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Alcohol can cause many problems affecting others in the procress. Alcohol misuse can cause a person to be full of conflict and can blame others when there are problems. This can lead to others feeling hurt and ashamed. Alcohol can also increase a person's chance of getting into trouble, DUI, and being involved in violence. All of these problems cause spending time with family to be disrupted and prevents a person from connecting with family and friends.  Having a person with alcohol problems in the family can sever consequences with children and cause them to have emotional troubles.

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Alcoholism, also known as alcohol use disorder, is a condition when drinking can cause mental and physical harm to a person. It can cause craving, loss of control, physical dependence, and tolerance. All of these can lead to excess amounts of alcohol which is dangerous and can lead to an increase risk of cancers as well as damage to the liver, brain, and other organs.

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There are many major health consequences associated with the long term effects of alcohol with one of them being abnormalities in blood. This can lead to anemia and low platelets as well as lowing the effectiveness of the immune system. Drinking over time increases the risk of infections as well as interfering with calcium absorption and bone formation. Alcohol also affects the brain by causing thiamine deficiency and damaging the part of the brain that controls balance and coordination as well as damage to peripheral nerves in the body. Heavy drink can also increase the risk of coronary artery disease and chronic disease of the heart muscle. It can also lead to high blood pressure and can cause cancer of the bowel and rectum. The liver may also be affected with alcoholic liver disease and the lungs can suffer from pneumonia tuberculosis.

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Alcohol can seem like a fun way to unwind, but having too much on a regular basis or binge drinking intermittently can mess with your mind. Quite literally. Your brain runs on a fine balance of inhibitory and excitatory neurotransmission or messaging. Alcohol consumption disrupts this balance of neurotransmitter activity and throws your mind and body off balance - causing all kinds of symptoms that we simply dub as "being drunk." Take a closer look at what actually happens when you drink and how that affects your brain.

When you first drink alcohol, it affects the dopamine site or "reward center" in your brain. Your system releases more dopamine, giving you the pleasurable sensation you associate with drinking. As a result, you may want to keep drinking to feel more of this sensation, to stimulate further dopamine release. People also report feeling more inclined to extroversion. Tension, fatigue, and the blues may also seem to decrease. Which is why people drink to unwind or loosen up. This, in turn, can reinforce alcohol-seeking behavior.

Moves From A Stimulant To A Depressant For Your Brain

The alcohol entering your system acts like a stimulant initially but this soon takes a turn for the worse. The excitatory effects on the brain cause trouble with concentrating or thinking, slow reactions, memory problems, reduced inhibitions, mood swings/extremes of emotion, and blackouts. And as the blood alcohol concentrations start dropping, the fatigue hits you as do feelings of depression. After a point, alcohol becomes a sedative as the drinking tapers off.

Here's a closer look at what effect alcohol has on different aspects of brain function.

1. Slurred Speech, Numbed Senses, And Confusion

Alcohol inhibits brain and central nervous system functions that are responsible for things like speech. It alters the action of two neurotransmitters in your brain that form the messaging system between nerve cells. It also slows down the activity of nerve pathways.

The result? Your speech is slurred and you find it hard to walk properly. You become lethargic and sluggish and drowsy. Your senses are numbed. The attendant confusion and issues with thinking are also signs of this effect of alcohol on your brain.

2. Impaired Coordination And Slow Reflexes

As the alcohol enters your bloodstream, it begins to affect your brain and thought process, which in turns causes those more visible behavioral and body changes, say, making you unsteady or off balance on your feet.

It can also slow down your reflexes because of delayed impulses. It is this precise effect that has led to countries having legal alcohol limits if you plan to drive. In the UK and the US, this is 80 mg alcohol per 100ml of blood or the equivalent of 0.08 percent blood concentration of alcohol.

