For every hour that goes by in the U.S., approximately 20 people die from excessive alcohol use (an estimated 178,000 per year). This month is Alcohol Awareness Month, and Dr. Patricia Molina from LSU Health New Orleans joined WWL to discuss what we need to know.
“It is the most frequently consumed legal drug of abuse,” she explained.
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Here are three takeaways from Molina’s interview with Tommy Tucker:
1. Alcohol impacts every person differently
Molina said that occasional alcohol consumption isn’t bad. However, she said each person’s limit might be different.
“I would preface it by saying that every person is different from the person right next to you,” Molina told Tucker. “So, while maybe you will go through a lifetime consuming one drink maybe every other day or no more than five to six drinks a week and nothing really is going to happen to you, you might be one of those individuals that... just consuming less drinks, less alcohol... you will have medical consequences.”
In general, consumption of more than three or four drinks in a given day is considered at risk drinking, meaning that it opens up users to acute risks such as falling or car accidents. Regular consumption of more than seven drinks per week for women and 14 drinks per week for men is also considered risky and could lead to health impacts such as stress on the liver and an enlarged heart.
While some might think the difference between the recommended consumption levels between women and men is due to hormones, its actually linked to enzymes. Molina explained that men have more of the enzymes needed to break down alcohol.
2. Drinking a glass or two of wine with dinner every night is considered risky
Yes, you read that right. Based on the recommendations for men and women, sipping on wine at every dinner isn’t encouraged.
“That is considered at-risk drinking,” Molina confirmed.
She added that acute alcohol drinking, such as having too many cocktails at a Mardi Gras party, and regular drinking, such as drinking every night for years, are associated with slightly different risks.
“If you think of it, over your lifetime, if you continue to consume alcohol in a risk pattern, meaning every day you’re downing two, three drinks… you know, you stop distinguishing weekends from weekdays, then that pattern of alcohol use – which is also an at-risk pattern – but that is a chronic pattern of alcohol use that can have consequences, including liver disease, so beginning with hepatitis, alcoholic hepatitis followed by fatty liver, followed by fibrosis and very, very high risk for liver cancer,” Molina said.
She added that alcohol can impact every organ in the body.
3. There aren’t ‘safer’ types of alcohol
Tucker noted that some types of alcohol, such as wine, might be considered more socially acceptable to drink than others. Furthermore, Molina said that some people might overlook the risks of alcohol since it is legal and very widely used.
“There’s no such thing as a worse or a better alcohol, alcohol is alcohol,” she said. “What changes is the volume that you’re drinking. So, for example, a glass of wine, five ounces of wine is the same thing as if you were drinking eight ounces of malt liquor, or if you were drinking 12 ounces of beer, or if you were drinking a shot of liquor, you know, whether it’s vodka or tequila.”
Drinking may not come with the same concerns as illegal drugs such as cocaine or opiates, but Molina doesn’t want people to forget that alcohol consumption comes with serious risks, including death.
“People try to look or ignore how frequently, particularly among young individuals – and we’ve seen several cases in our campuses in the state – alcohol intoxication can be deadly,” she said. “But in addition to being deadly, when consumed in a short period of time when reaching very high blood alcohol levels, the chronic use which is actually what ends up creating a burden on the body, that chronic consumption of alcohol throughout the lifetime is what ends up hitting all the different organs in our body and producing changes that are chronic changes.”
According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, excessive alcohol use is a leading preventable cause of death in the U.S. Anyone struggling with addiction can get help through the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s National Helpline at 1-800-662-4357.