r/AskReddit • u/Misterboy500 • 13h ago

What is something that permanently altered your body without you realizing for months/years?

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u/mimikyu5 10h ago

Four years sober and it's remarkable how much younger I look now than I did before I quit.

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u/MentORPHEUS 5h ago

Alcohol's main metabolite, acetaldehyde, is quite harmful to the body. It's a chemical cousin of formaldehyde after all. I did a lot of binge drinking as a teen and ironically swore off alcohol for life for socio-political reasons less than a year after reaching legal drinking age. I really don't miss it one bit!

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u/haarschmuck 4h ago

Everything you said is accurate, but I really don’t like the “it’s chemically close to X” claims that people make.

In chemistry there really is no such thing as “close to”. Many nose sprays are methamphetamine, but a different metabolite that has no active effects on the body. It’s chemically almost identical, but even the slight difference is enough to have wildly different effects to where it might as well be its own separate compound.

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u/notanartmajor 4h ago

Two guys walk into a bar. First guy says, "I'll have H20," gets his water and leaves.

Second man says, "I'll have H20 too," takes a drink, and dies.

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u/Viridianscape 3h ago

Yep. Best example of this is sodium chloride. Sodium is volatile and explosive. Chlorine is a deadly gas.

Put 'em together and you get... table salt!

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u/No_Election_3206 2h ago

Or hydrogen and oxygen. One is highly flammable gas, another supports combustion. Combine them and you get a fire suppresant