Daily alcohol consumption leads to alcoholism. The severity of the complications of this serious illness depends on the dosage of alcohol, its strength, quality parameters, as well as the patient's comorbidities, body weight, age and even gender. Today you will learn how harmful alcohol is, how long an alcoholic patient can live, how he suffers from diseases and then dies.
When is a stop necessary?
Frequent, immeasurable drinking harms all systems in the body, but there is a wrong view that alcohol in moderation is beneficial. So say those patients who justify themselves to everyone on a daily basis. It is obvious that if you consume alcohol in large doses on a daily basis, the patient will die in the near future.
How often can you drink alcohol? An alcohol concentration of 6 is fatal to a human. It is achieved when a couple of 500 ml bottles of vodka are drunk in a short period of time. There is a state of intoxication, a functional disorder of the entire organism, even if the person was not sick before. It is forbidden to consume alcoholic beverages for patients with liver, heart and vascular dysfunction.
What if you drink a lot of alcohol every day, can you drink alcohol often? Signs of alcohol addiction that require immediate treatment include:
- Daily drinking of a bottle of vodka or more or a liter of beer.
- Permanent gatherings for any reason with drinking companions drinking alcohol with an alcoholic.
- Dysfunction of all body systems, an increase in the beer belly.
- The patient consumes alcohol to relax.
- Every morning a patient who consumes alcohol worries about hangover syndrome, the binge eating lasts for weeks.
About complications from vodka
Drinking vodka every day leads to alcoholism. Pathological processes occur in the body that become irreversible:
- Kidney, liver, and cardiovascular dysfunction will begin and the digestive system will suffer as well.
- There will be malfunctions of the central nervous system, mental problems.
- A person's appearance will change, they will become exhausted, the body will age faster.
The strong alcohol consumed on a daily basis causes damage to the brain structures, which leads to psychoses and delirium tremens.
Such patients will not even notice how quickly they forget everything, become inattentive, and their intellect deteriorates. They become self-contained, socially degraded. Large cans of vodka can cause a person to become paralyzed, their peripheral spinal nerve fibers become inflamed, and radiculopathy can develop.
The lining of the stomach is constantly burned and then becomes inflamed. Inflammatory processes also occur throughout the intestinal tract. The liver cannot completely neutralize the toxic alcohol compounds, its cell structures die, cirrhosis or oncological processes occur.
Pathologies of the heart will appear, it will contract less, dystrophy will appear in its tissues, and cardiac obesity will appear. This leads to cardialgia, chest discomfort, tachycardia and impaired respiratory function. The patient becomes edematous, their blood flow deteriorates, their blood pressure rises. Violation of metabolic processes leads to atherosclerotic changes, cerebral hemorrhage, myocardial infarction.
When you get addicted to beer every day
Unlike vodka, beer is a less strong alcoholic drink. Hence, it is used in large quantities by many people. There are also many complications associated with daily beer consumption. The stomach becomes chronically inflamed, which manifests itself in pain and heaviness in the abdominal area, and atrophy of the pancreas occurs.
This leads to a disruption of the digestive system. Large quantities of beer lead to chronic liver inflammation without any notable symptoms, which over time leads to cirrhosis. Since beer has a diuretic effect, the kidneys work hard, which leads to the washing out of magnesium and potassium.
Vitamin C is also washed out, which leads to cardiac dysfunction, bone and joint structures suffer and the immune system is weakened. The person becomes less resistant to stress, more aggressive, more irritable, or tearful. Large cans of beer lead to renal vascular sclerosis, bleeding, and kidney necrosis.
There will be problems with the cardiovascular system. Patients suffering from beer alcoholism have varicose veins and the heart becomes obese. With the slightest exertion, there is shortness of breath, blood pressure rises, the heart rhythm is disturbed, ischemia occurs. Death from cerebral blood flow from beer alcoholism will double.
Excessive drinking of beer leads to male impotence and endocrine dysfunction due to the progesterone hormone. A man becomes more like a woman, his hair falls out and does not grow, his voice changes. Such dependence on beer develops 4 times faster than on vodka, and it is more difficult to respond to therapeutic measures.
