When Irresponsible and Abusive Drinking Results in Serious Health Problems

For several years alcohol dependency exploration has revealed the fact that there is strong linkage between alcohol dependency and serious health conditions.

As an illustration, in 2005, medical research and alcohol abuse and alcoholism statistics demonstrated the fact that that alcohol abuse and alcohol dependency cost the United States an estimated $220 billion annually. It can be emphasized that this huge alcohol-related expense was significantly more than the cost associated with cancer ($196 billion) or with obesity ($133 billion). While it is important to highlight these facts, it is also important to highlight the fact that an interrelationship exists between all three of these health issues.

More accurately, chronic alcohol abuse and alcoholism are also highly correlated with obesity and with cancer.

To be sure, substance abuse research has shown that alcohol addiction can increase the risk for different types of cancer, especially cancer of the esophagus, kidneys, throat, rectum, liver, voice box (larynx), and the colon. Heavy and repetitive drinking can also lead to immune system issues and damage to the fetus during pregnancy.

Heavy and Hazardous Drinking Destabilizes the Problem Drinker’s Systems and Organs

Additionally, if alcoholism continues over a period of years, the person’s body organs will probably be affected in an unsafe manner. For example, repeated, abusive drinking is particularly dangerous to the liver due to the fact that the liver does most of the work of processing the alcohol that has been consumed. Extreme amounts of alcohol kills liver cells and eradicates the ability of liver cells to reproduce. This condition results in a progressive inflammatory malfunction of the liver that can in the end lead to cirrhosis of the liver, a critical and possibly fatal medical problem.Heavy, long-term drinking not only can result in serious liver damage, but it can also lead to damage to the heart and to the brain. Physical damage this serious may be unalterable and may, in turn, result in severe illness or an early death.

The Significance of Alcohol Treatment

It is vital, then, to know how to identify the different alcoholism symptoms and the “alcohol signs” so that the alcohol dependent person can be given the opportunity to get the quality alcohol therapy he or she needs.

Alcohol Dependency and Sophisticated Brain Research

Fortuitously, medical exploration is relentlessly finding unique and significant information. Recent alcoholism research provides an excellent example. More specifically, for roughly the last ten years, technologically advanced brain-imaging scanning devices have demonstrated that repetitive and chronic excessive drinking modifies the makeup of the brain to a substantial extent, consequently resulting in brain disease that can last months, years, or perchance as long as the person exists.

Stated another way, medical research has revealed that people who have been drinking in an excessive manner for a considerable length of time increase their risk for developing permanent and substantial transformations in the brain.

This type of damage may be indirectly associated with the drinker’s poor overall health or directly related to severe liver disease or to the alcohol’s effects on the brain.

Malnutrition, Hazardous Drinking, and Mental Disorders

As a final illustration of different health problems that are to a great extent associated with alcoholism, consider that according to medical exploration, the hazardous and repeated abuse of alcohol can lead to erosive gastritis, a health problem that reduces the absorption of nutrients, vitamins, and minerals.

This form of organ breakdown is related to malnutrition and to an array of severe mental and neurological syndromes including sleep disturbances, memory loss, and psychosis such as Wernicke’s Encephalopathy and Korsakoff’s syndrome. This latter health problem is a long lasting incapacitating medical condition that is epitomized by recurring learning and memory complications.

Summary

It is plain to see that repetitive, abusive drinking is directly or indirectly related to a number of acute medical problems that can and do lead to serious ailments and premature death. Such information needs to be highlighted and presented to everyone in our society so that a multitude of people will be able to abstain from excessive drinking while other individuals who have a drinking problem will get the quality treatment they need.