Shots of brightly coloured fizzy liquids being poured from bottles into glasses
KERRY STAIGHT
Looks like a soft drink. This too. But all of these are actually alcoholic drinks.
Shot of Kerry standing behind a table with glass of drink on them
KERRY STAIGHT
Alcohol. Soft drink. The similarity between them is one of things being blamed for the increase in the number of teenage girls drinking alcohol in Australia, even though it's illegal.
Shot of two girls perusing a sign on the wall that reads, 'Have a drink, have a blast.'
GIRL
Oh, look at that.
KERRY STAIGHT
Advertising, poor body image and peer pressure…
Shot of three girls sitting at a table opposite a single girl, at whom they are all shouting
GIRLS
Come on!
KERRY STAIGHT
..are also being blamed.
Shot of a red fizzy alcoholic drink with 5% superimposed next to it
KERRY STAIGHT
This drink has about that much alcohol in it. Others have more, some less. But what actually is alcohol?
Shot of yeast organisms on a microscopic scale
KERRY STAIGHT
Alcohol is what these little critters release when they go to the loo. They're yeast organisms, and they're used during the fermentation process. They eat the sugar in fruit, veggies and grains, and release alcohol as a waste. No wonder our bodies don't like the stuff very much. In fact, alcohol gets up to all sorts of mischief once it gets inside. Alcohol moves into the bloodstream by sneaking through the walls of the small intestine.
Animation of anthropomorphised liver wearing boxing gloves, punching arrows — representing the flow of alcohol — as they pass through it
KERRY STAIGHT
The liver's job is to break it up into less harmful or useful stuff like water and sugar before it does too much damage. It's a bit like a recycling plant, really. The trash is separated so some of it can be re-used. Here's the problem. If you overload the system… it can't keep up and some of the trash gets through. Same with the liver. If there's too much alcohol, some of it gets through because the liver can only break down 15ml of the stuff an hour. That's about what's in one of these.
Shot of a red fizzy alcoholic drink with 5% superimposed next to it
KERRY STAIGHT
The blood transports the left-over alcohol around the body, so it will come back to the liver, but along the way it has a field day up here.
Shot of Kerry pointing to the brain of an animated human biological model
KERRY STAIGHT
It looks a bit like a cauliflower, but this is a brain and it controls pretty much everything we do.
Animation of human brain with electrical signals zapping all over it
KERRY STAIGHT
It does this by sending electrical messages to our muscles and organs along the nerve cells. Each cell is close to but not touching the next one, so the message is fired across the gap.
Shot of girls wearing blue shirts standing in a line, each girl throwing a netball over a gap to the next girl
KERRY STAIGHT
But alcohol likes to get into these gaps and interfere.
Shot of a girl wearing a purple shirt standing in the gap between two blue-shirted girls, catching the netball as it is passed between them, and keeping it to herself
KERRY STAIGHT
The result? The message is slowed down. That explains why people who have drunk too much get blurred vision, can't walk properly and… slur their speech. If you keep pouring alcohol into your body the brain can shrink and the liver stops functioning.
Shot of the liver exploding on an animated human biological model
KERRY STAIGHT
OK, so the liver doesn't actually blow up, but it doesn't look pretty if it fails.
Shot of liver affected by cirrhosis
KERRY STAIGHT
Liver failure is called cirrhosis. In the last decade 7,000 Australians have died from the disease. Alcohol has been linked to all of these. In fact, kids who start drinking before the age of 15 are four times more likely to become alcoholics than those who wait until they reach the legal age. While soft drinks aren't exactly healthy they're definitely a safer option.