You might have seen it in college, your friends blacking out, being unable to wake up and ending the night carted off in an ambulance – once you have witnessed alcohol poisoning in person it’s hard to ever forget it. However, alcohol poisoning isn’t just something that happens to rowdy college students. Alcohol poisoning is a risk for all who drink alcohol and is especially prominent in those who suffer from alcohol use disorder. So how do we recognise the alcohol poisoning symptoms, avoid alcohol poisoning in the first place, and seek alcohol poisoning treatment if we need it?
The Signs Of an Alcohol Overdose
Alcohol poisoning is a serious and sometimes deadly risk of mass alcohol consumption over a short period of time. On average, your liver can only process one standard drink per hour, anything more than this will increase your blood alcohol content past what the liver can process and lead to intoxication.
Drinking too much, too quickly, can affect your breathing, heart rate, body temperature and gag reflex and potentially lead to a coma and death – the basic effects of alcohol poisoning, which is, in essence an overdose on alcohol. The evidence of this overdose becomes clear when we see alcohol poisoning symptoms.
An alcohol overdose occurs when there is so much alcohol in the bloodstream that areas of the brain controlling basic life-support functions—such as breathing, heart rate, and temperature control—begin to shut down.
Symptoms of alcohol overdose include mental confusion, difficulty remaining conscious, vomiting, seizure, trouble breathing, slow heart rate, clammy skin, dulled responses such as no gag reflex, and extremely low body temperature. It’s not necessary to have all the above signs or symptoms before you seek medical help. A person with alcohol poisoning symptoms who is unconscious or can’t be awakened is at risk of dying as alcohol overdose can lead to permanent brain damage or death.
What tips the balance from drinking that produces impairment, to drinking that puts one’s life in jeopardy varies among individuals. Age, sensitivity to alcohol, gender, speed of drinking, medications you are taking, and amount of food eaten can all be factors. Alcohol use and taking opioids or sedative-hypnotics, such as sleep and anti-anxiety medications, can also increase your risk of an overdose. For example, even drinking alcohol while taking over-the-counter antihistamines can be dangerous.
Using alcohol with opioid pain relievers such as oxycodone and morphine or illicit opioids such as heroin is also a very dangerous combination. Like alcohol, these drugs suppress areas in the brain that control vital functions such as breathing. Ingesting alcohol and other drugs together intensifies their individual effects and could produce an overdose with even moderate amounts of alcohol.
“Ingesting alcohol and other drugs together could produce an overdose with even moderate amounts of alcohol.”
If you suspect that someone has alcohol poisoning, even if you don’t see the classic signs and symptoms, you should try to seek immediate medical care and follow these steps.
First off you should call 911 or your local emergency number immediately. Be prepared to provide information and if you know, be sure to tell hospital or emergency personnel the kind and amount of alcohol the person drank, and when.
Never assume a person will sleep off alcohol poisoning if they’re showing alcohol poisoning symptoms and don’t leave an unconscious person alone. Because alcohol poisoning affects the way the gag reflex works, someone with alcohol poisoning symptoms may choke on his or her own vomit and not be able to breathe. While waiting for help, don’t try to make the person vomit because he or she could choke.
“It’s not necessary to have all the alcohol poisoning symptoms before you seek medical help. The dangers of leaving someone without help far outweighs any risks.”
It is often difficult to decide if someone is drunk enough to warrant medical intervention, but it’s best to err on the side of caution with these things if someone is showing alcohol poisoning symptoms. While you may worry about the consequences for yourself or your friend or loved one, particularly if you’re underage, the consequences of not getting the right help in time can be far more serious. Once the person is admitted to hospital they will receive the care they need to ensure that they are safe and well, despite their alcohol poisoning.
The Dangers Of Binge Drinking
The heart of alcohol poisoning and the main place where the symptoms of alcohol poisoning are easy to see is within binge drinking. Alcohol poisoning symptoms aside, research shows that even a single episode of binge drinking can have serious effects on all parts of your body, not just your brain.
Long-term damage from heavy alcohol use isn’t limited to people with alcohol use disorder as frequent binge drinkers can also develop health problems. But what actually is binge drinking?
Binge drinking is defined as men consuming five or more drinks within about two hours. For women, it’s defined as consuming four or more drinks within about two hours. Studies from the CDC show how common place this dangerous practice is, with 1 in 6 U.S. adults reporting their own binge drinking in 2015 alone.
The 37 million binge drinkers had about one binge per week and consumed an average of seven drinks per episode which comes out to about 17 billion total binge drinks for the year. So how do those drinks affect us?
“Long-term damage from heavy alcohol use isn’t limited to people with alcohol use disorder.”
Short-term Effects of Binge Drinking
In the short term, you’ll start to feel the effects of alcohol within 5 to 10 minutes of having a drink. For an average-sized person, the liver can only break down about one standard drink per hour. If you drink more alcohol than what your liver can process, your blood alcohol content will increase and so will the effects on your body.
Excessive alcohol consumption first affects your actions, which can increase your risk of injuries and death from motor vehicle accidents, drowning, suffocation, and other accidents.
Physically, this binge drinking can lead to acute inflammation of the pancreas, stomach, or liver, while again also increasing the risk of alcohol poisoning symptoms and depression of the gag reflex, which puts a person who has passed out at risk of choking on their own vomit.
Long-term Effects of Binge Drinking
While these negative short term effects can go away after some recovery time, long term effects will continue to linger and cause harm. Long-term heavy alcohol use can affect your blood and immune system leading to conditions like anemia, low platelets, and a suppressed immune system.
It can also with absorption of calcium and bone formation leading to osteoporosis and musculoskeletal issues.
This is not to mention the long term effect on your brain. Heavy alcohol use increases the risk of stroke and can lead to dementia or impaired balance and coordination. In addition to alcohol dependency and addiction, heavy drinkers are at higher risk of depression, anxiety, and psychosis.
Luckily, cutting back on the amount or frequency of drinking can reduce these risks. The U.S. National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, recommends that men consume no more than four drinks on any day and no more than 14 drinks per week. Women should drink no more than three drinks a day and no more than seven per week.