Alcohol Dependency: Not Your Knight in Shining Armor

Alcohol dependency would never lead to good things. Matters would prop up somewhere along the line, matters that are difficult to deal with. Health as well as relationship issues are effects of frequent or heavy drinking. This will certainly not bode well for anybody.

The most prominent organ that falls victim to alcohol dependency is the liver. The liver functions as the filter of the blood. It is the one that breaks alcohol into its basic components and is subject to the largest amounts of the substance. There is a certain limit to the amount of alcohol the liver can filter in an hour. Consistently exceeding such limits affects the liver such that it is hindered from functioning normally.

The liver’s functions are multifarious. It manufactures proteins that help in clotting blood when wounds occur, process or break down medicines a person ingests, make bile that breaks down proteins as well as fats and filters toxins and poisons out of the body. Alcohol abuse can get in the way of these functions and become a traitor-poisoning a person from within.

Alcohol liver disease is caused by alcohol dependency. The first is fatty liver that is a result of fat build-up within the liver. It has no symptoms and is given solution when one stops drinking. But if intake of alcohol is continued, the condition can worsen into alcoholic hepatitis also known as liver inflammation which maybe mild or severe. The mild type manifest no symptoms while the severe one can aggravate into liver cirrhosis which results from scar tissue accumulation within the liver that cause liver dysfunction.

Alcoholic liver disease vary in symptoms depending the on the type and severity of the condition. Generally they come in the form of heavy thirst, abdominal pain, fever, fatigue, jaundice, loss of appetite, unwanted weight gain, nausea, agitation, confusion, fainting, lethargy, attention deficiency, impaired judgment, red spots on the hands and feet, paleness, mood swings, dark black bowels, abnormally dark or light skin as well as vomiting blood.

Drinking will not stop hindering one from a brighter future and will not stop on its own. The habitual drinker needs to be the one to make the move. Choosing to end alcohol intake and asking help to be able to go through the process is a good decision. This will facilitate the gradual process of being alcohol-free which will in turn lead the person to a more healthy and longer life.