There are a number of situations and physical conditions in which alcohol consumption poses significant risks to health and safety.
Be informed below about a number of different risky drinking patterns:
Safe driving requires good vision, sound judgement and fast reaction times. Alcohol, a depressant, impairs all three.
Your ability to safely drive a car or any other vehicle may actually be impaired at blood alcohol levels well below the legal limit. Legally permissible Blood Alcohol Concentration (BAC) limits for drinking and driving are defined by governments in most countries around the world. A number of different factors come into play: how much have you eaten; what time of day it is; your mood; your metabolism; your fatigue levels – all these things count. And although the human body generally eliminates alcohol at a rate of about 10 grams of alcohol every 1.5 hours; there is no way of predicting exactly how alcohol will affect you from one to the next.
The message is clear: alcohol and driving are a deadly mix. If you drink and drive you run a real risk of killing or injuring yourself and others. You also run the risk of being arrested and convicted of drunk driving – an experience that involves court costs, legal fees and can result in higher automobile insurance rates, fines, loss of license and even imprisonment.
The risks are too high: be sure your make the right choices.
Drinking at work
You don’t have to be drunk to run into drink-related difficulties at work. Indeed, many alcohol-related performance problems are associated with relatively low blood alcohol concentrations – the result of a few drinks at lunch or the residual effect of a heavy drinking session last night.
It’s important to remember that very low levels of alcohol affect judgement and motor skills; and that its effects increase gradually. There is no threshold below which you are unaffected. And the residual effects of alcohol consumption (i.e. “hang-over”) can continue to impair performance even though your blood alcohol concentration may be at zero.
Alcohol, if not consumed in moderation and on appropriate occasions, can impair your performance at work in the short-term and the long-term.
In the short-term, raised blood alcohol levels undoubtedly jeopardize both efficiency and safety. Even after drinking the smallest amount of alcohol you are more likely to make mistakes and errors of judgement. You also significantly increase the risk of having an accident.
In the long-term, persistent heavy drinking can cause a number of social, psychological and medical problems, including alcohol dependence. Persistent heavy drinking frequently leads to poor performance at work and increased absence due to sickness. People who drink heavily over a long period of time often experience a rapid deterioration in their physical and interpersonal skills.
Drinking and sport
Alcohol and active sports don’t go together. Anyone planning to exercise is advised against drinking alcohol – even one glass of beer or wine before exercise.
The reasons for avoiding alcohol before strenuous physical activity are clear cut: alcohol accelerates your pulse rate, respiration and also dehydrates your body, reinforcing the need to urinate. Your coordination and motor skills are also affected. Your physical condition suffers immediately and you will pay the consequences during and after exercise.
Alcohol reduces your capacity to feel pain, so you run a real risk of over-stretching or exceeding safe limits and injuring yourself. At the same time, with lower moisture levels in your body you will breakdown lactic acid – the cause of aching limbs after a physical workout – less efficiently, so you will pay the price during and after exercise.
Drinking during pregnancy
Heavy and abusive drinking patterns, including binge drinking are always potentially risky but especially for the human foetus carried by a pregnant mother – so drinking during pregnancy should be avoided.
When pregnant women drink, alcohol is not only carried to all their organs and tissues, but also reaches the placenta and crosses through the membrane separating maternal and foetal (mother and child) blood systems.
So when a “mother to be” drinks, so does her baby. The concentration of alcohol in the unborn child’s bloodstream will be the same as its mother’s. However, the foetal liver cannot process alcohol at the same rate. Alcohol can stay in the unborn child’s bloodstream for up to 24 hours. In fact, the unborn child’s blood alcohol concentrations will be higher than its mother’s during the second and third hour after a drink is consumed.
Chronic alcohol abuse
It’s very difficult to estimate how many people drink excessively over a long period of time. Methods for measuring the prevalence of chronic alcohol abuse in the population have been based on the number of deaths from cirrhosis of the liver.
Cirrhosis is a process during which normal liver tissue is replaced by non-functioning cells. It is often caused by chronic alcohol abuse, but may not occur for between 10 or even 25 years after an individual starts to drink heavily. It may also result from other causes.
Drinking excessively over a long period of time also increases the risk of a whole range of other health problems, from heart disease to certain cancers to alcohol dependency, which is discussed below.
Whatever the current levels of chronic alcohol abuse, there is no doubt that heavy drinking over a long period of time can have serious health consequences.
Alcohol dependence
Alcohol dependence, sometimes referred to as “alcoholism”, is a very specific condition: a syndrome characterized by the sufferer’s physical and psychological dependence on alcohol consumption. Alcohol dependence is diagnosed according to a very well-defined set of symptoms.
In simple terms, alcoholics are people who become “addicted” to alcohol. If they stop drinking they suffer physical and psychological withdrawal symptoms and they crave alcohol. It is important to understand that the amount of alcohol consumed is not in itself a symptom of this disease, although excess drinking over a period of time can lead to the condition, which also appears to be influenced by genetic factors. As noted above, those who experience problems controlling their drinking to within moderate levels should not drink and should seek medical advice.
The social consequences of alcohol dependence can be profound – for both those suffering from it and their friends and families. Typically, as their condition worsens, so does an individual’s ability to function effectively at work or at home and to maintain interpersonal relationships.
