Author: Gary Jackson

How alcohol abuse affects your brain Ohio State Health & Discovery

This is no more than seven drinks per week for females and no more than 14 per week for males. Some people can safely stay within this recommendation for low-risk drinking. Adolescents are more susceptible to brain damage from alcohol use than adults. Teenagers are likely to engage in high-risk behaviors, such as driving under the influence and using other substances.

General Health

That number increased to four or five years shorter for people who had 18 drinks or more per week. The researchers linked alcohol consumption to various types of cardiovascular problems, including stroke. People who drink regularly may notice that alcohol does not have the same effect on them as it used to. You build up a tolerance over time and do not feel as good as you once did with the same amount of alcohol. High alcohol consumption can damage your brain and the rest of your body.

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Heavy drinking may weaken parts of the brain that are responsible for cognitive function and emotion regulation. Heavy drinking can also lead to a thiamine deficiency, which can cause a neurological disorder called Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome. The syndrome — not the alcohol — results in a loss of neurons in the brain, causing confusion, memory loss, and loss of muscle coordination. Alcohol is a neurotoxin that can affect your brain cells directly and indirectly. It enters your bloodstream immediately and reaches your brain within five minutes of drinking it. And it typically takes only 10 minutes to start feeling some of the effects.

Damaged regions of the brain can start to “light up” on brain scans after you cut back on drinking, but there are limits. It may take several months of complete abstinence from alcohol to give your brain time to heal. Ahead, read about the short-term and long-term consequences of alcohol on cognitive health and whether there really is a safe drinking threshold. In addition to dementia, long-term alcohol use can lead to other memory disorders like Korsakoff syndrome or Wernicke’s encephalopathy.

What are the long-term effects of alcohol abuse on the brain?

“Specifically, when you’re younger, your brain is going through a lot of changes. A huge risk factor for people who develop alcohol use disorder is early-onset drinking. So, if you drink before the age of 14, there’s about a 50% chance you’re going to develop an alcohol use disorder in your adulthood,” explains Dr. Anand. Alcohol can have additional effects on developing brains, which are more vulnerable to the effects of alcohol. This makes the risk of long-term and permanent brain damage more likely. Moderate alcohol consumption is the best strategy for reducing the risk of alcohol-related brain damage.

What effects does alcohol have on mental health?

During the adolescent and teen years, the brain continues to develop and mature.

Drinking during this time can affect all of these functions and impair memory and learning. According to the United States Dietary Guidelines, people should limit drinking to one serving of alcohol per day for women and up to two servings per day for men. Binge drinking is defined by The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism as drinking to a blood alcohol level of .08% or above. This typically happens when men have five or more drinks or women have four or more drinks in about two hours.

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One to two drinks a day isn’t healthy — it just doesn’t pose a significant risk to your health. Many of the effects of heavy alcohol use are reversible or can at least be significantly improved. Professionals such as physicians, neurologists, addiction specialists, dietitians, psychiatrists, cardiologists, physical therapists and others can all help the recovery process. There’s no timeline for recovery for the brain, but the first step is to stop drinking.

1. Therefore, a small quantity of a high-alcohol drink can have the same impact as a larger amount of a weaker drink.
2. “All of these factors collectively influence how we feel the following day,” shares Dr. Mathis.
3. Alcohol interferes with the brain’s communication pathways and can affect the way the brain looks and works.
4. Alcohol affects the hippocampus, which helps create new memories, in your brain.

It’s essential to consult with your healthcare provider about strategies for protecting and healing the brain after prolonged alcohol use. If you drink for long periods of time, it can cause depression, and when you abruptly stop drinking, it can cause anxiety,” says Dr. Anand. There’s also more of an effect on your brain and its development if you’re younger — one that can have a lasting impact. Without treatment, DT can be fatal in more than one-third of people whom it affects.

Blackouts are gaps in a person’s memory of events that occurred while they were intoxicated. These gaps happen when a person drinks enough alcohol that it temporarily blocks the transfer of memories from short-term to long-term storage—known as memory consolidation—in a brain area called the hippocampus. Obviously, this does not mean that people should ignore the potential dangers of alcohol. Research consistently shows that heavy drinking harms brain health, but emerging evidence suggests that even light to moderate drinking can be detrimental.

In the short term, alcohol affects the brain by promoting feelings of sociability and relaxation. Over the long term, regular alcohol use can lead to persistent memory problems and increase the risk of developing dementia. Continuing to drink despite clear signs of significant impairments can result in an alcohol overdose. An alcohol overdose occurs when there is so much alcohol in the bloodstream that areas of the brain controlling basic life-support functions—such as breathing, heart rate, and temperature control—begin to shut down. While the most immediate effects of alcohol usually subside within a week, some symptoms like sleep disturbances and mood changes can persist. In response, it compensates by reducing its own production of these chemicals.