The Long-Term Effects of Alcohol Consumption on Your Liver

Whether it's a glass of wine with dinner or a beer to celebrate a holiday, alcohol consumption is common for many Americans, especially men who are more likely to drink alcohol than women, according to the CDC.

But we're also told that alcohol can have adverse effects on our health, especially on our liver. But how exactly does alcohol impact the liver?

Alcohol's Effect on Your Body

The National Library of Medicine describes alcohol as a central nervous system depressant, which means that it slows brain activity, potentially impacting your mood and behavior.

This effect on your brain activity can also impair your coordination and control over your body.

Beyond the brain, alcohol impacts your other organs, possibly raising your blood pressure and causing your heart rate to rise. For men, excessive alcohol use can also result in erectile dysfunction and infertility.

However, the liver is often singled out as taking the brunt of any damage caused by alcohol because one of its main purposes in the body is to break down and remove toxins, like alcohol, from the body. This is why alcohol is among the most common causes of liver disease.

Your Liver and How It Works

Located in the upper right side of your abdomen beneath your ribs, your liver primarily does three things:

• Supports digestion by producing bile
• Helps the body excrete waste
• Removes toxins from your blood

Additionally, the liver plays an important role in storing sugar for energy, turning vitamins and nutrients into useful substances for our health and helps the body fight diseases and infections.

As it processes toxins to keep them out of our bloodstream, cells in the liver die. While the organ can regenerate itself and develop new cells, this takes time.

Unlike carbohydrates and fat, the body cannot store alcohol, so when you consume more alcohol than your liver can process at one time, alcohol "overflows" into your bloodstream, makes its way to your brain and causes intoxication.

This alcohol remains in your system until the liver can "catch up" and help eliminate it. The damage inflicted on the liver by this cycle can cause scarring in the organ and, over time, result in alcohol-related liver disease.

Alcohol-Related Liver Disease

There are three stages to alcohol-related liver disease, and they are caused by continuously drinking more alcohol than the liver can process.

Fatty Liver Disease: This is the first stage of alcohol-related liver disease, but it can also be caused by non-alcoholic factors. Fatty liver disease is when, as the name implies, fat builds up in the liver. It can indicate that someone is consuming harmful amounts of alcohol, but it rarely causes symptoms beyond some mild discomfort in the abdomen due to an enlarged liver. Fatty Liver Disease can develop even after a few days of heavy drinking, but in order to reverse it, it normally takes two weeks of abstaining from alcohol for the liver to return to its normal state.

Alcoholic Hepatitis: If you continue to drink heavily beyond fatty liver disease, you'll likely develop alcoholic hepatitis. Unlike infectious hepatitis, alcoholic hepatitis causes the liver to become inflamed. This causes the liver to swell up and kills liver cells, often scarring the liver. Alcoholic hepatitis can start as a mild case and gradually become more severe if you continue drinking. Severe cases can be fatal and can occur suddenly, most often after binge drinking.

Alcoholic Liver Cirrhosis: The third stage of alcohol-related liver disease, alcoholic liver cirrhosis, occurs in roughly 10-15% of those who drink heavily or binge drink over a long period of time. This is when scar tissue accumulates in the liver and prevents cells from regenerating. Alcoholic liver cirrhosis is typically considered irreversible and can cause severe liver damage before symptoms develop. Some more recent studies have shown some reversibility is possible but it can take many years and may be incomplete. When symptoms do occur, they may include fatigue, confusion, weakness, pressure in the liver, easy bruising/bleeding, redness in the hands and palms and fluid retention in the legs and midsection.

Managing Alcohol Consumption

Alcohol, especially heavy alcohol consumption, impacts the body in a variety of ways short-term and long-term.

The National Library of Medicine defines binge drinking as when you blood alcohol concentration level is .08%, which typically occurs after having four to five alcoholic drinks within a few hours. Heavy drinking is having more than three to four alcoholic drinks in a day.

That's why it is important to always track how much you are drinking and consider the other factors that play into how alcohol affects you, including age, physical condition, whether you're a male or female, family health history and any food you consumed before drinking.

If you or a loved one are experiencing alcoholic substance abuse disorder, consider strategies to address it and ways to begin the pathway to recovery.

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