Short-Term Health Effects
It might be easy to assume you are safe from alcohol-related health problems as long as you aren’t drinking a bottle of liquor every day for years. But even people who only abuse alcohol occasionally can face many health risks. Some of these can be life-altering, or even fatal.
We have listed the most common short-term health effects of alcohol below in order of severity—click any risk to see more details.
Overdose
The most serious short-term danger of alcohol use is overdosing. Even someone who never drinks can end up overdosing after a single binge-drinking session. Symptoms may include:
- Impaired lung and heart function
- Loss of consciousness
- Severe vomiting
- Seizures
An overdose can be deadly. Even if it’s treated in time, you can end up with permanent brain damage due to lack of oxygen or liver damage due to high levels of alcohol exposure.
Increased Risks of Injury
Consuming alcohol slows your reflexes and impairs coordination. It also impairs your judgment and encourages you to take part in risky behavior. This makes you far more likely to trip, fall, or experience other accidents.
8% of all injuries treated by emergency departments are caused by alcohol. Overconsuming alcohol leads to things like:
- Burns
- Broken bones
- Sprains
- Concussions
Dehydration
Alcohol is a diuretic, which means it causes you to urinate more often than normal. Alcohol can also cause your body to lose water via:
- Vomiting
- Diarrhea
When individuals are dealing with a hangover the day after binge drinking, they are often quite dehydrated. In some cases, this dehydration can be severe enough to require medical care.
Hypothermia
Many people think that alcohol has a warming effect. However, the reality is that even if you feel warmer, alcohol is making you colder. As you drink more and more alcohol, your core body temperature starts to lower. People who consume alcohol in chilly outdoor settings have a much higher risk of hypothermia.
Poor Sleep
Alcohol might temporarily make you sleepy, but in the long run, it hurts more than it helps. As the alcohol leaves your system, your body produces hormones associated with wakefulness. This often causes people to wake up repeatedly, making them toss and turn in their sleep. Research shows that those who consume alcohol before bed end up having significantly worse sleep.
Long-Term Health Effects
If you regularly abuse alcohol for years, health problems become even more severe. In addition to all the short-term dangers of alcohol, you also encounter a whole new spectrum of health dangers.
We have listed the most common long-term health problems related to alcohol below. Click any health risk for more details.
Higher Risk of Heart Disease
modern research has repeatedly disproved this belief. Instead, the reality is that regular alcohol consumption actually increases cardiovascular disease risks even at very low doses. Those who regularly abuse alcohol have:
- Higher blood pressure
- Higher cholesterol levels
- Higher risk of developing blood clots
This gives alcoholics a much higher risk of dying from heart disease.
Liver Damage
Your liver is responsible for processing all the toxins in alcohol. Unfortunately, a liver can only filter out poison and regenerate itself as long as it has time to heal. When you regularly abuse alcohol, your liver never gets a chance to recover. Scar tissue builds up in your liver, which further reduces its filtration abilities and causes even more damage.
Eventually, your liver may fail, and if you cannot get a transplant, liver failure is deadly. Liver disease is the leading cause of alcohol-attributed death in the United States.
Increased Cancer Risks
Whenever alcohol comes into contact with cells in your body, it damages them. This damage can then cause cells to mutate into cancerous cells, so it’s common for people who abuse alcohol to end up with oral, stomach, esophageal, or intestinal cancer.
Alcohol can also increase cancer risks by altering hormone levels. Additionally, frequent alcohol consumption raises your estrogen levels, which increases the risk of developing breast cancer.
Just three or four drinks a day can more than triple your risk of developing cancer. The risk of cancer is so high that it’s the third leading cause of alcohol-attributed deaths.
Poor Immune System Functioning
Alcohol abuse can lead to all sorts of infections and illnesses. Regular alcohol consumption greatly damages your immune system. Not only does it kill off the probiotic bacteria that protect from foodborne illness, but it also lowers the level of white blood cells your body produces.
These immune system problems increase the risk of catching colds, influenza, COVID-19, and other illnesses. They also make it a lot harder to heal from injury and fight off infections. People who abuse alcohol take longer to recover from surgery and are more likely to develop infections from minor cuts and scrapes.
