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It is no surprise that all good things are often too good to be true, and alcohol is one such substance that can be detrimental to you. A lot of people have an occasional drink for socializing, a casual get together, or when they are stressed. Alcohol in smaller quantities can actually prove to be good for your body, but when it’s always best to moderate its consumption.
Most people with alcohol addiction try to solve their problems with alcohol, and apart from the behavioral changes and bad decisions one experiences while being drunk, drinking too much, even for one night, can change the chemistry of the way your body works.
Alcoholism is attributed to at least 60 health-related diseases or chronic conditions. Your body deteriorates when you consume more alcohol than what can be metabolized, as the excess alcohol is stored into your blood. Your heart, liver, and kidneys take serious damage trying to normalize the blood alcohol level in your body. This is why you must find out how to stop or reduce alcohol addiction before it’s too late.
How Can You Measure Heavy Drinking?
There are multiple stages to becoming an alcoholic. Your body mass, metabolic rate, your general health, and your genetic make-up must be considered when you talk about how much alcohol you can drink without causing too much damage to your body.
However, the symptoms of constantly drinking are pretty obvious. For men, more than 4 drinks a day or 14 drinks a week, and for women, more than 3 drinks a day or 8 drinks a week is considered to be overdoing it.
The stages of drinking follow normal social drinking, which then elevates to drinking every time one faces an inconvenience. This stage is the starting of dependency on alcohol. The user now forms a habit of drinking to alleviate mental problems, stress, or other issues; they begin using alcohol to feel better about themselves.
From here, if left unchecked, people tend to start to abuse alcohol. In this stage, the user starts constantly drinking and loses interest in most activities and the people around them. Users are urged to get alcohol addiction treatment at this stage. The dependency on alcohol is well-defined in the person at this stage, and they become more irritable, less social, and responsible.
Alcohol Dependence Syndrome can be considered as the final or most dangerous stage. You will see physical changes in a person, like health, appearance, and weight. The person will show no control and will physically feel handicapped without alcohol. They will experience cold sweats, nausea, fever, and extreme irritability without alcohol.
One must monitor their alcohol consumption regularly and nip it in the bud before it gets to the final stage, or they are sure to face severe consequences. While it’s good to have the occasional drink, there can be some problems from having too much. There are quite a few ill effects of alcohol addiction that can impact your health risks, and some are listed below:
- Liver Problems:
The liver’s function is to detoxify the blood flowing from the digestive tract before it flows out to the rest of the body. Drinking alcohol adds stress on the liver, and drinking more than your liver can handle will cause it to malfunction. Excessive drinking can also leave scarring on your liver, called cirrhosis.
Constant drinking can leave your liver scarred to the point where it can’t function. Drinking over time can also cause fat build-up in your liver cells, a condition called fatty liver disease, which makes it harder for your liver to function.
- Heart Disease:
Heavy drinking makes your body more prone to cholesterol and high levels of body fat. Drinking can also reduce the amount of blood pumped to your heart, as it adds stress to the heart. It can cause the weakening of your heart muscles, a condition called cardiomyopathy, along with heart rhythm abnormalities. One can also have blood clots in the bloodstream that eventually lead to the heart, causing a person to die of a stroke or heart attack due to heavy drinking.
- Brain and nervous system problems:
Can you get addicted to alcohol from one drink? The short answer is no, but one drink can start to affect your brain and nervous system. It affects your cerebellum, the medulla, and how your brain’s communication system works in general. You won’t get instantly addicted with one drink, but that’s enough to start changing your body’s chemistry. Over drinking can cause severe damage to the neural links in your body, and also cause trouble speaking, thinking, and even moving. Heavy drinking can also cause dementia, depression and brain diseases.
- Cancer:
A clear link has been established between heavy alcohol consumption and cancer. The body turns alcohol into acetaldehyde, which is a known carcinogenic substance. Mouth, throat, larynx, breast, liver, oesophageal, and intestine cancer are the most common types of cancer linked with alcohol abuse.
- Ulcers and Gastrointestinal problems:
Alcohol is a heavily caustic substance, which can cause high inflammation in various parts of your body. It inflames the stomach lining, giving people heartburns. Heavy drinking over time can cause severe ulcers in the stomach and your gut. Alcohol also messes with your intestine’s abilities to digest some nutrients. Gastritis, pancreatic (build-up of excess digestive enzymes in the pancreas), and diabetes are diseases that alcoholics are prone to.
- Vitamin deficiencies:
Alcohol causes stress on the digestive tract, making it harder for the body to absorb vitamins. Heavy drinking also reduces a person’s appetite, which makes acquiring nutrients also harder. The lack of vitamins in the bloodstream causes vitamin deficiencies that lead to multiple other diseases.
- Dementia:
Alcohol consumption can dampen the brain’s ability to think and form memories. This is why most drinkers seem to be forgetful and hazy after their drinking session. Over time, heavy drinking can lead to dementia, a chronic disorder that is marked by memory loss or short-term memory, the ability to reason or make decisions, and even behavioral changes. Korsakoff’s syndrome is also linked to alcohol abuse.
- Anemia:
Anemia is a condition that is caused when your body is unable to produce healthy red blood cells. This causes less or restricted oxygen supply to your body, leaving you tired, nauseous, or even dizzy. Because vitamins can’t be fully absorbed when one is heavily drinking, there is a deficiency of iron, the essential component required to make functioning red blood cells.
- Osteoporosis:
Alcohol abuse has severe effects on the hematologic system, which involves blood, spleen, bone, and the liver. Over drinking can damage your muscle mass and bone density, as it messes with the levels of calcium, cortisol, and vitamin D. This makes alcoholics prone to a condition known as osteoporosis, where the body absorbs more bone tissue and is unable to reproduce is. This leaves the bones weak and prone to injury.
Final Words
These are simply the direct consequences of drinking. Drinking can lead to accidents, which could be more fatal to alcoholics and it could lead to causing accidents, leading to the loss or damage of the lives of others.
Apart from this, alcohol abuse can cause a lot of physiological trauma to the ones around you. You could physically or mentally scar the ones you love because, under the influence, you begin to lose sight of what is what.
If you find yourself asking the question, “How to get rid of alcohol addiction?” then you must properly learn the effects and rehabilitate the person in question, so you can stop the alcohol addiction before it is too late.
Author’s Bio:
Shaik Khaja, A Creative Content enthusiast who loves writing for various niches like Health, Travel, LifeStyles, Business, Digital Marketing etc.,. He’s more curious to learn and implement emerging things floating around the industry.
