How much alcohol a person drinks, genetic factors, gender, body mass, and general state of health all influence how a person’s health responds to chronic heavy drinking.

However, studies consistently show that, overall, heavy alcohol consumption is detrimental to health and a leading preventable cause of death.

In your battle against alcoholism, health concerns seem to mount that make overcoming alcoholism more urgent. The opponent is tough and may bring about a life of misery both mentally and physically.

Most Often Alcoholism Side Effects

It could be useful to look at the dangers that accompany this addiction. It can bring about problems with nutrition, a type of arthritis, heart disease as well as liver and kidney disease, and a host of other ills that you would be better off not having and can avoid if you can decrease significantly or eliminate your alcohol consumption.

What Illnesses Are Caused by Alcohol?

Frequently drinking too much alcohol is harmful to health. Alcohol can have an impact on every body system.

1. Gouty arthritis can be caused by alcoholism. Gouty arthritis is a harrowing rheumatic disease. It will leave deposits of spiny and needle-like crystals of uric acid.
2. Fetal alcohol syndrome can have long-term negative effects on mental and physical growth, physical ailments and possible deformities, and developmental delays.
3. There are cardiovascular issues to be concerned about as there is a risk of heart disease and certain kinds of strokes. There is also the risk of high blood pressure that comes with alcohol abuse.
4. Alcohol abuse plays with your blood sugar levels in harmful ways causing it to go up and down. Hyperglycemia and hypoglycemia are common in alcoholics as well as diabetes.
5. Kidney disease is another risk. This will cause the kidneys to be enlarged and alter proper hormone function. The disease can also bring about kidney failure.
6. Liver disease is a concern as it can cause alcoholic hepatitis or alcoholic cirrhosis. Alcoholic hepatitis is the less serious and can be treated while cirrhosis is irreversible and may require a liver transplant.
7. There is a numbness and tingling that can be caused by alcoholism called neuropathy. Neuropathy can be painful and is associated with nerve damage.
8. The threat of dementia is real and can be brought about by several things associated with alcoholism.
9. Obesity is also a major concern which brings about a much broader range of health threats and concerns.
10. There are also mental health concerns that you must worry about. Alcoholism can bring about depression, anxiety, and insomnia.

Inappropriate Nutrition

Nutrition can be affected by too much drinking. It can promote overeating at times and under-eating at others. It is easily abused and takes up needed space in the stomach.

The problem with this is that it can cause malnutrition. Your body tends to believe that it has met its daily caloric needs and gives you a feeling of being full.

The bad thing about this is that your body then has to go without the proper nutrients it needs and your body suffers.

Conclusion

While you may have already had a significant amount of damage done to your body, you are still better off trying to break your addiction. There are many of these which can be made less severe and are reversible once you have stopped drinking.

There are others, though that have lifelong repercussions. Be sure that it is not too late. There are always benefits to being able to stop and those benefits will always outweigh any perceived positives.

Hopefully you will research further the health problems that come with alcoholism and use them as weapons in your fighting alcoholism.