system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
Why are so many medicines incompatible with alcohol?
gpt
The only thing that makes medicine different from poison is dosage. Most drugs become pretty harmful if the dose goes high enough. Getting the right dose inside your body is all about balancing how fast you absorb the drug with how fast your body can eliminate it. The liver is the primary organ responsible for processing most of these compounds (kidneys are the other main organ). This process requires a variety of enzymes in the liver, such as alcohol and aldehyde dehydrogenase, which are commonly used by the body for eliminating a lot of drugs, as well as for eliminating alcohol.

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The issue with alcohol is that relative to many drugs, it takes a LOT of alcohol to have any effect. If you are feeling drunk, your alcohol and aldehyde dehydrogenase enzymes are well beyond saturated trying to keep up with metabolizing and eliminating the alcohol from your system. This will significantly reduce your body's ability to eliminate any drugs that require those enzymes to be eliminated. The drug will then begin to build up in your system, and in some cases can reach dangerous levels quite quickly. The result is typically either direct effects of the drug on the body causing dangerous side effects/overdose, or toxic effects of the drug causing damage to the liver.