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Risks of Alcohol misuse
Excessive drinking can affect your physical and mental health, and your work, social and personal relationships. You are also more likely to find yourself in dangerous situations if you have been drinking a lot, as alcohol affects your judgement and you may do things that you would not consider doing when sober. A recent report showed that a quarter of all young prisoners had been drinking when they committed their crime.
Health risks associated with heavy drinking include:
- liver disease (cirrhosis of the liver),
- alcohol-related anaemia and nutritional disease,
- chronic calcifying pancreatitis,
- heart muscle damage (cardiomyopathy), and
- alcoholic dementia.
Heavy drinking also increases the risk of high blood pressure, cerebral haemorrhage (stroke), coronary heart disease and heartbeat irregularities. People who drink large amounts of alcohol over long periods of time are also at much greater risk of liver damage. This may lead to alcoholic hepatitis and cirrhosis.
Psychiatric disorders are also more common in people who drink more than 10 units a day. They include:
- depression,
- suicide and attempted suicide,
- personality deterioration,
- sexual problems,
- delirium tremens
- hallucinations without the other symptoms of delirium tremens, and
- memory loss.