The person refuses to admit their beer addiction. He believes beer is good for the body and links impotence to other reasons.
If you rarely drink, only on holidays
Alcoholic beverages have different effects on people who drink on a daily basis and those who drink infrequently. The effect of alcoholic toxins on a patient with alcoholism and a person who, in rare cases, drinks is very different. A wine dose of 100 g for a normal person corresponds to ½ liter of vodka for an alcohol-dependent patient. An alcoholic is always very sensitive to alcohol even after he stops using it.
After three decades of sober life, he will not be able to drink a bit. After one glass of alcohol, another goes on, and so a person simply cannot stop without stopping. The reason for this is as follows. First, alcohol is oxidized to an acetaldehyde compound in the liver cells, so that the patient's liver suffers most from daily alcohol consumption.
What influences frequent drinking?
The following examines how drinks affect internal organs and systems when they are used frequently.
What happens to the liver
The acetaldehyde compound is highly toxic. Daily drunkenness puts a strain on the liver, it cannot completely neutralize this toxin. A person suffering from alcoholism has a rapid accumulation of alcohol metabolites compared to a healthy person. The neutralization of these metabolites takes place slowly, they remain in the body for a long time.
Such poisoning causes hangover syndrome, the patient gets used to ethanol. These changes will always be in such a person, the more he drinks alcohol, the more his general condition deteriorates.
A large build-up of acetaldehyde compounds in an alcoholic's body will last a long time compared to a nondrinker. Acetaldehyde is deposited not only in liver tissue, but also in other organs.
This creates a constant desire to drink alcohol from an ethanol addict patient. Ordinary people do not have this desire. If you continue to drink a lot of alcohol, you will develop cirrhosis of the liver. The organ is reduced in size, the vessels in the liver contract and the pressure increases, blood stagnation occurs. This leads to the fact that the walls of the organ tear, bleeding occurs, which leads to death.
Alcohol-free people rarely get drunk, they also rarely experience hangover syndrome, since their liver is functioning normally, it neutralizes alcoholic toxins well.
How are brain structures influenced?
When a person is drunk, the cortical layer is destroyed, numbness and death of individual segments of the brain. In an alcoholic, edema, ulcers with scars and dilated vessels are observed in the brain tissue. Numerous ruptures are also manifested, cysts form on the necrotic segments.
Effects of ethanol on the central nervous system
If you drink alcohol immensely, a person will behave differently, mentally and morally deteriorate. The patient is insufficiently aware of reality, his attention is poorly focused. In addition, nerve tissue conducts fewer impulses, polyneuritis forms, movements are poorly coordinated, the patient does not sleep well, he is unreasonably irritable, aggressive, he has a fever.
He is delusional, he is disturbed by hallucinatory states, the person does not feel a temperature, pain, hyperhidrosis is expressed. Pain is often severe, a person feels like ants crawling on their skin, and muscle spasms are also disturbed. Lack of treatment leads to changes in encephalopathy, alcoholic delirium, intellectual disability, Korsakov psychosis, and epileptic seizures.
Heart and blood vessels
Systematic consumption of alcohol leads to hypertrophy of the heart, its work is disturbed, the rhythm will fail, ischemic, atherosclerotic processes, hypertension with myocardial infarction appear.
What happens to the kidneys?
If you drink vodka every day, the kidneys wear out faster and also lose their ability to work quickly. Metabolic processes are disrupted, the blood is not cleared of toxic compounds, which leads to poisoning. There is a high probability of the formation of pyelonephritic changes, inflammatory processes of the urinary system. Then kidney failure occurs, stones and oncology appear.
How is the gastrointestinal tract affected by the spleen?
Ethanol compounds are toxic to the digestive system. They hit the walls of the esophagus, heartburn occurs, the urge to vomit increases, which causes the esophageal vessels to thin and expand. As a result, the vein walls are torn open and bleeding occurs.
The gastric mucosa also suffers, it ages faster, inflammatory, ulcerative and oncological processes develop. There is a malfunction of the spleen, which uses the destroyed blood cells. The spleen becomes large, there is suppuration, necrosis.
