How does alcohol use affect you?
We have all heard it before. “Everything is in moderation.” This is definitely true when it comes to alcohol consumption. While many Australians enjoy a glass of wine at a week-long dinner or a few types of beer with friends on the weekend, it is important to consider the effects of alcohol when it becomes excessive.
Alcohol changes the chemical messages in our brain that control movement, emotion, judgment, speech, behavior and memory. This is why the short-term effects of alcohol consumption, which usually occur during a “big night” of drinking, include poor balance, poor speech, hasty behavior, memory or ‘power outages’, severe emotional responses, and loss of coordination .
In the long run, chronic alcohol use increases the risk of:
- brain attack
- mental illness
- memory loss
- depression
- Paranoia
- Reduced attention span
Alcohol abuse becomes alcohol use when a person’s life is affected by drinking and alcohol use interferes with the ability to function normally. For example, you may:
- It affects a person’s ability to work
- Manages financial matters
- Fulfill their family responsibilities
- Dealing with stress
- Engage positively with loved ones
If a person becomes dependent on alcohol to cope with daily life, he has reached the level of dependency. This leads to an increase in tolerance, which means that a person’s brain becomes less sensitive to alcohol and therefore the person consumes more in order to experience the physiological and behavioral effects of alcohol.
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Dependency also leads to withdrawal symptoms. The brain and body depend on the frequency of alcohol, so when a person suddenly stops consuming them, the body is deprived of the effects of alcohol and needs time to adapt to its performance. During this adjustment phase, a person experiences side effects, including body shakes, insomnia, nausea and anxiety.