Be informed below about a number of different risky drinking patterns:
- Drinking and driving
- Drinking at work
- Drinking and sport
- Drinking during pregnancy
- Chronic alcohol abuse
- Alcohol dependence
Safe driving requires good vision, sound judgement and fast reaction times. Alcohol, a depressant, impairs all three.
Your ability to safely drive a car or any other vehicle may actually be impaired at blood alcohol levels well below the legal limit. Legally permissible Blood Alcohol Concentration (BAC) limits for drinking and driving are defined by governments in most countries around the world. A number of different factors come into play: how much have you eaten; what time of day it is; your mood; your metabolism; your fatigue levels – all these things count. And although the human body generally eliminates alcohol at a rate of about 10 grams of alcohol every 1.5 hours; there is no way of predicting exactly how alcohol will affect you from one to the next.
The message is clear: alcohol and driving are a deadly mix. If you drink and drive you run a real risk of killing or injuring yourself and others. You also run the risk of being arrested and convicted of drunk driving – an experience that involves court costs, legal fees and can result in higher automobile insurance rates, fines, loss of license and even imprisonment.
The risks are too high: be sure your make the right choices.
Drinking at work
You don’t have to be drunk to run into drink-related difficulties at work. Indeed, many alcohol-related performance problems are associated with relatively low blood alcohol concentrations – the result of a few drinks at lunch or the residual effect of a heavy drinking session last night.
It’s important to remember that very low levels of alcohol affect judgement and motor skills; and that its effects increase gradually. There is no threshold below which you are unaffected. And the residual effects of alcohol consumption (i.e. “hang-over”) can continue to impair performance even though your blood alcohol concentration may be at zero.
Alcohol, if not consumed in moderation and on appropriate occasions, can impair your performance at work in the short-term and the long-term.
In the short-term, raised blood alcohol levels undoubtedly jeopardize both efficiency and safety. Even after drinking the smallest amount of alcohol you are more likely to make mistakes and errors of judgement. You also significantly increase the risk of having an accident.
In the long-term, persistent heavy drinking can cause a number of social, psychological and medical problems, including alcohol dependence. Persistent heavy drinking frequently leads to poor performance at work and increased absence due to sickness. People who drink heavily over a long period of time often experience a rapid deterioration in their physical and interpersonal skills.
Drinking and sport
Alcohol and active sports don’t go together. Anyone planning to exercise is advised against drinking alcohol – even one glass of beer or wine before exercise.
The reasons for avoiding alcohol before strenuous physical activity are clear cut: alcohol accelerates your pulse rate, respiration and also dehydrates your body, reinforcing the need to urinate. Your coordination and motor skills are also affected. Your physical condition suffers immediately and you will pay the consequences during and after exercise.
Alcohol reduces your capacity to feel pain, so you run a real risk of over-stretching or exceeding safe limits and injuring yourself. At the same time, with lower moisture levels in your body you will breakdown lactic acid – the cause of aching limbs after a physical workout – less efficiently, so you will pay the price during and after exercise.
Drinking during pregnancy
Heavy and abusive drinking patterns, including binge drinking are always potentially risky but especially for the human foetus carried by a pregnant mother – so drinking during pregnancy should be avoided.
When pregnant women drink, alcohol is not only carried to all their organs and tissues, but also reaches the placenta and crosses through the membrane separating maternal and foetal (mother and child) blood systems.
So when a “mother to be” drinks, so does her baby. The concentration of alcohol in the unborn child’s bloodstream will be the same as its mother’s. However, the foetal liver cannot process alcohol at the same rate. Alcohol can stay in the unborn child’s bloodstream for up to 24 hours. In fact, the unborn child’s blood alcohol concentrations will be higher than its mother’s during the second and third hour after a drink is consumed.
Chronic alcohol abuse
It’s very difficult to estimate how many people drink excessively over a long period of time. Methods for measuring the prevalence of chronic alcohol abuse in the population have been based on the number of deaths from cirrhosis of the liver.
Cirrhosis is a process during which normal liver tissue is replaced by non-functioning cells. It is often caused by chronic alcohol abuse, but may not occur for between 10 or even 25 years after an individual starts to drink heavily. It may also result from other causes.
Drinking excessively over a long period of time also increases the risk of a whole range of other health problems, from heart disease to certain cancers to alcohol dependency, which is discussed below.
Whatever the current levels of chronic alcohol abuse, there is no doubt that heavy drinking over a long period of time can have serious health consequences.
Alcohol dependence
Alcohol dependence, sometimes referred to as “alcoholism”, is a very specific condition: a syndrome characterized by the sufferer’s physical and psychological dependence on alcohol consumption. Alcohol dependence is diagnosed according to a very well-defined set of symptoms.
In simple terms, alcoholics are people who become “addicted” to alcohol. If they stop drinking they suffer physical and psychological withdrawal symptoms and they crave alcohol. It is important to understand that the amount of alcohol consumed is not in itself a symptom of this disease, although excess drinking over a period of time can lead to the condition, which also appears to be influenced by genetic factors. As noted above, those who experience problems controlling their drinking to within moderate levels should not drink and should seek medical advice.
The social consequences of alcohol dependence can be profound – for both those suffering from it and their friends and families. Typically, as their condition worsens, so does an individual’s ability to function effectively at work or at home and to maintain interpersonal relationships.
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Enjoy Responsibly
