has become something that  you physically or psychologically need.  

In Europe and the Americas, 1 in  20 adults are caught in this web.

The stereotype of alcoholism is one of  extremes. A homeless person clutching  

a bottle or an always-drunk father shouting  at his kids. But it can be far more silent.

A US study found that up to 50% of all  alcoholics may fly under the radar. They  

come in two main groups: unproblematic young  adults, and middle-aged professionals with  

successful careers and families. As  one of them you’ll show no antisocial  

behavior. You’ll fulfill your obligations.  You’ll probably have no diagnosed health  

conditions. But on average you’ll be having  4 beers a day and will get drunk every week.

And neither you nor your family may notice. No  one questions a drink at dinner, after work,  

or at a party. But it is exactly that  that makes alcohol so dangerous. No  

other drug is so widely accepted,  casually consumed and easily ignored.

So OK – How did we come to this?

A Pact With the Devil

We made a pact with alcohol to help us solve  one of the greatest challenges of being human.

Human interaction is messy. We long for closeness.  But we are also anxious, awkward, and wary of each  

other. “Am I talking too much?” “Do they actually  like me?” “What if I say something stupid?”

There are many ways to navigate this, alcohol is  not “the” solution, but it is definitely one of  

them. It is a real and effortless solution  to the problem of connecting with others.  

Studies confirm what we have known for  millennia. Modest quantities of alcohol  

help strangers bond. And individuals who  drink moderately and socially tend to  

have more friends, closer friendships,  and higher levels of trust in others.

So if we want to step away from alcohol, we  need to be honest about what we gain from it.  

For millennia we’ve been giving it our health and  years of our lives. And in return, alcohol gave us  

confidence, connection, and celebration.  But right now this is changing rapidly.

Younger generations and especially Gen Z are  drinking far less than their parents did. In the  

US, the share of 18-year-olds who have ever tried  alcohol has dropped by 25% in the last decades.  

Binge drinking in adolescents has plummeted by  50%. And even in countries like Germany or France,  

where beer and wine have always been part of the  cultural DNA, alcohol consumption is falling. And  

that’s a victory. Fewer accidents. Fewer hospital  beds filled. Fewer lives quietly derailed.

But at the same time, other things  have been falling too. The share of  

young people who see their friends  almost every day has plummeted by  

50%. Attendance at parties has fallen by  30%. Dating and casual sex have fallen  

by a similar amount. All while loneliness  and mental health issues have skyrocketed.

There are many different reasons for this, from  covid to social media. But the shift in which  

drugs we consume is probably not totally unrelated  either. Drugs like weed have gained ground  

massively and in contrast to drinking, smoking  weed tends to make many people less energetic  

and likely to do things, more socially awkward and  especially if you use a lot of it, more lonely.

Alcohol has been a powerful and influential tool  for sharing, celebrating and enjoying life with  

others for thousands of years. If the West is  on the path to drinking less, we might also be  

on the path to something completely new. A future  where we connect and rejoice without a poisonous  

chemical crutch, or at least without this specific  one. It’s up to us to figure out what comes next.

There are so many other ways to strengthen  your confidence and make connections:  

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Key Vocabulary

Vocabulary	Meanings
alcohol /ˈælkəhɑːl/ A1	noun - a colorless volatile flammable liquid which is the intoxicating constituent of wine, beer, spirits, and other drinks
drink /drɪŋk/ A1	verb - take (a liquid) into the mouth and swallow noun - an alcoholic drink
brain /breɪn/ A2	noun - an organ of soft nervous tissue contained in the skull
people /ˈpiːpəl/ A1	noun - human beings in general or considered collectively
risk /rɪsk/ B1	noun - a situation involving exposure to danger verb - expose (someone or something valued) to danger, harm, or loss
damage /ˈdæmɪdʒ/ B1	noun - physical harm that impairs the value, usefulness, or normal function of something verb - inflict physical harm on (something) so as to impair its value, usefulness, or normal function
harm /hɑːrm/ B1	noun - physical injury or mental damage verb - injure or damage
cancer /ˈkænsər/ B2	noun - a disease caused by an uncontrolled division of abnormal cells in a part of the body
death /dɛθ/ A2	noun - the end of the life of a person or organism
violence /ˈvaɪələns/ B1	noun - behavior involving physical force intended to hurt, damage, or kill someone or something
disease /dɪˈziːz/ A2	noun - a disorder of structure or function in a human, animal, or plant, especially one that produces specific signs or symptoms
accident /ˈæksɪdənt/ A2	noun - an unfortunate incident that happens unexpectedly and unintentionally, typically resulting in damage or injury
connection /kəˈnɛkʃən/ B1	noun - a relationship in which a person or thing is linked or associated with something else
confidence /ˈkɒnfɪdəns/ A2	noun - the feeling or belief that one can rely on someone or something
stress /strɛs/ A2	noun - a state of mental or emotional strain or tension resulting from adverse or demanding circumstances
relax /rɪˈlæks/ A2	verb - make or become less tense or anxious
friend /frɛnd/ A1	noun - a person with whom one has a bond of mutual affection, typically one exclusive of sexual or family relations
memory /ˈmɛməri/ A2	noun - the faculty by which the mind stores and remembers information
decision /dɪˈsɪʒən/ A2	noun - a conclusion or resolution reached after consideration
problem /ˈprɒbləm/ A2	noun - a matter or situation regarded as unwelcome or harmful and needing to be dealt with and overcome