“People tend to forget that alcohol is a depressant,” says Hilary Sheinbaum, author of The Dry Challenge: How to Lose the Booze for Dry January, Sober October, and Any Other Alcohol-Free Month. She has given up drinking alcohol at least one month out of the year since 2017, and she’s noticed a variety of positive effects while doing so, from improved digestion to better sleep. “After the first 10 days without alcohol, I recognized that my mood was more elevated,” she recalls. “I went from five hours of sleep a night to seven or eight, and I was more energized and excited to get up in the morning. Even my skin changed.” The evidence is more than just anecdotal, however. A few years ago, the cumulative effects of heavy drinking were revealed in a large-scale study of almost 600,000 drinkers in 19 countries. Researchers found that drinkers who downed between 14 and 25 drinks per week, approximately, had an average lifespan up to two years shorter than those who drank a maximum of around seven alcoholic drinks per week. The findings, which were published in April 2018 in The Lancet, also revealed that as weekly alcohol consumption increased, so did the risk of stroke, heart failure, and death from hypertension or aortic aneurysm. RELATED: 15 Celebrities Who Don’t Drink Alcohol “I think that, often, people don’t realize how much alcohol they consume on a monthly basis,” says Sheinbaum. “When considering that someone might have a few drinks on weekends, a glass of wine with dinners, or a beer (or two or three) watching sports, it can add up.” Also, if you only drink once or twice a month, it’s easy to think you’re not overdoing it. But when it comes to excessive alcohol use, CDC data indicates that the main problem for most people is drinking excessively on a single occasion, known as binge drinking. That means four or more drinks for women, and five or more for men, in a two- to three-hour span. According to the CDC, one in six U.S. adults engages in this behavior, and while the majority do not have alcohol use disorder, it’s definitely not healthy. “Having one drink every day of the week is not the same as having seven drinks on a Saturday,” says Kathy Jung, PhD, director of the division of metabolism and health effects at the National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. “Binge drinking is never safe.” It’s important to know exactly how much alcohol you are drinking. The CDC defines a drink as 12 ounces (oz) of any beer with an ABV (alcohol by volume) of 5 percent or less — an amount exceeded by many craft brews — 5 oz of wine, or 1.5 oz of distilled spirits such as vodka or rum. These serving sizes are often inflated by overpouring, so you may be drinking more than you realize. RELATED: 5 Hacks for Giving Up Alcohol
What Other Effects Can Alcohol Have on Your Body?
In addition to taking years off your life, excess drinking can have other significant effects on your body and mind. Here are five that research has unearthed:
1. Alcohol Can Change Your DNA — and Make You Crave More Alcohol
Yes, you read that right. Both binge drinking and heavy drinking can actually change your genetic makeup and leave you wanting more alcohol, more often, according to a study published in December 2018 in Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research. When researchers compared groups of binge drinkers and heavy drinkers to moderate drinkers (one drink per day for women and up to two for men), they found that an alcohol-induced gene modification process called methylation changed two genes in the bodies of the people in the former group. One of those genes, known as PER2, affects the body’s biological clock, and the other, POMC, regulates the stress response system. The result of these changes is an increased desire for alcohol. This finding provides evidence that excessive drinking can actually alter your genes and that these specific epigenetic changes in these specific genes is associated with an increase in the desire to drink alcohol. That may help explain why alcohol use disorder is so powerful and affects so many.
2. Alcohol Increases the Risk of Certain Cancers
The National Cancer Institute (NCI) cites several studies, including one meta-analysis of 572 studies that showed that alcohol increases the risk of certain cancers, including those that affect the mouth, throat, liver, and breast. As you can probably imagine, that risk skyrockets in heavy drinkers. According to the NCI, they’re five times more likely than nondrinkers to contract esophageal cancer. But even moderate drinking nearly doubles the odds of mouth and throat cancer. Having as little as one drink a day can increase the risk of breast cancer as well, notes Dr. Jung. Previous research published in the International Journal of Cancer found that alcohol contributed to approximately 5.5 percent of cancer occurrences and nearly 6 percent of cancer deaths worldwide.
3. Alcohol Changes the Composition of Organisms in the Gut, Which Harms Immunity
Research focusing on the delicate balance of microorganisms that reside in the gastrointestinal tract has found that disruptions to these bacterial colonies can affect not only digestion but other aspects of health as well, particularly immunity. Consuming alcohol has been shown to affect this bacterial balance. Studies have shown that alcoholics have a different balance of gut bacteria and impacts to their intestinal barrier, according to a review published in July 2021 in the International Journal of Molecular Sciences, and chronic drinking has been shown to have harmful effects on immune system cells. Lowered immunity could explain why research published in October 2021 in World Psychiatry indicates that individuals with substance use disorders, including alcohol, have an increased risk of developing COVID-19, even after they have been vaccinated. RELATED: Drinking Less Improves Well-Being Even in Moderate Drinkers, Study Finds
4. Alcohol Affects Long-Term Memory and Brain Structure
One night of binge drinking can lead to blackouts that wipe out memories of key events and details, and consistent alcohol consumption can affect long-term brain function. People who drink heavily over a long period of time are at risk of changing the brain’s “hard-wiring,” which can lead to cognitive problems even after sobriety is attained, reports American Addiction Centers. Heavy alcohol consumption can also impact the brain long term and raise the risk of stroke and depression, and research conducted in May 2021 at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom found that even moderate drinking decreases the brain’s gray and white matter. The findings concluded that there is “no safe level of alcohol consumption for brain health.”
5. Alcohol Causes Hormonal Disturbances
Chronic heavy drinking can also wreak havoc on the endocrine system, which acts as one of the body’s main lines of communication between organs and other systems (like the nervous and immune systems). Similar to the way alcohol creates an imbalance in the gut, it also throws the endocrine system off-kilter by disrupting the release of important hormones, creating hormonal disturbances that can permeate every organ and tissue in the body, per a study published in 2017 in Alcohol Research: Current Reviews. The study reports that the disturbances can go as far as causing reproductive dysfunction, thyroid problems, immune system abnormalities, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, cancer, and psychological and behavioral disorders. There’s also research that suggests alcohol increases production of the stress hormone cortisol during and after drinking, which consequently increases blood pressure and causes higher amounts of stress.
