The Physical Effects of Alcohol on Your Body

This can alcoholism also create a negative correlation between alcohol and sex drive. This can deregulate menstrual cycles, cause or worsen infertility, and most disconcertingly, be a risk factor for some estrogen-mediated breast cancers. The pancreas normally releases insulin, which helps the body respond to high blood sugar. Alcohol, however, inhibits this function of the pancreas, which leads to high blood sugar or hyperglycemia. This can also eventually result in a form of diabetes related to pancreas dysfunction.

• By nature, liquor is neurotoxic, and long-term consumption can have a dramatic impact on brain functioning and psychological wellness.
• We go to happy hour after work, we give toasts at weddings, and we drink to celebrate and mark occasions.
• Chronic alcohol use raises your risk for health problems, including heart disease, liver disease, cancer, and mental health disorders.
• Frequent excessive drinking over a period of time can also make a person more susceptible to some forms of cancer, such as mouth, throat, esophagus, and breast cancers.
• That’s because alcohol can weaken your immune system, slow healing and make your body more susceptible to infection.
• A 2020 study found that when weekly drinkers were presented with and aware of increased non-alcoholic options, they were likely to choose them.

Immune System

More information about alcohol’s effects on the brain is available on NIAAA’s topic page on Alcohol and The Brain. If you drink every day, or almost every day, you might notice that you catch colds, flu or other illnesses more frequently than people who don’t drink. That’s because alcohol can weaken your immune system, slow healing and make your body more susceptible to infection. Your body breaks alcohol down into a chemical called acetaldehyde, which damages your DNA.

What does it mean to drink in moderation?

• This is a serious problem among the 21 million college students in the United States, and has led to deaths from alcohol overdose.
• You can also experience more severe symptoms that gradually fade after days or weeks.
• Alcohol is a central nervous system depressant that has immediate effects on the body, like intoxication (feeling drunk) and hangovers (unpleasant aftereffects from drinking).
• Excessive amounts of alcohol in the body can be more than the liver is able to handle, causing damage to its cells.

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. Before you reach for your next drink, Dr. Anand explains how alcohol can affect your brain — not only in the short term, but also in the long run. The ways alcohol can affect your brain and body are varied, from immediate injury risk to increased risk of multiple cancers.

Health Conditions

• Drinking alcohol during pregnancy can lead to symptoms of fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD).
• See the guidelines for more advice on levels of drinking, or read this fact sheet from the Alcohol and Drug Foundation .
• The excess amount of alcohol in your system can also upset your digestion, leading to symptoms of nausea, vomiting, diarrhoea and indigestion.
• With these conditions, you’ll only notice symptoms during alcohol intoxication or withdrawal.

A weakened immune system has a harder time protecting you from germs and viruses. Over time, alcohol can cause damage to your central nervous system. Here’s a breakdown of alcohol’s effects on your internal organs and body processes. These effects might not last very long, but that doesn’t make them insignificant. Impulsiveness, loss of coordination, and changes in mood can affect your judgment and behavior and contribute to more far-reaching effects, including accidents, injuries, and decisions you later regret. Dehydration-related effects, like nausea, headache, and dizziness, might not appear for a few hours, and they can also depend on what you drink, how much you drink, and if you also drink water.

If you’re a low-risk, casual drinker who’s sober curious about whether you’ll feel better after cutting out happy hour, it’s OK to quit alcohol cold turkey. For someone who’s a heavy drinker, quitting alcohol, or simply cutting back, can cause life-threatening alcohol withdrawal. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 12 ounces of beer, 5 ounces of wine, and 1.5 ounces of 80-proof alcohol constitute one drink. In people assigned female at birth, consuming more than four drinks in one sitting is considered binge drinking.

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Generally, these symptoms are short-lived, but they may worsen or lead to long-term complications. Laryngeal cancer affects the voice box, which contains vocal cords and aids in breathing. A type of cancer that begins with the growth of abnormal carcinoma cells. Alcohol’s effects on the brain are especially harmful to young people because their brains are still developing. BetterHelp can connect you to an addiction and mental health counselor. AUD is a condition in which a person is unable to stop using alcohol despite negative consequences.

When drinking alcohol, you may become less cautious and more likely to engage in behaviors and take risks you wouldn’t consider when sober. If you or a loved one is experiencing the effects of alcohol on the body, don’t hesitate to make a change. Many long term effects of alcohol abuse can be curbed before they happen if you seek help now.

Excessive alcohol use

Depending on how often you drink and how much, you may need support from a healthcare professional if you want to stop drinking. When you stop drinking, you might notice a range of physical, emotional, or mental health symptoms that ease as soon as you have a drink. Alcohol use can factor into mental health symptoms that closely resemble those of other mental health conditions. Over time, drinking can also damage your frontal lobe, the part of the brain responsible for executive functions, like abstract reasoning, decision making, social behavior, and performance. Slurred speech, a key sign of intoxication, happens because alcohol reduces communication between your brain and body. This makes speech and coordination — think reaction time and balance — more difficult.