How long do you have to drink before it finally affects your health?
Assuming you get drunk every night.
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It would depend on your age, what you’re drinking, how much you’re drinking, how long a period have you been drinking for.
Your liver has a tough time filtering out toxins when it’s on a daily basis. You may experience weight gain from the liquor. Your brain will suffer, too, but again, it depends on the factors I mentioned at the beginning.
Depends on the person. I have friends who died in their 40’s, others in their 50’s. It can certainly happen younger or older. My friends who died had a rather rapid decline in their health and died fairly quickly. One OD’ed I think, the family didn’t say specifically, but I knew her since she was a little girl, her sister was my age.
Alcohol can cause a variety of healthy issues. Some are more catastrophic than others. Anyone drinking every night because they can’t go without it should in my opinion get help to quit if they can’t stop on their own. Not only for health reasons, but because they are ruining their life and the people around them.
I know so many people who were hard core drinkers from an early age. Most of them are either dead or they’re totally sober after attending rehab and AA. Some of the ones who went to rehab and/or AA did so after being arrested for DWI and being made to attend by the courts. Now it’s so expensive when people get DWI and have to pay huge fines and fees, in addition to attorney costs.
When you say “health” are you including mental health in the equation? We know that happens fairly soon by the number of young problem drinkers and DUI offenses.
Drinking also affects financial health. Just spend a quick few minutes with a calculator and estimate how much it costs per year. The result might be shocking.
Additionally, there are the empty calories contained int that are replacing your healthy food calories. A bottle of wine is about 600–900 calories depending upon the sugar content. Source If you drink a bottle a day that adds up to 1 pound per week of weight gain if you don’t change your eating or exercise habits. 50 pounds per year! That effect starts immediately.
I think one drink would affect my health if you are talking about alcoholic beverages. I can not drink that stuff no matter what.
If one gets drunk every night, their health is already negatively affected. The hydration balance is destroyed, brain cells are destroyed, liver function gets to the point where there is no coming back from it.
It’s a nasty, slow, painful road to suicide.
I’ve watched it happen. It’s ugly.
Drinking every night has it affects immediately. You are making decisions and doing things differently in order to get to the next night for your drink.
One study found that people drinking more than 25 drinks a week have a shorter life expectancy by four to five years. Another study in Scandinavia concluded that people hospitalized for an alcohol use disorder had a lifespan that was 24 to 28 years fewer than the general population. In 2015, the World Health Organization also estimated that alcohol consumption was responsible for 134 million disability-adjusted life-years, a combination of years of lives lost and years lived in less than full health. The alcoholic lifespan varies so drastically because not only is it hard to quantify but also there are several factors at play.
It starts with small things like your sleep habits, decisions, reflexes, spending habits.
It moves to drinking for a reason to mask issues as opposed to dealing with them.
Their body starts to change due to the constant alcohol. Your arteries shrink, your heart works harder, your liver has to work harder breaking down the alcohol versus what it should to. The liver becomes fatty and scarred. It can cause the stomach acid that’s meant to break down your food to attack the lining of the stomach and the muscles that surround it. Alcohol slows and prevents the release of sex hormones affecting blood flow.
From anxiety to stress, alcohol can have negative effects on your mental health. Too much alcohol can change your brain’s ability to stay balanced and run smoothly. The more you drink the more your brain is affected, making you nervous and low. It can also stop you from sleeping properly, leaving you sluggish and irritable.
Alcoholic drinks contain a high number of calories, which can impact your weight. Fat, especially on men, tends to go to the belly and belly fat is more dangerous than other fats. It can can squeeze your organs, it can also release harmful chemicals into your blood.
Depends on how much you are drinking and exactly what you are drinking that is liquor.
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It affects your health the moment you drink it.
I can say this… the human body is remarkably able to heal. Your body is resilient
and will take care of ‘you’ when or if you decide to get healthy.
Give it a chance.
Probably best not to take this journey alone, although finding someone won’t
aggravate and piss you off might also be a challenge.
Best wishes to you on this long hard road.
Look at it this way. Alcohol is a poison and a carcinogen. The more you drink the higher risk you have of dying early.
When you are recovering from a binge, you will feel hung over and shitty. When you are addicted to alcohol and don’t get it, you’ll likely have the shakes and other really unpleasant physical symptoms. For a good example of that, see Nicholas Cage in “Leaving Las Vegas.”
You’re young, stop now. I know people who drink every night but moderately and other than weight gain it’s not affecting them too negatively…yet. People who drink during the day too, they don’t make it very long. Getting buzzed every night is a slippery slope into day drinking and early death.
Drinking every night is called alcoholism.
Can’t make it any prettier.
@rebbel Not exactly. One can reasonbly drink every night if it’s limited to one beverage and not be an alcoholic. What she is talking about, though, is alcoholism.
@Caravanfan Sure, I agree with you, worded like that.
I should have add to it “if you can’t let the bottle alone for one, or a few, days.
