The Physical Effects of Alcohol

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What can this article tell you that you don’t already know about the physical effects of alcohol? It’s because of these immediate effects that you drink alcohol in the first place; that “loosening up” feeling, calming your anxiety or fear, mellowing you out, and feeling buzzed and a bit unreal. “Disinhibition” is a term that means lowering your inhibitions; you feel and act more social, more courageous, and more daring. This isn’t necessarily a good thing if you’re drinking in a biker bar and tell the biggest, badest Hell’s Angel that he’s got the face and smell of a dead orangutan. The physical effects of alcohol occur because this legal drug is a central nervous system depressant; that’s where the mellow feeling comes from. Do you know that alcohol also depresses your breathing and heart rate, sometimes to the point of death due to alcohol poisoning? Remember, alcohol is a toxic substance that affects your body in many dangerous ways. With a drink or two, you may feel pleasantly buzzed. Keep on drinking, and you may end up in the morgue.

There are things you need to know about the long-term physical effects of alcohol. Chronic drinking takes a terrible toll on your body over time because your body regards alcohol as a poison. Some of these long-term physical effects include:

Irreversible brain damage, also called “wet brain”
Irreversible liver damage, also called cirrhosis of the liver
Delirium Tremens (also called “DTs” a state of psychosis that can be fatal)
Alcohol gastritis; chronic stomach pain
Hepatitis, a liver disease that can be fatal
Myopathy (muscle wasting)
Pancreatitis (inflammation of the pancreas causing pain, cancer– can be fatal)
Scurvy (Vitamin C deficiency leading to malnutrition)
Pellegra (niacin deficiency causing skin damage, diarrhea, and suicidal depression)
Wernicke-Korsakoff Syndrome (caused by thiamine deficiency, a B vitamin; results in loss of short-term memory, confusion, uncoordinated movements, nerve damage in arms and legs, chronic tremors)
Marchiafava-Bignami Disease (causes agitation, confusion, dementia, seizures, coma and death)

Do these conditions, most of them fatal, sound anything like the fun you may have after a drink or two of alcohol? What seems fun today will very likely kill you in a few years, a fact that alcoholics tend to deny, disbelieve or don’t care about. This is the folly of alcohol-induced confused thinking: “It won’t happen to me.” Yet it will. Alcoholism catches up with you sooner or later; this is the reason it is called a chronic, progressive and eventually fatal condition. You may not have any of these nasty physical effects – yet. But no one plays for free. Every time you drink to excesses, the danger and damage to your body increases.

Stop. Think. Understand. Is this dismal future what you want to do with your future? Do you want to end your life strapped to hospital bed, screaming in agony and delirium? You deserve better than this. Suffering and dying this undignified way is not your destiny. Now is the time to turn it all around. Are you ready to accept the truth about the physical effects of long-term alcoholism?