Basic Facts on Binge Drinking

Your loved one might deny the problem, deflect, or get mad at you. Reassure yourself that speaking up is a compassionate gesture.

• Ask for Help – Sometimes this problem can be more serious than you let on or believe it is.
• Reducing the number of drinks you have or alternating alcoholic beverages with non-alcoholic alternatives can help limit the impacts of alcohol on your skin.
• Long-term, excessive alcohol use has been linked to a higher risk of many cancers, including mouth, throat, liver, esophagus, colon and breast cancers.
• But the physical effects of binge drinking extend beyond the liver.

Unfortunately, alcohol abuse leads to severe brain damage. In fact, excessive drinking causes irrevocable damage to one’s neuron, killing brain cells at a rapid rate. As a result, individuals often experience learning difficulties, memory issues, blackouts, and a consistent disoriented and confused state. In other words, alcohol consumption has been linked to adverse effects on an individual’s ability to perform and function properly. For example, excessive drinking is known to significantly reduce the performance of otherwise healthy athletes. Repeated binge drinking takes a serious toll on the body and increases a person’s chance of developing a chronic disease.

Mental Health Effects of Binge Drinking

Indeed, alcohol can affect the remodeling and functional changes in synaptic plasticity and neuronal connectivity in different brain regions that occurs during adolescence . Binge drinking is defined as drinking four or five servings of alcohol in a two-hour period, binge drinking effects but studies have shown that, typically, people who binge drink consume far more alcohol during binges. This is extremely dangerous because it increases the risk of acute problems, like blackouts, physical injury from accidents or falls, and alcohol poisoning.

Alcohol also affects your body’s blood sugar levels, so if you have diabetes, binge drinking may add to challenges for your body when it comes to regulating your blood sugar. According to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, nearly 5% of youth under age 17 and 10% of adults over age 65 engaged in binge drinking in the past month. One in six US adults binge drink and at least 25% do so weekly. 25% of US adults who binge drink consume at least 8 drinks during a binge drinking episode. For females, binge drinking is generally considered four or more standard drinks in one sitting. Vince is a licensed social worker who treats clients recovering from substance use disorders. Vince received his bachelor’s degree in Family Science from The University of Maryland, and received his master’s degree in Social Work from The Catholic University of America.

Binge Drinking and Alcohol Use Disorder

Cutting back on the amount or frequency of drinking can reduce these risks. More research needs to be done on people, but the effects of long-term heavy alcohol use are already well-known. You’ll start to feel the effects of alcohol within 5 to 10 minutes of having a drink. Binge drinking is defined as men consuming five or more drinks within about two hours.

• The cost of binge drinking to employers is estimated to be £6.4 billion and the cost per year of alcohol harm is estimated to cost the National Health Service £2.7 billion.
• An alcohol use disorder may develop when a person continues to drink heavily despite recurrent social, interpersonal, and/or legal problems.
• In addition to alcohol dependency and addiction, heavy drinkers are at higher risk of depression, anxiety, and psychosis.
• However, men are almost twice as likely to partake in excessive drinking than women, there being a higher rate of alcohol-related hospitalizations among males than females.
• The association of alcohol-induced blackouts and grayouts to blood alcohol concentrations.

This disorder also involves having to drink more to get the same effect or having withdrawal symptoms when you rapidly decrease or stop drinking. Alcohol use disorder includes a level of drinking that’s sometimes called alcoholism. It’s not uncommon for people to get defensive when others point out their unhealthy drinking habits.

Binge Drinking in College Students

Transient CNS responses to repeated binge ethanol treatment. Adolescent alcohol exposure persistently impacts adult neurobiology and behavior. Binge drinking differentially affects cortical and subcortical microstructure. Molecular and cellular events in alcohol-induced muscle disease.