APPENDIX B
A Guide to the efects of alcohol on your body and mind
One drink may
relax you,
two can impair
your judgement,
and eight could
kill you!
A drink-by-drink guide to the effects of alcohol on your body and mind.
One medium drink (around two units)
•
You’re talkative and you feel relaxed. Your self-confidence increases.
•
Depending on your weight and gender, you may be over the drinkdriving limit and could lose your licence. In the UK, 500 people are
killed every year as a result of drinking and driving.
•
If you’re a woman, you’re already approaching the government’s
recommended sensible drinking limit of not regularly drinking more
than two to three alcohol units a day.
•
If you’re middle-aged or older, drinking at this level (or a little less) may
help protect from heart disease and heart attack. But drink more and
the risk of clotting and heart problems increase.
Two medium drinks (four units)
•
Your blood flow increases and you may get flushed in the face. You
feel less inhibited but your attention span shortens.
•
You start dehydrating, sowing the seeds of tomorrow’s hangover.
•
If you’re a man, you’ve reached the government’s sensible drinking
limit of not regularly drinking more than three to four alcohol units daily
(or one-and-a-half to two pints of ordinary strength beer).
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APPENDIX B
Three medium drinks (six units)
•
Your libido increases and your judgement is impaired (commonly
known as ‘beer goggles’). You’re much more likely to have casual sex:
23% of 18 to 25-year-olds report having sex with people they didn’t
want to when drunk, and 34% report having unprotected sex,
increasing the risk of pregnancy and catching a sexually transmitted
infection.
•
Your reaction time is slower. Your brain slows down and can’t process
information from your senses as well as you usually can.
•
Your liver starts working overtime but it can only remove alcohol from
the body at a rate of one alcohol unit (half a pint of beer or a small
glass of wine) per hour.
Four medium drinks (eight units)
•
Your thought process has slowed and you may get confused. You’re
much more likely to get into serious trouble as a victim of violence.
•
You’re clumsy and uncoordinated and more likely to bump into things
or have accidents. A quarter of all UK facial injuries are caused by
excessive drinking leading to fights, falls or car accidents. In addition,
12% of 18 to 25-year-olds have ended up in A&E when drunk, 3% have
been run over, 3% have had their stomach pumped and 3% have been
sexually assaulted.
•
You will be noticeably emotional by now: argumentative, angry, violent,
tearful, affectionate or hysterical, depending on circumstances. Over a
third (36%) of 18 to 25-year-olds have been involved in fights when
drunk.
•
If it hasn’t happened already, you may also have drunk enough to
affect your sexual performance. Men may be impotent, and both sexes
can have dulled responses.
Five medium drinks (10 units)
•
Your vision may be blurred. You may feel dizzy and experience the
room 'spinning' around you.
•
If you drive a car, you are 20 times more likely to have an accident.
•
If you’re drinking medium white wine, you’ve consumed around 940
calories – the equivalent of four Mars bars. Lager drinkers have
consumed around 850 calories.
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APPENDIX B
Six medium drinks (12 units)
•
If you drink this much on a regular basis, you already have an alcohol
problem.
•
Regular heavy drinking causes liver damage, which can be fatal.
Eight medium drinks (16 units)
•
You’ll find it very hard to control what you say and do.
•
You’ll probably struggle to stand up or walk. Your stomach and
intestine lining will be irritated and you may vomit.
•
If you’re a teenager or unused to alcohol, you’re already in danger of
losing consciousness and dying of alcohol poisoning.
Nine to 10 medium drinks and more (18 units+…)
•
You head towards unconsciousness and your body temperature drops
below normal. You shiver and look pale. Your breathing will be shallow
and your heart slows right down. There's a real danger you’ll go into a
coma and die.
•
Your heart does not beat as well, increasing the danger of a heart
attack. One quarter of sudden cardiac deaths in young men are caused
by alcohol intoxication.
•
Your body’s life-saving reflexes stop working, most importantly the gag
reflex. It becomes possible for you to breathe in your own vomit and
suffocate. There’s a risk of incontinence (losing control of your bladder
and bowels) at this stage of your drinking.
We're all different
Alcohol does not affect everyone the same way. Women and older people will
generally be at risk of these effects at lower levels of consumption.
If you find you don’t get affected as described in the above information (that
you ‘hold your drink well’), it doesn’t mean alcohol isn’t harmful to you – it
means you’re unaware of the damage being done. See Are you poisoning
yourself? to find out what drinking too much does to your body.
(Information Source: www.NHS.co.uk/LiveWell)
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APPENDIX B
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