Negative effects of alcohol poisoning

Alcohol poisoning can be described as a severe and occasionally deadly outcome of excessive drinking of alcohol within a short period of time. Excessive drinking of alcohol has significant impacts on an individual's breathing, gag reflex, and heart rate. As a result, alcohol poisoning or excessive drinking has the potential of leading to coma and death. This condition can also be attributed to binge drinking, which is consuming five or more drinks in a row. Furthermore, the condition can also happen when a person consumes household goods that contain alcohol either intentionally or accidentally. While excessive drinking causes several damages to the body, most of these damages are usually linked to long-term abuse of the body. An individual suffering from the damaging effects of alcohol poisoning should seek urgent medical attention in order to prevent severe danger. One of the major ways to avoid serious danger from these side effects is through knowing the symptoms of the condition ("Alcohol Poisoning Symptoms," par, 1).

Symptoms of Alcohol Poisoning:

Generally, a patient with alcohol poisoning tends to experience suppression of nerves that control involuntary actions. As a result, the individual's ability to breathe or gag reflex will be jeopardized to an extent that he/she loses consciousness, experiences choking, and faces high risk of death. However, the common symptoms of alcohol poisoning include respiration trouble as the person's experiences shallow and scattered breathing. Consequently, the individual is likely to develop a blue or purple tinged skin or even colder skin because of lack of oxygen getting into the bloodstream.

Secondly, patients with alcohol poisoning have coordination problems since they lose their ability to control themselves. Therefore, his/her behavior seems erratic while the emotional responses become predictable as they suffer from frequent mood swings. The third common symptom of alcohol poisoning is alertness where the individual may appear to be in a confused trance. During this period, the patient has difficulties in awareness of current events or may utter words and phrases that don't make sense. Fourth, patients with alcohol poisoning usually become nauseated to an extent that they vomit uncontrollably. The uncontrollable vomit is attributed to desperate attempts by his/her body to get rid of any alcohol that has not entered into the system yet. There are other signs and symptoms to look out for that indicate a succession from being drunk to alcohol poisoning. They include confusion and hypothermia, which occurs as the individual's body temperature drops.

How Does Alcohol Poisoning Occur?

When a person consumes an alcoholic drink, his/her needs to filter out the poisonous alcohol or toxin from his/her blood (Nordqvist, par, 3). Generally, the human body absorbs alcohol more rapidly than food, which implies that alcohol gets into the bloodstream much faster. Despite of the rapid absorption of alcohol into the bloodstream, the liver can only process a small amount of alcohol i.e. nearly one unit of alcoholic content each hour. Therefore, if a person consumes two units of alcohol in an hour, his/her body will have an extra unit of alcohol in the bloodstream. As a result, the more the individual consumes, the higher the likelihood of him/her to have more units of alcohol in the bloodstream.

In essence, the faster a person drinks alcohol, the higher his/her blood alcohol concentration becomes because of more units in the bloodstream. Excessive drinking of alcohol within a short period of time rapidly increases the person's blood alcohol concentration to an extent that his/her mental and physical functions are negatively affected. Actually, the individual's heartbeat, breathing, and gag reflex may not work effectively since they are functions controlled by the nerves. If the person's blood alcohol concentration is high enough, his/her physical functions may stop working and the patient may eventually pass out or stop breathing. Therefore, the ability of alcohol poisoning to occur is dependent on the level of blood alcohol concentration during or after consumption of such drinks.

Negative Effects of Alcohol Poisoning:

Alcohol poisoning is considered as a fatal condition that is caused by drinking excessive amounts of alcohol in a short period of time. However, this condition is also associated with other negative effects including & #8230;

Ineffective Functioning of the Body:

As previously mentioned, a person's blood alcohol concentration increases as he/she consumes more alcohol, which is absorbed into the bloodstream. The higher the blood alcohol concentration level, the more the severity of its effects on body functioning. One of the major negative effects of alcohol poisoning is ineffective functioning of the body because alcohol affects nerves that control the body's automatic functions or actions like breathing. Since alcohol depresses these nerves, more consumption will ultimately stop involuntary actions and functions ("Facts About Alcohol Poisoning," p.1).

Notably, a person's blood alcohol concentration can continue to rise even when he/she has passed out. Moreover, alcohol in the intestine and stomach continues to get into the bloodstream and circulate in the entire body even after the individual stops drinking. Therefore, it is extremely dangerous to assume that such an individual will be fine through sleeping off the drunkenness.

While it is normal for a person who drank excessive alcohol to vomit because the drink is an irritant to the stomach, a victim of alcohol poisoning faces the danger of choking on vomit. This could contribute to death by asphyxiation for an unconscious patient because of the resultant intoxication.

Dependence of Alcohol:

Alcohol poisoning is likely to contribute to alcohol dependence because of addiction to the drink. Since alcohol poisoning affects involuntary actions of the body, the individual is likely to become dependent on alcohol to an extent that he/she experiences withdrawal symptoms when trying to stop the habit. The dependence on alcohol may make the person unable to function effectively without taking some amount of alcohol.

Negative Health Effects:

As a life-threatening consequence of binge drinking, alcohol poisoning can lead to severe health effects on the patient or victim. Some of these negative health effects include low blood pressure, drop in body temperature, double or blurred vision, reduced blood sugar concentration, impaired judgment, inadequate muscular coordination, and coma ("Why is Binge Drinking Bad for You?" par, 7).