Alcohols

Small drinkable alcohols. Ethanol is the reference: a positive modulator at GABA-A and an NMDA antagonist, which is why its intoxication, its cross-tolerance and its withdrawal all resemble the benzodiazepines' and the barbiturates'. The family exists because the others get drunk too, deliberately or by mistake, and what separates them is metabolism rather than the intoxication itself.

Methanol is converted by alcohol dehydrogenase to formic acid: the toxicity is delayed, the early hours feel like ordinary drunkenness, and what follows is metabolic acidosis and damage to the optic nerve. Isopropanol becomes acetone — deeper sedation, ketosis, severe gastric irritation. 2-methyl-2-butanol is a tertiary alcohol that no dehydrogenase turns into an aldehyde, and it is active at volumes far smaller than ethanol's, so eyeballing a measure is where its danger sits. All of them add to everything else in this subject.