Health Risks of Alcohol: Part 2

Continuing from my last post concerning some of the major health risks involved in alcohol abuse, I’m back with another list of 6 issues you might face if you were to continue succumbing to your addictive behavior.

Seizures

Heavy drinking has been known to cause epilepsy and can even trigger seizures in people who don’t have the disease. When a heavy drinker is going through withdrawal, one of the possible and often fatal results can be an unexpected seizure. Alcohol withdrawal is one of the only forms of withdrawal that truly can be fatal to almost anyone who suffers the heavier symptoms. Alcohol can also interfere with the medications used to treat convulsions.

Gout

 

Gout is an extremely painful condition that is caused by the formation of uric acid crystals in the joins. Although most cases are primarily hereditary, alcohol and other various factors of one’s diet can play a role in developing the condition. Alcohol is also known to aggravate an existing case of gout.

High Blood pressure

Alcohol often disrupts the sympathetic nervous system, which among other things, controls the constriction and dilation of blood vessels in response to stress, temperature and exertion. Heavy drinking, primarily binge drinking can cause blood pressure to rise over time. This effect can become chronic. High blood pressure can lead to many other unwanted health issues including kidney disease, heart disease and even a stroke.

Infectious disease

 

Drinking heavily suppresses the immune system, making it significantly easier for infections to take hold. This could include tuberculosis, pneumonia, HIV/AIDS and other various STD’s. Drinking too much too often can also lead to risky sex due to the nature of its inhibition suppressant. Those who drink heavily have been said to be facing a risk roughly three times greater than the average person of contracting a sexual transmitted disease.

Nerve damage

Heavy drinking has been known to cause a form of nerve damage known as alcoholic neuropathy. This condition often produces painful pins-and-needles sensations or numbness in the extremities. Other symptoms are muscle weakness, incontinence, constipation, erectile dysfunction, etc. Alcoholic neuropathy may arise because alcohol is toxic to nerve cells, or because nutritional deficiencies attributable to heavy drinking compromise nerve function.

Pancreatitis

 

In addition to causing stomach irritation, drinking can inflame the pancreas. Chronic pancreatitis interferes with the digestive process which may cause severe abdominal pain and persistent diarrhea. This condition can be cause by gallstones but it’s said that up to 60% of cases stem from alcohol abuse.

Of course, these are just a few of the many serious health risks we sign up for by continuing with our addictive behavior. Drinking poison (alcohol) is going to hurt your body. How much or in what way is very subjective but the fact is, we’re better off without it. If we can’t drink casually and have admitted that we need to stop even if only for personal reasons, it’s important to remember just how many serious health issues we’re avoiding by sticking to this wise decision. If it’s still something you’re not sure of, be sure to keep reading. There are new discoveries every day on how damaging alcohol abuse can be to our minds and bodies and this short list of 12 barely scratches the surface of what we already know. Recovery doesn’t have to be scary; it can be a rewarding and enlightening process. However the conditions we may face if we chose to continue with our addictive behavior are extremely scare and we would do well to remember that.