Daily alcohol consumption leads to alcoholism. The severity of the complications of this serious disease depends on the intake, strength, quality parameters of the alcohol, as well as the patient's concomitant pathologies, body weight, age, and even gender. Today you can learn how harmful alcohol is, how long a patient with alcoholism can live, how they suffer from an illness, and how they die.
When is it necessary to stop?
Frequent, immeasurable drinking harms every system in the body, but there is a misconception that drinking alcohol in moderation is good. That’s what patients say, proving themselves in front of everyone on a daily basis. Obviously, if you consume large amounts of alcohol per day, the patient will die in the near future.
How often do you drink alcohol? An alcohol concentration of 6 ‰ is fatal for humans. This is achieved by drinking a few 500ml bottles of vodka in a short time. Poisoning will be a dysfunction of the whole body, even if the person has not been sick before. People with liver, cardiovascular disease are not allowed to drink alcohol.
What happens if you drink a lot of alcohol every day, can you drink alcohol often? Signs of alcohol dependence that require immediate treatment include:
- Consume a bottle of vodka or more or a liter of beer daily.
- Constant gatherings for any reason with drinking companions who drink alcohol with an alcoholic.
- Dysfunction of all body systems, increase in beer belly.
- The patient uses alcohol to relax.
- Every morning, a patient who drinks alcohol worries about a hangover syndrome, eating for weeks.
About the complications of vodka
Daily consumption of vodka causes alcoholism. There are pathological processes in the body that will be irreversible:
- Renal, hepatic, cardiovascular dysfunction begins and the digestive system also suffers.
- There will be disorders of the central nervous system, mental problems.
- The appearance of a person changes, it is exhausted, the body ages faster.
Strong alcohol consumed daily causes damage to brain structures, leading to psychosis, delirium tremens.
Such patients do not even notice how they quickly begin to forget everything, become inattentive, and their intellect deteriorates. They become independent, socially degraded. A large dose of vodka results in the fact that a person is paralyzed, his peripheral, spinal nerve fibers become inflamed, and radiculopathy develops.
The mucous membrane of the stomach becomes constantly burned and then inflamed. Inflammatory processes also occur throughout the intestinal tract. The liver is unable to completely neutralize the toxic compounds of alcohol, its cellular structures die, cirrhosis or oncological processes appear.
The pathologies of the heart appear, it constricts less, dystrophy and heart obesity appear in its tissues. This leads to cardialgia, chest discomfort, tachycardia and impaired respiratory function. The patient becomes edematous, his blood flow deteriorates, his blood pressure rises. Violation of metabolic processes leads to atherosclerotic changes, stroke, heart attack.
If you become addicted to beer every day
Unlike vodka, beer is a less strong alcoholic beverage. Therefore, many people use it in large quantities. There are also many complications with daily beer consumption. The stomach will become chronically inflamed, manifested in the pain and severity of the abdominal zone, and atrophy of the pancreas will occur.
This leads to disruption of the digestive system. Large amounts of beer lead to chronic hepatitis without significant symptoms, leading to cirrhosis over time. Because beer has a diuretic effect, the kidneys will work hard, leading to leaching of magnesium and potassium.
Vitamin C is also washed out, leading to heart problems, damaged bone and joint structures, and the immune system suppressed. The person will be less resistant to stress, will be more aggressive, irritable or whining. High doses of beer lead to renal vascular sclerosis, bleeding and kidney death.
There will be problems with the cardiovascular system. Patients with beer alcoholism will have varicose veins and the heart will be obese. On the slightest exertion, shortness of breath occurs, blood pressure rises, heart rhythm is disturbed, and ischemia occurs. Mortality from impaired cerebral circulation is doubled in beer alcoholism.
Excessive beer drinking leads to male impotence, endocrine dysfunction due to the hormone progesterone. A man resembles a woman, his hair falls out and does not grow, his voice changes. Such addiction to beer develops four times faster than to vodka and is more difficult to respond to therapeutic measures.
