Is Eating before drinking an alcoholic beverage slows down but dies nor prevent the absorption of alcohol into the blood stream?

Absolutely everything we ingest (except cellulose) gets broken down by enzymes in our guts. Alcohol is an exception. It is absorbed in the intestine, where it then makes its way to the liver. Here, the body uses the enzyme ethanol dehydrogenase to turn the ethanol to ethanal. This goes on to be concerted into useful substances.

Food eaten prior/during drinking alcohol merely slows down the rate at which the alcohol gets absorbed as the pumps that absorb the products of digestion from our diet may be more selective in taking up useful molecules such as glucose.