It should come as no surprise to you that drinking a lot of alcohol is not very good for your body. But are you aware of the extent to which it can have an impact on how your body functions? Most people know a few things about this, but the liver is the main thing most people know about. Unfortunately, the problems can be far more widespread than that. Of course, it all depends on how much you drink. The less you drink, the safer you are. But for people with a record of chronically drinking too much or even becoming addicted, the list of problems can be huge.

If you want to control your drinking and make sure that you don’t lose control of it, informing yourself should be the first step. When you know all the risks associated with drinking, you can start to frighten yourself into action. Simply getting control of your drinking and cutting back a little can make a big difference. So, here are some of the surprising truths about the impact alcohol has on your body.

Damage to the Central Nervous System

Your nervous system is the part of your body that controls how you behave. So, when you get drunk and start to behave differently, this can be because of the effect the alcohol has on your central nervous system. It can make it harder for you to speak and maintain control over your coordination, making it harder to walk and move as normal. This isn’t just about short-term effects either. When you start to become addicted to alcohol, you will experience shakes and withdrawal symptoms. This is also linked to your central nervous system, and this is when you should enter rehab for alcohol. It could be what you need to get back on track. 

Mouth Problems

When you drink alcohol, it has to pass through your mouth, so it’s not surprising that it can have a negative impact. If you drink heavily over a long period of time, these mouth-related problems can become pretty nasty. The salivary glands in your mouth can often get badly damaged by drinking too much. Tooth decay, tooth loss and gum disease are also often linked to this. On top of that, ulcers become more problematic, as well as problems in the throat esophagus. So, you need to be very careful about drinking too much if you want to avoid these kinds of nasty problems.

Weakened Sexual Health

Both men and women can suffer from the negative effects of drinking too much on their sexual health. For men, it’s linked to short-term and long-term erectile dysfunction. And it can also have an impact on the hormones in the body. This is disastrous for them and can lead to poor testicular function. Ultimately, it will lead to infertility. This is also the main problem that women can experience with regards to their sexual health. So, think about your future if you are planning on having children. That might not be possible if you decide to drink too much right now, so thinking ahead is very important indeed.

Increased Susceptibility to Lung Infections

Your lungs are not safe from the disastrous effects of excess alcohol consumption either. You really need to be aware of this because not so many people are. The reason why your lungs can be damaged by drinking alcohol links back to your immune system. When your immune system is weakened, you will be more likely to be badly affected by viruses and germs. That’s because you won’t be able to fight them off properly. It’s this that will make you more susceptible to things like lung infections. No one wants to experience this, so take action and make changes if you’ve been coughing a lot recently.

More Muscle Cramps

Muscle problems are very common in people who have drinking problems or just drink a bit too much. If this is the case, one of the first things you will notice is muscle cramps. These can come out of nowhere, and they’re not a sign that you’ve been doing too much exercise. Instead, they are a sign that you have been drinking too much. So, you should try to cut back and learn how to control your drinking. If you fail to do that, you will start to experience other muscle problems too. Weakness and muscle atrophy are both also associated with drinking too much, so you need to be careful.

Malnutrition

Malnutrition is probably something that you associate with a poor diet or not eating enough. It’s not just something that strikes people who eat badly or those living in poverty-stricken parts of the world, though. Alcohol makes it harder for your digestive system to work properly. This means that when you eat food, your body won’t be able to extract all the necessary nutrients from it. This can leave you with malnutrition, even if you have a healthy and plentiful diet. Drinking too much can also make it harder for your body to control bacteria, which leads to other digestive problems too.

Fatigue as a Result of Anemia

If you notice that you are starting to feel more and more fatigued as you go about life, this might be a result of anemia. And that’s something that is strongly linked to drinking too much alcohol. This shows how even things that you wouldn’t normally expect to be linked to alcohol consumption often can be. It’s also associated with vitamin deficiencies that can also be linked to drinking too much. If you are in a situation where you feel tired all the time, test the problem. You could start to drink a little less each week and see if you feel any less tired than you did before.

Thinning Bones

When you pump too much alcohol into your body, the effect can be disastrous for your skeleton. It becomes unable to produce new bone, which is what our skeletons need to do. This can eventually lead to problems like osteoporosis, which thins the bones over time. In the end, this will make you much more likely to experience fractures and bone breaks, which is never good. It’s the kind of problem that creeps up on you slowly over the years. So, you might not experience any problems now, even if you drink heavily, but that won’t be the case forever. Take action and cut back today.

Numbness or Pains in the Hands and Feet

This is a problem that is linked to the damage that can be caused to your central nervous system. When your body’s nervous system is damaged by alcohol, one of the side effects can be numbness or pains. These tend to occur in the feet or hands, and they can be very distressing. The problem could also be a strange sensation that’s hard to define. Either way, having this kind of problem is a sign that you are drinking too much, and you should probably cut back. It’s not a problem that has to be permanent, and you can regain an ordinary sensation in your hands and feet eventually.

There are so many different ways in which drinking too much can have an impact on your body. The nine points above are just some of the lesser known examples. As well as all of these, alcohol also has an impact on the heart, liver, kidneys and bladder. To stay in good shape for as long as possible, you need to drink responsibly and know when to but down the bottle.