Alcohol definitely interferes with all sorts of stuff, I'm not disputing that. The body prioritizes getting rid of circulating alcohol.

But if you look at the way the body metabolizes alcohol, using alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH) enzymes to convert to acetaldehyde, and aldehyde dehydrogenase (ALDH) enzymes to convert to acetate, the process accumulates acetate in the body. And acetate is metabolized in the Krebs cycle.

I don't know what experiment you're referring to, but the metabolic pathway that ethanol follows, to acetate, is pretty well established. And that pathway accounts for how the body gets rid of something like 98% of the alcohol it consumes.

As the body gets rid of that poison, it consumes oxygen and releases carbon dioxide, generating energy stored in ATP molecules.

Alcohol has calories. This is basic textbook nutritional science.