How to know when it's time to give up alcohol: 7 alarm bells

1. Your skin is deteriorating

Dryness and wrinkles are not always “symptoms” of age. Alcohol is capable to summon dehydration, so the next morning after a fun evening you are thirsty. Due to alcohol, water more actively leaves the subcutaneous tissue, and with it the elasticity of the skin decreases. It is easy to check this: pinch yourself and see how fast the fold will return to its original form - after drinking drinks with a degree, the skin will regenerate more slowly.

In addition, pores may become more noticeable, cheekbones may lose their sharpness and "swell", and the skin may begin to sag and peel off. At first, such changes can still be masked with cosmetics. But long-term alcohol consumption leads to the loss of vitamins responsible for the accumulation of collagen - a protein that makes the skin smooth and elastic. In the long term, addiction often leads to a permanent (and not at all healthy) blush and vascular network - these are the consequences of capillary ruptures that occur due to thickening of the blood.

2. Weight gain

Ethyl alcohol activatesAgrp neuron activity is required for alcohol-induced overeating / Nat Commun 8 cells in the brain that are responsible for feeling hungry. Therefore, gatherings in a bar so often end in a cafe with fast food. But even without additional products, alcohol supplies a lot of calories to the body: 0.5 liters of beer containsCalories in alcohol / The National Health Service 239 calories - like 100 grams of baked goods.

Excess weight is gained not only by the sum of calories, but also due to the damage that alcohol causes to the digestive tract. High-degree drinks can add different diagnoses to the medical record. Doctors Link Drinking With Increased Risk Of Oral CancerMouth cancer / Causes / The National Health Service, intestinesBowel cancer / Causes / The National Health Service and larynxLaryngeal (larynx) cancer / Prevention / The National Health Service. And it seems that everyone knows that alcohol is not on friendly terms with the liver and pancreas.

3. Surrounded by no teetotal friends

People in a state of addiction gradually acquire a specific social circle: only those with whom you can drink are included in the list of friends. Anything that interferes with drinking alcohol - work, family, children, household chores and pets - goes into the "burden" category. It is easy to calculate such companies in your environment: before meeting with them, the question "What are we going to do?" is replaced by "What are we going to drink?"

Caring for loved ones and pointing out abuse begin to irritate. And such a reaction can also be a marker of the onset of addiction. Drinking alcohol stimulates the production of endorphins, but the effect is short-lived: after takeoff, the artificially created level of happiness will quickly drop, and then the body will require more fun. Attempts by relatives to break this vicious circle can be perceived by a brain hungry for pleasure as completely unfriendly.

4. More and more often you hear the question "Why don't you remember ?!"

The point is not only that in the morning people sometimes cannot remember the bright episodes of a high-degree evening. Alcohol is a killer of brain cells, and therefore memory in general. Oxford study showedModerate alcohol consumption as risk factor for adverse brain outcomes and cognitive decline: longitudinal cohort study / The BMJthat high degrees harm the hippocampus - the part of the brain that is responsible for the formation of emotions, the translation of short-term memory into long-term memory and concentration. The negative influence of alcohol on the density and volume of gray matter was also confirmed.

It turns out that drinking harms all channels of sensory perception of the world: not only sight, hearing and touch, but all the same memory, emotions and speech. So if you become suspiciously often forgetting your keys at home, losing your phone in your backpack and leaving the store without shopping, you should remember how much alcohol has been drunk lately. And adjust your lifestyle.

5. More and more alcohol is needed to get drunk

Evolution is arranged in such a way that living organisms get used to and adapt to everything. This is a necessary survival property for any creature. But sometimes a useful mechanism turns into degradation. One such example is the development of alcohol tolerance. At first, for a state of mild euphoria, a couple of sips of wine are enough. Then a full glass is needed for the intoxication effect. And then it begins to seem that the bottle has no effect either. But this is not a reason to rejoice - such changes only show that the body is losing its ability to perceive alcohol as a toxin.

6. Craving for alcohol occurs even in the morning.

Champagne for breakfast is not a habit of aristocrats, but of people with addictions. And if in the morning the house smells not of pancakes and coffee, but of alcohol - this is a reason to conduct an honest dialogue with yourself and admit the problem. It’s important to remember that drinking doesn’t stop a hangover. In fact, there is no cure for this condition. The only thing you can do to avoid morning breakdown is not to drink alcohol at all.

If the hangover has already arrived, you should only drink non-carbonated water. Morning sickness with trembling limbs and a sore head is the result of poisoning and dehydration that the body experiences every time it encounters alcohol. Restoring water balance will help the liver and excretory system to quickly get rid of alcohol breakdown products in the body.

7. You don't need company to drink

The body suffers from drinking anyway - with friends, with parents, at a bar or on vacation - there is neither a truly safe dose nor a truly safe environment for drinking alcohol. But the next critical point can be considered the moment when a person starts drinking alone. When a person needs a company, this creates certain restrictions for the development of addiction. For solo use, these limits are lifted. The same thing happens when there is no need for an excuse to drink. “Only on holidays” turns into “on weekends”, and then into “every day is a holiday”.

Alone, it is more difficult to keep track of the amount of alcohol consumed, besides, drinking solo is dangerous and the fact that in In the event of a fall, burn or injury, there may not be anyone nearby to help or cause ambulance. And the risks of death in such cases are supported by frightening statistics.WHO alcohol fact sheet WHO: Alcohol causes about three million deaths every year.