Effects of drinking Alcohol

The Effects of Drinking Alcohol Alcohol also known as ethanol contains high amounts of intoxicating supplements that are very dangerous to the body. If consumed in high amounts or at a young age, it can severely damage parts of the body such as the liver, brain, and it can eventually lead to death. If people are not careful they can become addicted to alcohol, due to it being classified as a drug. Most young adults, aging from fifteen to twenty, do not take their first drink out of their own free-will but from peer pressure. Blood in the body has to go through the liver before circulating throughout the rest of the body. Therefore, consuming a large amount of alcohol over a period of time can lead to three different types of liver conditions: fatty liver, hepatitis, and cirrhosis. Fatty liver is a build-up of fat within the liver cells that occurs from drinking alcohol heavily, but can simply be reversed by lowering the amount of intake. Fatty liver is not serious but if the right precautions are not taken, hepatitis can develop. Hepatitis is the inflammation of the liver, which can leave a person feeling sick, have confusion, go into a coma, bleeding into other organs, and cause jaundice (yellowing of the skin). Cirrhosis, the worst of the conditions, is where normal liver tissue is replaced with scar tissue. The scar tissue affects the normal structure and regrowth of liver cells, is irreversible, and can be fatal. Alcohol has many short-term affects and a few long-term effects on a person’s brain. A few short term affects include: difficulty walking, slowed reaction time, slurred speech, blurred vision, and impaired memory. These are usually noticeable after a few drinks and can easily be resolved when the drinking stops. On the other hand, the long term effects on the brain handicap an individual even after they have sobered up. A few factors that can determine the extent of what alcohol can do to the brain are: a person’s age, gender, general