Alcohol in excessive amount always harm your health. If you get addicted to it, the harm is even more, and includes physical and mental problems that can lead to treatment at the rehabilitation centre. Rehab Healthcare is one of the reputable drug rehab centres, helping people to get rid of the addiction of alcohol and come back to the regular and beautiful life. The process involves an initial phase to alcohol detox followed by prolonged psychological intervention carried by professionals.
Now, the thing is, you don’t need to reach the stage where you have to be sent to a drug and alcohol rehab clinic. Once you know how alcohol has an abusive impact on your life, especially on your liver, start taking a few steps back from being addicted to it. Moreover, you should know about this and spread awareness to keep your near and dear ones from the negative impacts of alcohol. Now read on to learn about alcohol abuse and its impact on your liver.
What is Alcohol Abuse?
To be specific, alcohol abuse is a pattern of drinking alcohol that is more than recommended limits. People suffer from this situation when they drink too much alcohol at once or frequently drink in a week. In the beginning, you may not understand that it is taking over your life. However, soon, it will affect your work, routine activities, relationships, and finally, your health. If you drink too much at one time, it may result in alcohol poisoning.
How can you realise that you or anyone closer to you is suffering from alcohol abuse?
- If someone is having more than 7 drinks per week or 3 drinks per occasion (in case of women)
- If someone takes 14 drinks per week or over 4 drinks per occasion
- If you are more than 65 years and take 7 drinks per week and more than 3 drinks per occasion
Consuming this amount of alcohol can hugely affect your health, and the maximum damage is done on your liver.
Impacts of Alcohol Abuse on Your Liver
Too much alcohol can take a toll on the health of your liver. At the initial stage, you may not have any realisation, but a prolonged habit can create a deadly situation affecting your life. Chronic alcoholism can hamper the effectiveness of detoxification. Besides that, several other diseases and liver disorders happen due to alcohol addiction.
Fatty Liver or Steatosis
To be precise, when fat deposits in your liver, it is known as fatty liver. This is the most common liver disease caused due to excessive alcohol consumption. The threat of this disease is such that you do not need to be an alcoholic for many years. It can happen due to consuming too much alcohol, even for a few days. Due to steatosis, the liver function is impaired, causing inflammation at the liver. If not diagnosed in the first stage, it can lead to alcoholic hepatitis.
Alcoholic Cirrhosis
This is a more serious liver disease caused due to excessive alcohol consumption. The problem with this disease is that the symptoms are not vivid at the initial stage, they become more evident when it becomes more serious. People suffering from alcoholic liver cirrhosis have scars in the tissues of their liver. These scars spread faster and damage the growth of healthy liver cells. When the growth of scar tissues increases a lot, the liver stops functioning naturally, and it cannot detoxify your body perfectly anymore. If not diagnosed early, alcoholic cirrhosis can result in lethal liver damage.
Alcoholic Hepatitis
Alcoholic hepatitis is another liver disease ranging from medium to severe. The symptoms start slowly, and many people do not even realise that they have alcoholic hepatitis until it is much worse. The symptoms of alcoholic hepatitis are:
- Fever
- Confusion
- Jaundice
- Nausea
- Pale skin
- Loss of appetite
- Stomach pain
If someone continues drinking while having this problem, or leaves it undiagnosed, he can suffer from fatal liver damage leading to liver failure. Furthermore, the failing liver is unable to clear waste materials from the body which then pass to the brain to cause a brain condition called Hepatic encephalopathy.
So, here you get a thorough idea about alcohol abuse and its impact on your liver. Not only physical damages, but alcoholism can also cause mental illness. It may cause illusion, confusion, lack of decisiveness, and many other issues that are enough to hamper your professional and personal life. Thus, if you or someone you know is suffering from alcohol abuse, it is high time to contact professionals at Rehab Healthcare to get help in order to get back on the normal stream of life.