The person refuses to admit his or her beer addiction. He believes that beer has a beneficial effect on the body and associates impotence with other causes.
If you drink infrequently, only on holidays
Alcoholic beverages have a different effect on people who drink every day and those who drink infrequently. The effects of alcohol toxins on patients with alcoholism and on a rare drinker are very different. A normal person’s 100 g dose of wine is equivalent to ½ liters of vodka for an alcohol-dependent patient. An alcoholic is always very sensitive to alcohol, even if he stops consuming it.
After three decades of sober living, you won’t be able to drink a little. After a glass of alcohol, the next one goes, and so without stopping, one simply cannot stop. The reason for this is as follows. First, alcohol is oxidized to acetaldehyde in liver cells, so the patient’s liver suffers most from daily alcohol consumption.
What does frequent drinking affect?
In the following, we examine how beverages, when used frequently, affect internal organs and systems.
What about the liver?
The acetaldehyde compound is highly toxic. Daily intoxication puts a strain on the liver, unable to completely neutralize this toxic substance. In a person with alcoholism, alcohol metabolites accumulate rapidly compared to a healthy person. Neutralization of these metabolites takes place slowly, remaining in the body for a long time.
Such poisoning causes a hangover syndrome, the patient becomes accustomed to ethanol. These changes will always be in such a person, the more alcohol you drink, the worse your general condition will be.
The large accumulation of acetaldehyde compounds in a body of an alcoholic persists for a long time compared to a non-drinking person. Acetaldehyde is deposited not only in liver tissue but also in other organs.
This leads to a constant urge to take alcohol from an ethanol-dependent patient. There is no such desire in normal people. If you continue to drink large amounts of alcohol, cirrhosis of the liver will occur. The organ shrinks, the blood vessels constrict in the liver, and the pressure increases, blood stagnation occurs. This leads to the fact that the walls of the organ rupture, bleeding occurs, leading to death.
Non-alcoholics rarely get drunk, they also rarely feel hangover syndrome because their liver is functioning normally, it neutralizes alcoholic toxins well.
How do they affect brain structures?
When a person is drunk, the cortical layer is destroyed, numbness and death of certain brain segments. Alcoholics have edema, scarred ulcers, and dilated blood vessels in the brain tissue. Numerous ruptures also occur, with cysts forming on the necrotic segments.
Effects of ethanol on the central nervous system
If you consume immeasurably alcohol, one behaves differently, mentally and morally degraded. The patient does not perceive reality properly, his attention is poorly concentrated. In addition, nerve tissue conducts fewer impulses, polyneuritis is formed, movements are poorly coordinated, the patient does not sleep well, is unduly irritable, aggressive, feverish.
Dazzling, hallucinatory conditions interfere, the person does not feel temperature, pain, hyperhidrosis is expressed. The pain is often sharp, the person feels that the ants are crawling on their skin and are also disturbing the muscle cramps. Lack of treatment leads to encephalopathic lesions, alcoholic delirium, mental retardation, Korsakov psychosis, and epileptic seizures.
Heart and blood vessels
Systematic use of alcohol causes hypertrophy of the heart, impaired function, rhythm failure, ischemic, atherosclerotic processes, hypertension associated with myocardial infarction.
What about the kidneys?
If you drink vodka every day, your kidneys wear out faster and you also lose their ability to work quickly. Metabolic processes are disrupted, the blood is not cleared of toxic compounds, leading to poisoning. There is a high probability of developing pyelonephritis lesions, inflammatory processes in the urinary system. Then there will be kidney failure, stones and oncology will appear.
How does the spleen affect the gastrointestinal tract?
Ethanol compounds are toxic to the digestive system. They hit the walls of the esophagus, heartburn occurs, the desire to vomit intensifies, leading to the vessels of the esophagus thinning and dilating. This ruptures the venous walls and causes bleeding.
