It all starts with an innocent drink. You are stressed and overworked and a drink or two makes you feel very relaxed. Soon one or two drinks are no longer enough, and you have to drink more to get yourself on the same high that you were before. The vicious cycle begins.
Alcohol addiction is more than a nightmare. Often enough the people drinking too much, do not even realize that they have a problem.
Did you know that people in their early twenties are the most likely to abuse alcohol, and if you start drinking before the age of fifteen you are more likely to become an alcoholic?
There is a vast difference between alcohol abuse and being an alcoholic. An alcoholic is dependent on alcohol and cannot function without it. If they don’t drink alcohol it can make them physically sick. This is a disease and cannot be cured. An alcoholic needs to quit drinking completely because even one single drink can affect them to fall off the wagon.
A person that abuses alcohol is someone who drinks too much on various occasions. An alcohol abuser tends to drink despite the consequences or the effect alcohol has on their lives. They are however not dependent on alcohol and don’t need to drink every day like an alcoholic.
How does alcohol affect your body?
- Alcohol races to your brain after your first sip. Alcohol slows down the pathways your brain uses to send messages. This can alter your mood and slow your reflexes. You will have difficulty storing things in your long-term memory.
- Alcohol can affect how your brain works. Cells can shrink and that can have an enormous effect on how you think or remember things.
- Sleep patterns might be affected. You might fall asleep more easily but because your body processes alcohol during the night, you don’t get that proper REM sleep that your body needs. You can have nightmares and wake up more often during the night.
- Alcohol irritates your stomach and can cause painful ulcers. Due to high levels of stomach acid, you might not feel hungry and therefore do not eat. This can lead to malnutrition because long term drinkers don’t get all the nutrients they need.
- Other parts of your digestive system can get affected too. Alcohol changes the speed food moves through the intestines and this can lead to diarrhea. It could turn into a long-term problem because alcohol relaxes the muscle that keeps acid out of the esophagus and can cause heartburn.
- When you consume alcohol the normal rate of making urine is affected. Alcohol triggers your brain and affects the hormone that keeps your kidneys from making too much urine. The kidneys overwork themselves and because you must go to the bathroom more often, it can leave your body dehydrated. This can affect the way your kidneys work and lead to kidney failure.
- Your liver handles all the toxins in your body. An overload of alcohol on a continuous base can cause cirrhosis. Cirrhosis is a disease that leaves the liver scarred and stops it from working. This prevents the body to get rid of extra toxins and your liver cells don’t survive. This causes liver failure and combined with kidney failure it could cause your death.
What’s a Hangover?
A hangover is your body telling you to slow down. You might feel terrible and have a severe headache. This is caused by your body being dehydrated and your liver working overtime to try and get rid of all the toxins in your body. When your liver is focused on getting rid of toxins it doesn’t release enough sugar into your bloodstream and can cause shakiness and weakness.
An Offbeat Heart
Long-term drinking can cause permanent damage to the heart muscle. Alcohol mixes up the electrical signals that keep your rhythm steady and too much long period drinking causes the heart muscles to stretch and wear out. Once it’s stretched the heart can’t pump blood properly and that affects your body.
A Weaker Immune System
Alcohol makes your immune system weak. For a whole day after drinking it makes your immune system so weak that you are more likely to get sick. This is because your immune system can’t make the proper amount of white blood cells needed to fight germs.
Loss of hearing
Long term drinkers often experience hearing loss. Nobody is sure why, but it might be that alcohol affects the part of your brain that processes sound or damage to the nerves in your inner ear that helps you hear.
Ultimately drinking too much alcohol is not good for your health. Just because everyone else drinks, doesn’t mean that you should. An odd drink here and there, might not cause any of these problems or symptoms, but don’t overdo it.
Anything that you overdo in life affects you in some way. It is not worth losing a family just because you can’t contain yourself.
Saw this immediately after being on fb and reading someone’s post about being sober for one year! I barely drink myself.
But you can, just drink moderately or you'll forget your name hahaha
@sakura1012 ha ha that is funny and true....everything in moderation right!
Thanks for taking us through this interesting topic and I hope many people have learned from it as well. Good job boss
Well written, and an interesting topic for sure. 👍
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STOPCheck out the last post from @hivebuzz:
Not to mention that alcohol is a very bad drug for violence. Data shows that, if you eliminated alcohol, you would eliminate most of the interpersonal violence!
Did you know that people in their early twenties are the most likely to abuse alcohol, and if you start drinking before the age of fifteen you are more likely to become an alcoholic?Have you seen Another Round, starring Mads Mikkelsen? It kind of touches on the subject.