When it comes to alcoholism, overconsumption is one of the most dangerous conditions that you could have as an alcoholic. The effects of overconsumption are often deadly and when you have problems with the overconsumption of alcohol, then it is likely that you are having problems with your health. This is true not only in terms of health but in terms of your personal life.1
For example, are you aware that alcohol has a direct impact on the ability of your body to conceive? This is because alcohol dehydrates you out of it, which means that you will be unable to conceive until you eliminate alcohol from your life completely. This is a terrible thing to know and you should take care of it, no matter how much alcohol you consume.2
Unfortunately, there is nothing that you can do about the fact that you are going to need to eliminate alcohol from your life altogether. Therefore, it is important that you cut back on the amount that you consume and ensure that you do not continue to drink excessively.
What is Alcohol?
An alcoholic drink generally consists of ethanol, a kind of alcohol made by fermentation of fruits, grains, or other agricultural products of sugar and acts as a chemical substance having a poisonous effect on the human body. The intake of alcohol plays a significant social role especially in many societies where it is used as a means to seduce, satisfy sexual desires, and relieve stress, anxiety, and tension. It can be considered as both prosocial and deviant behavior. It is not a socially acceptable activity for most people because of its negative effects, which include causing death, destruction of property, injury, and disrupting interpersonal relationships.3
There are studies that indicate that most of the problems in our society today such as traffic accidents, violence, and accidents occur when people are drunk at the time of occurrence of the event. Alcohol is considered as one of the main causes of death especially for young people, men, and high school students. The abuse of alcohol is also increasing at an alarming rate among teenagers, college students, and adults in all walks of life.4
If you are a regular drinker of alcohol, you will eventually get addicted to it because your body can not break the “boundaries” that it faces when you drink. The receptors in your brain that are responsible for your sense of taste become stronger and the receptors for your brain’s pleasure centers increase causing you to feel pleasure and happiness when you drink. Because of this, your tolerance levels to alcohol become higher making you get more intoxicated causing you to have trouble concentrating. With this, you may start to experience withdrawal symptoms if you stop drinking, which include trembling, dizziness, sweating, and difficulty sleeping. These symptoms are a sign that your body is trying to detoxify itself and return to its normal state.5
Symptoms of Too Much Alcohol
Alcohol is a depressant, and depending on how much you drink and how often you drink, it can lead to serious health problems. Too much alcohol is just as bad, but for a lot more reasons than just liver disease. In fact, alcoholism can lead to diabetes, heart disease, stroke, high blood sugar levels (such as hypoglycemia), premature death, and even cancer of the esophagus. Not only that, but it has also been found that people with pre-existing conditions, such as diabetes, heart problems, and liver problems are at an even higher risk for developing alcohol overconsumption symptoms.
However, most people who consume too much alcohol tend to do so in large amounts and to drink a lot of sugary soft drinks and alcoholic beverages. The most popular form of alcohol consumed by most people is Wine or Beer. There are many different kinds of alcohol, which include red wine and white wine. Both these types of alcohol have different effects on the body and blood flow. Red wine tends to raise the levels of glucose in the blood, which can be bad for diabetics because of the high level of sugar in the blood.
There are certain common symptoms of too much alcohol consumption that have been studied and reported. For example, one of the common symptoms of alcohol abuse is being unable to control your urge to drink. This is because the brain’s reward center, the one that recognizes that you’ve had enough drinks, starts sending signals to your body that it is time for another drink. These signals, in a normal person, would be enough to curtail your drinking. However, the problem with alcohol abusers is that the alcohol signal is not sent straight to the reward center.
Another common symptom of alcohol abuse is high blood sugar levels. People with Diabetes may end up with problems controlling their blood sugar levels. High blood sugar can lead to kidney damage, organ failure, and diabetic ketoacidosis. Kidney damage may worsen symptoms of diabetes. As for organ failure, those with diabetes are at a greater risk of kidney damage if they are drinking too much alcohol.
Finally, one of the symptoms of alcohol abuse is diabetic retinopathy. Diabetic retinopathy is the loss of the center field of vision in adults, usually resulting from too much alcohol.6 Those with type 2 diabetes are more at risk for diabetic retinopathy due to the fact that they have smaller blood vessels and a condition called venous insufficiency. Alcohol use can aggravate symptoms of diabetes and should be avoided by people with type 2 diabetes.7
How Does Alcohol Impact A Person’s Health?
When it comes to how alcohol impacts a person’s health, many people do not see that alcohol can ruin their bodies. Alcohol is a depressant and can cause a number of different physical problems, and a lot of the alcohol effects are internal. The body becomes dependent on alcohol and if you do not drink it on a regular basis, your body will crave it. This can lead to having problems with alcohol dependency.8
There are two major organs that are affected by alcohol abuse, these are the liver and the brain. Alcohol is a depressant, it affects the liver by decreasing the production of glycogen, and glucose. This will leave the person unable to store any fat that can lead to increased fat tissue around the liver. Alcohol also affects the brain in a negative way as it alters how memory works, how brain cells work, how neurotransmitters work, how hormones act, how cholesterol is synthesized etc.9
How Does Alcohol Affect the Liver?
Alcoholism is a condition where the body becomes dependent on alcohol, where the liver has to be overgrown in order to be able to metabolize alcohol. Because of this, alcoholics find it hard to be sober. When alcohol is abused, the liver does not have the ability to cope and can suffer from severe damage. It can even rupture large amounts of blood vessels, which can result in a high risk of bleeding into the blood, resulting in a heart attack or stroke.10
When alcohol is ingested, the alcohol enters the bloodstream and travels through the entire body. However, the liver, where most alcohol is excreted, is the primary organ that is affected because it cannot break down the alcohol in the bloodstream. The liver eventually burns out and the alcohol is excreted through the urine. Excessive drinking can eventually damage the liver to the point where there is no longer any function for it, and can even lead to cirrhosis (liver cancer).11
How Does Alcohol Affect the Brain?
The brain can suffer when alcohol abuse is a problem. The brain produces chemicals called dopamine when a person drinks. This substance is used to transmit signals between nerves, however, when the amount of dopamine is in excess, it causes the person to have a hard time passing this message to the brain.12 Alcoholism makes a person want to drink more alcohol, thereby causing a dopamine deficiency and a person ends up consuming large amounts of alcohol in a short period of time. In the end, they do not feel any different and end up depending on alcohol to make them feel better.
Since alcohol affects the brain through the bloodstream, the alcohol in the bloodstream makes its way into the brain and travels to the areas responsible for judgment and memory. As a result, a person suffering from alcohol abuse will have a reduced ability to think and reason properly, and their memory will become poor and their judgment will be impaired. If you or someone you know is suffering from alcohol abuse, it is important that you seek professional help from a trained therapist who will be able to help you with how does alcohol impacts a person’s health.13
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