3. Weakened Decision-Making Ability

Drinking can also affect your ability to make good decisions - which is why some of the biggest regrets after a night of binge drinking revolve around poor decisions or impulsive actions. These can have a much far-reaching impact on your life and relationships. You may end up doing dangerous things like walking back alone through a deserted area, driving under the influence, going home or hitching a ride with strangers, having a one night stand, or getting into a brawl.

Why does this happen? It is believed to be a result of the reduced activity in the part of your brain that is responsible for rational thought and decision making (the prefrontal and temporal cortex).

4. Blackouts With Partial Or Complete Memory Loss: When You Drink Too Much, Too Fast

Alcohol can interfere with your brain's ability to create new long-term memories. It doesn't affect your old and already established long-term memories or your immediate short-term memory. When you have a large amount of alcohol - especially if it is on an empty stomach and consumed very rapidly - you may run the risk of having a blackout. This kind of memory lapse means you lose partial memory (fragmentary blackout) or even complete memory (en-bloc blackout) of events that occurred for a period after the heavy alcohol intake. The blackout could last a few hours or may run for as much as 3 days.

When you consume small to moderate levels of alcohol that keep your blood alcohol concentration below 0.15 percent, your memory impairment will also usually be small to moderate. The more you drink, the worse the memory impairment gets. Blood alcohol concentrations that result in blackouts are usually around 0.20 percent but could result from levels as low as 0.14 percent.

This impact on the brain from "acute intoxication" isn't restricted just to alcoholics or those with a dependency issue. One study of college undergraduates found that 51 percent of all those who had ever drunk alcohol had at some point experienced a blackout.

5. Increased Tolerance Levels With Long-Term Alcohol Consumption

As you drink more regularly, your brain develops a tolerance for the alcohol. Which means you now need to drink progressively higher amounts of alcohol to get the effect you desire from your brain function - whether that is the feeling of relaxation or easing of fatigue or pleasure.

6. Impaired Cognitive Function From Continual Drinking

If you are recreational user or someone who drinks occasionally, you will typically not have any long-lasting negative impact from your drinking. But if you have indulged in long-term heavy intake of alcohol, you may experience cognitive impairment that causes difficulty with processing information, impaired problem-solving ability, and issues with learning anything new. This happens because the alcohol causes your brain tissue to waste away. Scar tissue may also develop in your brain, interfering with its normal function. You could develop vitamin deficiencies which further hamper brain function.

The good news is that much of this impairment of cognitive function is reversible if you stay off alcohol completely for 3 months or more. But if you have been abusing alcohol for a long time, the damage may well be permanent.

7. Brain Disorder Wernicke Korsakoff Syndrome From Alcohol Abuse

An estimated 80 percent of chronic alcohol users develop a thiamine deficiency and some of this group go on to develop a brain disorder called the Wernicke Korsakoff syndrome. This is marked by paralysis of the nerves of your eye nerves, impaired muscle coordination, persistent cognitive and memory-related problems, and confusion. Drinking more than 15 drinks a week if you are male and 8 drinks or more if you are female, on a regular basis, would mean you are a heavy drinker and at risk of the problem.

8. Long-Term Effects Of Alcohol On The Developing Brain

When children or teenagers consume alcohol, the effects can be even more damaging. In fact, it is estimated that the average adult would have to drink twice as much alcohol as an adolescent to cause the same level of damage as anyone under 21. Alcohol has the ability to impair brain development, hampering their problem-solving skills, memory, decision-making skills, reasoning ability, mental health, mood, and performance at school.

So how much alcohol can cause problems to the developing brain? Unfortunately, there is no definitive answer to this question, which is why the rule of thumb is to avoid any kind of alcohol intake if you are under 18 years old and delay drinking for as long as possible after that.

9. Withdrawal Symptoms From Abrupt Reduction Of Alcohol

When someone who has been drinking heavily and regularly suddenly stops drinking alcohol, it is normal to expect withdrawal symptoms. This may include tremors, hallucinations, seizures, agitation, confusion, and insomnia. This happens when hyperactive brain mechanisms, amped up to compensate for the inhibitory effects of alcohol, are no longer held in balance by the depressant effect of alcohol. You may even experience brain damage if you constantly swing between consuming alcohol and abstinence, as is the case with binge drinking.

