What Happens When We Drink Alcohol?

Over the past 20 years, there has been a significant increase in alcohol-related deaths for people between age 25 and 34. You may not drink alcohol yourself but as a parent, you need to let your kids know about the dangers of drinking alcohol. They may not know unless you tell them. Last week, we discussed the idea of Dry January (abstaining from all alcohol intake for the entire month of January). This week, we will focus more on alcohol’s effects on the body. You may want to share this information with your teenage or young adult children.

Most people focus on the liver when they think about the harmful effects of alcohol. But alcohol can damage multiple body systems and organs. We will talk about what it can do all over the body. You may be surprised to hear that we need more than one article to get through them all!

• Loss of inhibition – Resulting in impulsive and often socially inappropriate behaviors.
• Loss of judgement – Resulting in poor decision making and risk-taking behavior.
• Slowed reaction time – Resulting in car crashes, falls, etc.
• Unsteady walking/poor balance and coordination
• Sedation – Can lead to loss of consciousness and complete loss of all thought, speech, and muscle control.
• Loss of memory or inability to convert short-term memories into long-term memory. You might have a black out, with no memory of what happened while you were intoxicated. Or you might remember something the next morning but within 1-2 weeks, that memory will be lost forever, even for really significant events.
• Respiratory depression – The brainstem has to tell your body to breathe. If there is enough alcohol in the brain, you can just stop breathing!

• Stroke
• Brain hemorrhage (bleeding in the brain)
• Permanent damage to nerves throughout the body – Can cause loss of sensation, chronic nerve pain, and/or loss of muscle function.
• Dementia – Progressive loss of brain function.

• Cardiomyopathy – Thinning/overstretching of the heart muscle, which leads to heart failure
• Arrythmias – Irregular heart rhythm
• High blood pressure – Increasing the risk of heart attack

• Osteoporosis – Reduced bone density, which increases the risk of fractures
• Inability or impaired ability to heal fractures
• Significant loss of muscle mass and strength
• Muscle inflammation or chronic muscle pain

• Pneumonia
• Acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) – This in a potentially deadly inflammatory condition that may happen in response to a minor respiratory infection or chest trauma.