Anemia and Malnutrition
When you’re regularly drinking alcohol, your body has to put a lot of effort into processing the ethanol safely. Unfortunately, while your body is busy doing this, it tends to neglect other types of food metabolism—so chronic alcoholics tend to end up with a lot of nutrition deficiencies.
Two of the biggest issues are folate and vitamin B12. Even if you are eating enough of these nutrients, alcoholism keeps your body from absorbing them. The result is anemia, scurvy, and other signs of malnutrition. People may feel quite ill, bleed easily, and get tired after just a few steps.
Malnutrition is especially bad in those struggling with severe alcohol use disorder because some people may neglect food and only get calories through drinking.
Dementia
Alcoholism is bad for brain health. It not only robs the brain of nutrients it needs to function but also directly damages it. Those who drink alcohol in excess have a much smaller brain size than non-drinkers. As they age, the loss of brain matter leads to dementia.
In some cases, heavy drinkers might even develop a specific type of dementia called wet brain syndrome. This alcohol-induced illness is characterized by brain lesions, memory loss, and hallucinations. Even if people quit drinking, it can be impossible to reverse the effects of dementia.
Neuropathy
Alcohol can harm your nervous system in multiple ways. Not only does it produce toxins that damage your nerves, but it also causes malnutrition, which keeps your nerves from getting enough B12 to function. If you get enough nerve damage, you can end up with alcoholic neuropathy.
Neuropathy is a type of nerve issue that causes burning, tingling pain at random times. In addition to pain, some people also report numbness, weakness, and poor coordination. Alcoholic neuropathy most commonly affects the feet and hands, but in serious cases, it can also make it hard to use your arms and legs as well.
Pancreatitis
Metabolizing alcohol creates some very toxic byproducts in the body. Repeated exposure to these byproducts causes pancreas inflammation, which regulates blood sugar. When this happens, people can end up with a potentially fatal condition called pancreatitis.
Alcohol is so bad for the pancreas that roughly a quarter of all pancreatitis cases are due to alcohol consumption. If you develop pancreatitis, you may end up dealing with stomach pain, fluid buildup, unexplained weight loss, and blood sugar issues.
Mental Health Problems
Though many people drink because they’re dealing with stress or sadness, alcohol only makes it worse. Due to the way it affects hormones in your body, alcohol can result in anxiety disorders and depression.
People who drink regularly can end up with very severe mental health problems that make it harder for them to stop drinking. These conditions can continue to cause problems months after you quit drinking.
Kidney Disease
The kidneys and the liver are closely related, so it’s no surprise that alcoholism can lead to kidney damage. When people regularly drink large amounts of alcohol, their kidneys go into overdrive while trying to compensate for liver damage. This ends up harming the kidneys and can eventually lead to kidney failure.
Alcohol can also damage the kidneys by causing fluid buildup, high blood pressure, and other issues that contribute to kidney disease. Kidney failure can be fatal without treatment, and it often requires regular dialysis or kidney transplants.
Are You At Risk?
Acknowledging that you have a problem isn’t always easy—but it’s the first step towards getting help.
Professionals use the following 11 criteria to diagnose alcoholism, which must be present for a 12-month period. The more signs you have, the more severe your condition is.
Take our free quiz and find out if you have symptoms of AUD so you can get the help you need.
- You can’t control yourself when it comes to drinking; you always think about drinking.
- You avoid social activities, friends, and hobbies and prefer to drink alcohol.
- You want to stop drinking or drink less, but you can’t.
- You drink before doing something that may be dangerous, like driving or having unprotected sex.
- You have problems at work or at school caused by drinking too much.
- You want alcohol, especially when not drinking for several days.
- You can drink a lot before feeling drunk.
- You spend too much time or money on drinking; this affects your personal life.
- You experience withdrawal symptoms – you shake, sweat, feel nauseous or very hungry.
- You have to drink more to feel good.
- You still drink too much, even though you know it’s wrong.
Ready to Reach Out?
Alcohol has the power to severely impact your life—but you also have the power to break free from your addiction. Call us today and connect with someone who can refer you to an appropriate treatment program near you.
(855) 955-0771
