By promoting the release of these feel-good neurotransmitters, alcohol temporarily amplifies feelings of joy and lightheartedness. Alcohol poisoning can cause a person to fall into a coma and could lead to their death. The excess Sobriety amount of alcohol in your system can also upset your digestion, leading to symptoms of nausea, vomiting, diarrhoea and indigestion.
Deciding about drinking
Overall, the effects of alcohol consumption on cardiovascular disease are detrimental in all societies with large proportions of heavy-drinking occasions, which is true for most societies globally (Rehm et al. 2003a). This conclusion also is supported by ecological analyses or natural experiments. For example, studies in Lithuania (Chenet et al. 2001) found that cardiovascular deaths increased on weekends, when heavy drinking is more common.
- This slows the communication between brain cells and has a calming effect on the mind and body.
- Over the long term, alcohol can increase your risk of more than 200 different diseases, including in the liver and pancreas, and certain cancers.
- Alcoholic liver disease and alcohol-induced pancreatitis are other alcohol-specific disease categories that are of global importance.
- Most of the remaining 80 percent is absorbed through the small intestine.
Pancreas
Here’s a breakdown of alcohol’s effects on your internal organs and body processes. Some of these effects, like a relaxed mood or lowered inhibitions, might show up quickly after just one drink. Others, like loss of consciousness or slurred speech, may develop after a few drinks. “Excessive alcohol consumption can cause nerve damage and irreversible forms of dementia,” Dr. Sengupta warns. The morning after a night of over-imbibing can cause some temporary effects on your brain. Things like trouble concentration, slow reflexes and sensitivity to bright lights and loud sounds are standard signs of a hangover, and evidence of alcohol’s effects on your brain.
Sexual and reproductive health
People who drink heavily over a long period of time are also more likely to develop pneumonia or tuberculosis than the general population. The World Health Organization (WHO) links about 8.1 percent of all tuberculosis cases worldwide to alcohol consumption. 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. If your body can’t manage and balance your blood sugar levels, you may experience greater complications and side effects related to diabetes.
- Some examples include behavioral treatments, support groups, and FDA-approved medications.
- Liver diseases related to alcohol intake are known to humankind from the very beginning and probably are one of the oldest known forms of injury to the liver 15.
- Tolerance and dependence can both happen as symptoms of alcohol use disorder, a mental health condition previously referred to as alcoholism, that happens when your body becomes dependent on alcohol.
- Alcohol is a part of cultural traditions all around the world…and it’s also a drug that chemically alters the body.
- Long-term alcohol use can change your brain’s wiring in much more significant ways.
During those years of transition between childhood and adulthood, the brain grows and changes in many important ways that are crucial for that transition to be successful. When teens and young adults drink alcohol, it can interfere with that process of brain development in ways that affect the rest of their lives. In the United States, a standard drink usually is considered to what are the consequences of alcohol contain 0.6 fluid ounces (or 14 grams) of pure alcohol.
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.
Despite this, less than half of the US public is aware of any alcohol-cancer connection. That’s why the Surgeon General issued an advisory in January 2025 recommending that alcoholic beverages carry new labels warning of the alcohol-cancer link and highlighting that no safe low level of alcohol consumption has been established. Changing the labels as suggested by the Surgeon General will require congressional action that may never happen. Mutual-support groups provide peer support for stopping or reducing drinking. Group meetings are available in most communities at low or no cost, and at convenient times and locations—including an increasing presence online.
After drinking 8 to 9 units of alcohol, your reaction times will be much slower, your speech will begin to slur and your vision will begin to lose focus. Alcohol is a powerful chemical that can have a wide range of adverse effects on almost every part of your body, including your brain, bones and heart. Considering these hormonal dysregulations, unhealthy alcohol use can also contribute to low bone density for older men and post-menopausal women.