Many people overlook the significance of alcohol consumption. Because it is socially acceptable and legal over a certain age, it’s easy to forget just how detrimental alcohol consumption can be, not just in the immediate time frame but long-term.
What Happens to Your Body When You Drink: Immediate Effects
When you consume alcohol, you have an immediate impact on your brain and body. Some of the most substantial effects are the changes in your ability to focus and exercise sound cognition. This means that you start to lose control over things like motor function. Your vision becomes blurred. Your speech becomes slurred. You start making reckless decisions, and eventually, as your body processes the alcohol, you may start to feel ill.
What Happens to Your Body When You Drink: Short-Term Effects
In the short term, alcohol starts getting absorbed by your liver, but it starts to build up in your vital organs, leaving you with excess sugars in the liver. In the short-term, this increases high rates of resting sugar in your body, which over time can cause problems with your liver and your heart and increase your risk of diabetes.
In the short term, alcohol disrupts the way you sleep. Problems with your sleep lead to immediate memory issues where your brain can’t properly store short-term memories into long-term memories. This means that you won’t be able to recall information as quickly, either. As is the case, anytime you don’t get adequate sleep, you might experience not only problems with cognition but also mood problems and increased irritability.
What Happens to Your Body When You Drink: Long-Term Effects
In the long term, alcohol can cause problems with your liver. Your liver may eventually develop conditions such as fatty liver disease, cirrhosis, fibrosis of the liver, or alcoholic hepatitis. Concurrently, your pancreas may suffer from the increased toxins and sugar, leading to an inability to digest your food properly. The severe inflammation and poor function inhibit your nutrient absorption.
At the same time, this weakens your immune system. When your body can’t get the right nutrients, you’ll regularly have poor immune health, which leads to higher rates of flu, colds, infections, pneumonia, and even tuberculosis.
In the long term, those issues with poor sleep, mood problems, and increased irritability can lead to the development of anxiety or depression disorders. Heavy drinking will eventually disrupt the pathways in your brain, interfering with how your brain works. You may experience increased sleep problems and higher levels of issues with coordination, cognition, and long-term memory.
Getting Help From American Detox and Treatment
If you are struggling with alcoholism, American Detox and Treatment can help. At our South Carolina drug rehab, we work hard to provide programs with the most appropriate forms of detox and subsequent inpatient programs.
Building Support Internally
Our inpatient programs combine individual and group therapy as well as structured schedules for each of your appointments. These structured schedules allow for a time set aside for self-reflection.
You’ll regularly have time to reflect on your progress, and you can use this time to journal about your emotions and reflect on what you have achieved, areas where you still need to improve, and emotions that you want to better regulate.
As you reflect on the progress you’ve made and the areas where you still need to improve, you might realize that, in some cases, you need help, and that help comes from your community.
Building Support Externally
During a treatment program, you might learn more about setting up a self-care routine and what that includes, extending it to habits like having a regular bedtime routine, exercising, and setting boundaries.
When you participate in a substance abuse program at our facility, you will be introduced to several types of individual and group therapy. In group therapy, you’ll find like-minded individuals who are going through similar struggles and who understand what it feels like.
You might build your support network with this community of people. You might use our resources to connect with local support groups in your area and build a sense of community in that respect.
Overall, what happens to your body when you drink can have a long-term effect on your physical health and your mental well-being. If you are struggling with alcoholism and you are ready to get help, our detox center can start you off with the right type of detox and move you into a supportive residential program thereafter.
Call American Detox now to see how our program can help you make a lasting change.
