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.
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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.