Low-Level Alcohol Intake May Also Have Risks

While there are some broad guidelines on what is considered low-risk alcohol intake, this may vary from person to person. And even this low level of intake is not without side effects or temporary impairments or dulling of the brain's activity. However, it is unlikely to cause serious or long-term effects.

Men need to stick to no more than 4 alcoholic drinks a day and a maximum of 14 drinks over the week. Women must consume under 3 drinks a day and keep the upper level of intake to 7 across the week. Women typically begin to have adverse alcohol linked health effects at lower alcohol intake levels than men. This is likely due to the fact that women tend to weigh less than men so the same level of alcohol has less place to go to. Also, women have lower water content than do men. So your blood alcohol concentration will usually rise faster if you're a woman for the same quantity of alcohol drunk as a man.

Also keep in mind that alcohol concentration of each type of drink is different. Here's what counts as 1 drink:

12 fl oz of regular beer (5% alcohol)

5 fl oz of table wine (12% alcohol)

2-3 fl oz of cordial, liqueur, or aperitif (24% alcohol)

1.5 fl oz shot of 80-proof distilled spirits like whiskey, rum, vodka, tequila, or gin (40% alcohol)

Since alcohol does affect your brain even in small amounts, it is best to not drink any at all if you are underage, pregnant, plan to drive, operate machinery/heavy equipment at work or home, have a medical condition that's worsened by drinking, or take medications that could interact with the alcohol.

Your Doubts Answered

1. How Can Mindfulness/Meditation Build Your Willpower To Avoid Overindulging In Food And Alcohol?

Disclaimer: The content is purely informative and educational in nature and should not be construed as medical advice. Please use the content only in consultation with an appropriate certified medical or healthcare professional.

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Effects Of Alcohol On The Brain: How Booze Works On Your Brain

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Alcohol can be exciting and fun at first, causing you to feel less inhibited, elated, and even less tired. But this effect on the brain's messaging system soon turns to memory lapses/loss, issues with decision making, and even blackouts. Long-term abuse or heavy drinking could even impair cognitive ability and cause brain damage, scar tissue, and Wernicke Korsakoff syndrome.

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Legal consequences of driving will under the influence of alchol can include jail time, loss of custody of children, loss of employment, loss of owning a firearm, loss of parental rights and passports, alcohol treatment, and losing voting rights.

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Alcohol can be taken with other drugs such as marijuana or cocaine and are very dangerous often having very extreme effects on a person. For example, combining cocaine and alcohol can cause alcohol to be absorbed very quickly because the cocaine increases one's metabolism and therefore, allowing the alcohol to go to the brain quicker. Mixing alcohol and marijuana also has severe effects on the body as it prevents alcohol from leaving and body and eventually leading to alcohol poisoning. Some other effects include paranoia, spinning feeling, difficulty concentrating, and throwing up. Another dangerous combination to use with alcohol is prescription drugs especially painkillers, antidepressants, antibiotics, and antihistamines.

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In the United States, drivers cannot drive with a BAC of 0.08% or higher and drivers under 18 are not allowed to drive with a BAC of 0.01% to 0.05%. If a person's alcohol concentration gets to high, it can lead to an overdose which can lead to impairments increasing the risk of harm. They can range clumsiness all the way to death and are very serious. Some warning signs include extreme confusion, seizures, and vomiting.

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Alcohol can affect the body by injuring it. An example of this is when we driving under the influence of alcohol which can lead to a car crash, damaging our body. Also, alcohol negative affects our muscle coordination and causes us to be clumsy. In addition, our eyes can be affected by excess amounts of alcohol with blurred vision.

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Alcohol in small amounts can be used for relaxation and reduce stress. However, in other cases, alcohol can change a person's mood from being happy all the way to aggression. Alcohol also increases recklessness and can cause a person to harm themself or attempt suicide.