Health risks of alcohol

In the late 1800's and early 1900's people started saying how alcoholism was a compulsion of drinking alcoholic beverages even knowing the negative consequences of doing so.  Even though it is considered necessary to drink alcoholic beverages to become an alcoholic some say there are factors that give you a better chance of becoming an alcoholic.  It is said that 9% of the populations is susceptible to becoming an alcoholic.  There are other factors that up the chance that you will become an alcoholic too, these things are stress, emotional health, genetic predisposition, age, and other factors. 

There are many health risks of alcohol, and there are a lot of them are from using alcohol over a long period of time.   We are first going to go over what the long term health risks of alcohol are.  Some of these effects are the slowing of the brain, this generally takes place during the time of drinking.  It slows the reaction time of the person, it lowers people's ambitions and can make people more aggressive then they normally are.  Chronic alcoholism can effect the body in many ways, blood vessels tend to get stretch out because of the blood thinning properties of alcohol.  This over time becomes permanent making the person always looking flushed and tends to give a lot of people permanent red noses.  Long term alcohol abuse also creates the hearts muscular tissue to become weaker resulting in heart failure.  You can also suffer from bleeding disorders with prolonged use of alcohol.

There are also more serious things that prolonged alcohol abuse can cause, these most of the time effect the major organs.  Alcohol abuse can lead to cirrhosis of the liver, epilepsy, polyneuropathy, alcoholic dementia, increased chance of cancer, hearth disease, sexual dysfunction and death.  These are all very harmful and most of them are irreversible, once you have them you can't fix them without replacement, or pills.  Besides all these physical problems you can also get mental disorders as well.  These disorders fortunately get better over time after you stop abusing alcohol. 

Not only all these things mentioned above but if you are pregnant and drinking there are other dangers that you may face.  Not only the fact that you can hurt your unborn child but also complications that you may go through if you drink while pregnant.  A pregnant woman who drinks 6 drinks a WEEK is 40% more likely to give birth to a child with fetal alcohol syndrome.  A woman that drinks during the third trimester or pregnancy can cause the baby to have neurological problems when born, because that is the time that the babies brain and nervous system are developing.

But there are also a lot of them that can happen over the span of just one evening. There are some serious health risks of alcohol that come after the first time you drink.  With alcohol you perception and ambitions, specially with people that are not used to drinking.  These type are mostly younger people out on their own for the first time, or just moved away from home to go to college.  These effects can make you have decisions that you may not make if you were not drinking.  These decisions include  drug experimentation, unprotected sex, driving while under the influence of alcohol, and many other things. 

With lowered ambitions you might let someone talk you into doing a drug that could ruin your life and under normal circumstances you would never try it, but your new here and there are a lot of cool people here, and you think why not, it's only once.  Or if there is someone trying to talk you into having sex, and if you were not wasted you would never do such a thing, but you are and with your lowered ambitions he/she looks kinda cute, etc.  Or worse of all you talk yourself into thinking that you are ok to drive and you do so and get into a wreck and kill someone or even yourself.

40% of fatal accidents with people under the age of 24 are alcohol related.  You are 11 times more likely to be in a fatal crash with your BAC (Blood Alcohol Concentration) at .10 then someone who is sober. 

Not only the fact that you may die, but there are some other statistics that say high school students who use alcohol are 5 times more likely to not graduate then someone who doesn't drink. 

With all these things how could you ever decide to start drinking, and if you are an alcoholic and need help there are many places you can turn.  Pick up a phone book or look on the Internet for places that have AA classes or other substance abuse classes that will help you get over your sickness.  If you know someone that has problems there is always intervention programs that you can get people to go to.  Either way it's not only probably saving your life or their life but anyone else they may come in contact with while they are impaired.

If you have any questions or comments please contact us, we would like to hear from you.