"Imagine a cell is like a car. The goal of antibacterials, antibiotics, alcohol, etc. is to disable that car. There are two basic ways to disable the car, delicate and brute force. You could, for example, cut the ignition wire so the car wont start, but a manufacturer can move the wire someplace so you cant see it. This is how antibiotics work, they target specific parts of a cell, and sometimes cells can hide these parts."

"The other way to disable a car, however, is to just blow it the fuck up. Sure the manufacturer can put armor on it, but at the end of the day a big enough explosion is gonna get the job done, however, you're going to have collateral damage. This is how alcohol and fire work, they obliterate everything, there is no way for a cell to adapt to them any more than you can adapt to surviving an explosion. For this same reason, however, we can't use these methods internally because they cause too much collateral damage. Would injecting ethanol into your blood stream kill bacteria? Probably, but it will kill a whole lot of other important cells first."