Immune system problems
Immunity is weakened, as a result of which the body's defenses are weakened. The synthesis of the lysozyme protein contained in saliva and tears decreases, as a result of which pathogenic microorganisms are neutralized. A person becomes prone to many infectious pathologies, their condition will worsen.
What happens to muscles and joints?
When you consume alcohol systematically, calcium leaching occurs, bone tissue becomes fragile, it often breaks down, and osteoporotic changes occur. The joints start to hurt too. 75% of alcoholics develop arthritis, and the next high will only make the pain worse. There is also a pronounced negative effect on the muscles. Muscle growth slows down or stops, and muscle tissue is destroyed. Laxity, atrophy will appear in them, but there will be more fat.
Fluid is slowly withdrawn from the body, edematous changes appear. Uric acid builds up in the form of hydrochloric acid and begins to build up in the joints. This leads to their inflammation, gout occurs. The more the patient drinks, the more painful sensations will manifest. Excess fluid that seeps into the joint pouch puts pressure on the cavity walls and nerve tissue becomes irritated. After a while, the joints deform.
Damage to the endocrine system
Alcoholism leads to endocrine dysfunction. In the female body, testosterone synthesis is increased and the levels of estrogen and progesterone decrease. In addition, the ovaries become painful, excess weight is gained.
A woman's appearance changes with behavior, sleep is disturbed, she becomes aggressive, her muscle mass increases, and the hairline becomes more noticeable.
How are the respiratory organs affected?
About 2% of the alcohol released in the form of vapor passes through the lung tissue. This leads to damage to the mucous membrane of the respiratory tract, inflammatory processes of the throat, larynx, bronchi and lungs develop. Pneumonia can be complicated by pneumosclerosis. Ethanol in the bloodstream expands the lung tissue and emphysema develops.
What happens to the sight?
As a result of exposure to ethanol, the intracranial pressure, which is the cause of minor bleeding, increases and the ocular vessels are damaged. Hypoxic processes of the overstrained eye muscles occur and the visual function deteriorates. Gradual atrophy of the eye muscles occurs, the optic nerve does not function properly, and the patient can become completely blind.
About appearance
Alcoholism spoils a person's appearance:
- There is swelling under the eyeballs.
- Hair is disheveled.
- The nose has a bluish tint.
- The face is swollen, bleeding from blows is observed.
- Clothes torn, dirty, smelly.
The increased blood flow to tissue structures overloads the vessels, they are damaged. Break small capillaries. Red dots can be seen on the face. The blue color of the skin appears due to vascular damage, hypoxia. In order to excrete ethanol, the body needs a lot of fluids, which in an alcoholic is expressed by thirst. After drinking water, it accumulates.
This is how the body reacts to possible dehydration. As a result, there is swelling of the facial area on the limbs.
Life span in alcohol addiction
It is clearly difficult to say what the life expectancy of such patients will be. After all, every organism is individual. The lifespan of such people is influenced by various circumstances, for example the dosage, the quality of the alcohol.
According to statistics, the duration of patients with alcoholism ranges from 48 to 55 years. With drunk alcoholism, the consumption of alcoholic beverages in his youth, such a person will die even earlier. Patients who have the last stage of alcoholism are at high risk. They live no more than 6 years after the onset of the disease, death occurs from severe pathologies.
Alcoholics often die:
- from oncology, perforated gastric ulcer or duodenal ulcer;
- Hepatitis, cirrhosis, fibrotic changes in the liver from alcohol;
- Intestinal obstruction;
- acute disruption of cerebral blood flow due to ischemia or bleeding;
- myocardiopathic changes, myocardial infarction, sudden coronary death;
- acute or chronic inflammation of the pancreas;
- sudden death in sleep;
- drunk suicide.
Ethanol poisoning can cause death in people between 35 and 45 years of age. All internal organs and systems will fail and a person's life will be shortened quickly. In order not to suffer from such severe addiction, it is better to completely refrain from using alcoholic beverages, then a person will avoid many troubles and preserve their health.