The gastric membrane also suffers, ages faster, inflammatory, ulcerative, oncological processes develop. Spleen dysfunction occurs, which utilizes dead blood cells. The spleen will be large, pus, necrosis.
Immune system problems
Immunity will be depressed, which weakens the body’s defenses. The synthesis of lysozyme protein in saliva and tears is reduced, as a result of which pathogenic microorganisms can be neutralized. A person will be susceptible to many infectious pathologies, his condition will deteriorate.
What about muscles and joints?
If you consume alcohol systematically, calcium leaching occurs, bone tissue becomes brittle, often breaks down, and osteoporotic changes appear. The joints also start to hurt. 75% of alcoholics develop arthritis, the next bite only intensifies the pain. It also has a pronounced negative effect on muscles. Muscle growth slows or stops, muscle tissue is destroyed. They will show flabby, atrophy, but there will be more fat.
Fluid is slowly removed from the body, edematous lesions occur. Uric acid accumulates in the form of hydrochloric acid and begins to accumulate in the joints. This leads to their inflammation, gout appears. The more the patient drinks, the more painful the feelings. Excess fluid penetrating the joint sac puts pressure on the cavity walls and irritates the nerve tissue. After a while, the joints deform.
Damage to the endocrine system
Alcoholism leads to endocrine dysfunction. In the female body, testosterone synthesis is increased, estrogen and progesterone levels are reduced. In addition, the ovaries will be painful, gaining excess weight.
A woman’s appearance changes with her behavior, her sleep is disturbed, she becomes aggressive, her muscle mass increases, her hair becomes more conspicuous.
What effect do the respiratory system have?
About 2% of the alcohol released in the form of steam passes through the lung tissue. This leads to damage to the airway mucosa, inflammatory processes develop in the pharynx, larynx, bronchi and lungs. Pneumonia can be complicated by pneumosclerosis. Ethanol in the bloodstream expands lung tissue and lung dilation develops.
What about vision?
Ethanol exposure increases intracranial pressure, which causes minor bleeding, and damage to the eyes. Hypoxic processes in overstretched eye muscles occur and visual function deteriorates. The eye muscles gradually atrophy, the optic nerve does not function properly, the patient may become completely blind.
About the look
Alcoholism spoils the appearance of man:
- There is swelling under the eyeball.
- The hair is tousled.
- The nose is bluish.
- Swollen bleeding from the face is observed.
- The clothes are torn, dirty, smelly.
Increased blood flow to tissue structures overloads blood vessels, damaging them. The small capillaries break. Red dots are observed on the face. The blue color of the skin appears due to vascular damage, hypoxia. To excrete ethanol, the body needs a lot of fluids, which manifests itself in thirst in an alcoholic. After drinking water, it accumulates.
This is how the body reacts to possible dehydration. As a result, there is swelling in the area of the face, on the limbs.
The lifespan of alcohol dependence
It is clearly difficult to say how long the life expectancy of such patients will be. After all, every organization is unique. The lifespan of such people is influenced by various conditions such as dosage, quality of alcohol.
According to statistics, the duration of patients with alcoholism is 48-55 years. With drunken alcoholism, consuming alcoholic beverages in his youth, such a person dies even earlier. Patients with the final stage of alcoholism are at high risk. They live for up to 6 years from the onset of the disease, with death due to severe pathologies.
Alcoholics often die:
- from oncology, perforated gastric ulcer or duodenal ulcer;
- hepatitis, cirrhosis, alcohol-induced fibrotic liver changes;
- ileus;
- acute cerebrovascular disorder caused by ischemia or bleeding;
- myocardiopathic changes, myocardial infarction, sudden coronary death;
- acute or chronic inflammation of the pancreas;
- sudden death during sleep;
- drunken suicide.
Poisoning with ethanol compounds can lead to death in people between the ages of 35 and 45. All internal organs and systems fail and a person’s life is quickly shortened. In order not to suffer from such a severe addiction, it is better to give up alcohol completely, then one avoids many problems and maintains one’s health.