Food slows the rate at which alcohol is absorbed into your bloodstream. It is ideal to have food in your stomach when you drink, or to drink Meetings Listing Online Meetings only during meals. Drinking slowly is another way to reduce the rate at which alcohol is absorbed by your body. Having several nonalcoholic drinks between drinks of alcohol can also slow the effects of alcohol on your system. Many people with alcohol use disorder hesitate to get treatment because they don’t recognize that they have a problem.
Excessive alcohol use can harm people who drink and those around them. You and your community can take steps to improve everyone’s health and quality of life. Moderate drinking is having one drink or less in a day for women, or two drinks or less in a day for men.
The Impact of Alcohol on Your Body
- In low to moderate alcohol consumption, antioxidants may provide some cardiovascular benefits.
- On the other hand, alcohol consumption mainly has detrimental effects on the risk for hemorrhagic stroke, which are mediated at least in part by alcohol’s impact on hypertension.
- HIV/AIDS is a disease in which mucosal immunity already is under attack.
- Experts recommend avoiding excessive amounts of alcohol if you have diabetes or hypoglycemia.
- Women tend to have a higher proportion of body fat, which does not absorb alcohol; this increases alcohol levels in the blood.
- It’s important to note that any amount of alcohol in your system can interfere with your ability to think and function without impairment.
If you drink, do so in moderation—no more than one drink a day for women and no more than two drinks a day for men. Alcohol use disorder is a pattern of alcohol use that involves problems controlling your drinking, being preoccupied with alcohol or continuing to use alcohol even when it causes problems. This disorder also involves having to drink more to get the same effect or having withdrawal symptoms when you rapidly decrease or stop drinking. Alcohol use disorder includes a level of drinking that’s sometimes called alcoholism. There is substantial evidence that alcohol consumption can cause unprovoked seizures, and researchers have identified plausible biological pathways that may underlie this relationship (Samokhvalov et al. 2010a).
Alcohol can also alter the effectiveness and toxicity of medicines. Some medicines increase blood levels of alcohol or increase the adverse effects of alcohol on the brain. Why some people abuse alcohol and others don’t is not fully understood, but a family history of addiction to alcohol places a person at higher risk. Children of parents who have trouble with alcohol have a fourfold increased risk of the disorder.
Physical complications of alcohol use disorder
Heavy drinking can also lead to a host of health concerns, like brain damage, heart disease, cirrhosis of the liver and even certain kinds of cancer. Someone suffering from alcohol abuse can become more aggressive and his or her ability to function (hold a job or maintain relationships with friends and family) can seriously deteriorate. Heavy drinkers may experience tremors, panic attacks, confusion, hallucinations, and seizures.
Cancer
People who drink excessively may also engage in risky sexual behavior or drive when they should not. To avoid driving after consuming alcohol, it’s helpful to designate a nondrinking driver, or to use public transportation. No one should ever ride in a car with a driver who has been drinking.
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. Alcohol use can begin to take a toll on anyone’s physical and mental well-being over time.