@rebbel I usually keep on hand a bottle of Islay single malt (I like the peated stuff). It will last me over a month.
I know people who died in their 30’s. The longer anyone puts off getting sober, the harder it is to be sober. Every single drink reinforces the desire to have another, either that day or the next.
Yeah I typically go thru 3–4 cans/bottles a night, so six packs/12packs last me less than a week.
I’ve been able to stop for one night, usually if I way over did it the last but that’s only because my body doesn’t want it. I get sick.
I am just going through the motions in life and enjoying the times I can feel somewhat better. I spent almost $50 and I’ve spent more than that on this stupid shit. But it helps more then the meds have
Ever since a certain someone left me I have been empty and alone. I know that makes me obsessive and a loser but I want closure. And I want that feeling of safety and happiness back.
I’ll never get it, though.
Sending you a totally platonic, comforting hug. It sounds like you need it.
(((u)))
Hugs from me too. You have been going through a lot for a while now.
Closure wasn’t a thing when I was younger. I don’t know if that happens when we have a difficult break up or loss, but I hear people talk about it. I think what usually happens is we go through the stages of mourning and eventually the pain eases up and then we become open to meeting knew people. It like one day you get all the way through the day and realize you didn’t think about that ex all day, or you finally have fun with friends again.
Feeling safe, hopefully you can find that for yourself without someone else, although I can identify with feeling safer when some else is around. Feeling safe is such a big thing. I’m not sure how you define safe for yourself.
You might be dual diagnosis, some sort of psychological illness plus alcoholism. It sounds like you are self medicating. Or, you might be just depressed from the break up, but still you are self medicating. I don’t remember if you’ve seen a counselor. A psychiatrist might be able to give you a medication so you feel better if talk therapy isn’t helping enough.
Addiction at a young age sort of halts the maturing process, so when teenagers and early 20’s get addicted they stay stuck in adolescence which sucks. Most of us were very emotional and felt hurt more at that age than we do as older adults, and it’s harder to see life can get happy again when we are young and going through hard times.
Have you tried going to an AA meeting? You can do it on zoom. You can just listen to other people and see if you think it will help. You might like one group better than another if you try a few. You don’t have to tell anyone you are trying it. They won’t make you say anything. You don’t have to use your video if you do it on zoom. You don’t have to use your real name. If you try a group that wants everyone’s cameras on you can just try another.
@SergeantQueen it does not mean your a loser in any way. It means you care. Sorry you’re going through this. I will say, if you’re on an SSRI it will make some people want to drink like a fish. That was my experience like 15 years ago when I was on one after a loss. Getting off the stuff after a year or so and the alcohol cravings went away. The meds never worked for me either. I just needed time. If you are really only having 3–4 depending on your weight you’re on the fringe of “heavy drinking” but not quite there….yet. It’s a slippery slope. It’s not the best thing to be doing when on meds. It messes with a bunch of brain chemistry like Gabba, serotonin and dopamine. We are here for you.
@SergeantQueen …but that’s only because my body doesn’t want it. I get sick.
If you keep it up, your body will no longer reject it. But feeling crappy will be a daily feeling and you’ll drink to feel “normal” – not your true normal, your “new” day-after-a-drunk-night normal.
But it helps more then the meds have
Med usually take approx 6 weeks to work, and if they don’t, you may need either an adjustment or a different med. It takes a lot of patience to find the right med or combo of them, but it’s so worth it.
I think I’ve thrown this out there before but I’ll do it anyway because I’m not sure. If you’re not into the god or higher power or AA thing, there’s LSR – Lifering Secular Recovery. They helped me get and stay sober after drinking for 35 something years; a fifth a day the last 2–3 years. Haven’t had a drink and don’t miss it a bit in 19 years. lifering.org You may have f2f meetings near you; I used the online chats and forums.
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By the way @SergeantQueen self medicating means using over the counter medication, without doctors advice, it’s not about drinking alcohol, especially not a lot of it.
@chefl What @jca said!
This is one of the most common paths towards addictions. Whether Alcohol or any other substance that masks peoples problems.
The term self medicating makes alcohol sound like it’s kind of a medication, when it’s poison. The term is used by addicts, and people who don’t know that alcohol makes other problems endlessly worse, and people who want people to poison themselves, and even apparently according to the link above, addiction centers although they seem to be clueless that the term works against the people they are trying to help. It’s one thing to listen to the addict who says “I self medicate with alcohol” and not correct him/her but there should not be an article without qoutation marks (i.e “self medicating”). (Edited)
@chefl Use of colloquial language lesson coming up. For decades, use of alcohol, marijuana, and other mood altering recreational drugs has been referred to as “self-medicating”, which puts the term into the accepted lexicon. Your silly nit-picking of your interpretation of the definition serves no purpose here.
I just want people to continue to harm themselves.
@chefl Are you a bad person? Please don’t say stuff like that :(
@chefl: You just want people to continue to harm themselves? Did you mean to say that?
If you did, what does that have to do with the term “self medicating?
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