Harmful Effects of Drinking

Why is drinking harmful?

There are both long-term harmful effects and short-term harmful effects due to binge drinking. Such effects can bring about fatal results to one's own body and most of the time these results are hard to undo. A brief explanation on the short-term harmful effects and long-term harmful effects will be described below.

Short-term Harmful Effects

• Alcohol poisoning is one of the worse short-term harmful effects that can include the lack of muscle coordination, blurred vision, sudden decrease in body temperature, low blood sugar concentration, low blood pressure, impaired judgement and in the extreme case, comatose state.

Long-term Harmful Effects

• Brain Damage
• Adverse effect on the memory function of the brain, concentration and reasoning skills
• Growth of the brain is affected
• Some abnormalities to the function of the brain will occur
• Stroke

• Diseases affecting the digestive system
• Ulcers will form in the small intestines
• Gastritis - Inflammation to the lining of the stomach
• Stomach Cancer

• Heart problems
• Heart muscle disorder
• High blood pressure
• Heartbeat rhythm irregularities

• Damage to the kidney affecting the kidney's function in maintaining body fluids leading to kidney enlargement.

• Liver diseases
• Liver function affected
• Fatty liver develops leading to liver cirrhosis
• Alcohol hepatitis

• Psychological problems
• Depression
• Anxiety
• Insomnia 

• Sexual and hormonal dysfunction
• Erectile dysfunction
• Lower testosterone concentration
• Sperm growth affected
• Fertility rate affected in females

• Skeletal muscle damage
• Reduction in muscle mass
• Lean tissue wasting

However the most common harmful effect due to drinking is accidents due to impaired judgement. Drink driving is a very dangerous act and when our judgement is impaired, when a situation occurs and we need to act quickly, our impaired judgement prevents us from acting fast enough to avoid an accident.