Author: Gary Jackson
How Alcohol Affects Your Body
You may be looking to know if you’re drinking too much post-summer haze of outdoor picnics and afternoons in the pub, or even how to cut down on alcohol and try more mindful drinking. Here, woman&home speaks to three doctors to reveal the real side-effects of everyday drinking and if your drinking habits could harm your health. During the 12- to 24-hour time frame after the last drink, most people will begin to have noticeable symptoms. These may still be mild, or the existing symptoms might increase in severity.
When you drink too much alcohol, it can throw off the balance of good and bad bacteria in your gut. Steatotic liver disease used to go by the name fatty liver disease. But when you ingest too much alcohol for your liver to process in a timely manner, a buildup of toxic substances begins to take a toll on your liver. You probably already know that excessive drinking can affect you in more ways than one. Grace Walsh is woman&home’s Health Channel Editor, working across the areas of fitness, nutrition, sleep, mental health, relationships, and sex. In 2024, she will be taking on her second marathon in Rome, cycling from Manchester to London (350km) for charity, and qualifying as a certified personal trainer.
Your Heart Gets Healthier
If you’re a heavy drinker, your body may rebel at first if you cut off all alcohol. You could break out in cold sweats or have a racing pulse, nausea, vomiting, shaky hands, and intense anxiety. Some people even have seizures or see things that aren’t there (hallucinations). Your doctor or substance abuse therapist can offer guidance and may prescribe medication like benzodiazepines or carbamazepine to help you get through it. “Some people think of the effects of alcohol as only something to be worried about if you’re living with alcohol use disorder, which was formerly called alcoholism,” Dr. Sengupta says.
It makes your body release stress hormones that narrow blood vessels, so your heart has to pump harder to push blood through. If you drink heavily for a long time, alcohol can affect how your brain looks and works. And that’ll have big effects on your ability to think, learn, and remember things. It can also make it harder to keep a steady body temperature and control your movements. Heavy drinking means eight or more drinks a week for women and 15 or more for men.
Impact on your safety
Getting into the habit of drinking every day can change the composition of our gut bacteria and help to grow more of the “harmful” bacteria and less of the “good” bacteria, he says. Although not drinking to the point of becoming drunk is a common way people gauge how much they should drink, it can be inaccurate. People with alcohol use disorder should be monitored by a medical professional when withdrawing from alcohol. Moderate to heavy drinkers can also benefit from medical supervision in the acute withdrawal stage. For most people, alcohol withdrawal symptoms will begin sometime in the first eight hours after their final drink.
If you feel that you sometimes drink too much alcohol, or your drinking is causing problems, or if your family is concerned about your drinking, talk with your health care provider. Other ways to get help include talking with a mental health professional or seeking help from a support group such as Alcoholics Anonymous or a similar type of self-help group. If your pattern of drinking results in repeated significant distress and problems functioning in your daily life, you likely have alcohol use disorder. However, even a mild disorder can escalate and lead to serious problems, so early treatment is important. If you are thinking about quitting drinking, talk to your healthcare provider.
Social Networks
If you want to know more about alcohol units and how to calculate them, visit Alcohol Change UK’s calculator. Drinking more than the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism recommended limits puts you in the category of “at-risk” drinking. That means you have a higher risk for negative consequences related to your alcohol use, including health and social problems. When someone drinks alcohol for a prolonged period of time and then stops, the body reacts to its absence. This is alcohol withdrawal, and it causes uncomfortable physical and emotional symptoms.