Medically Reviewed by Carmelita Swiner, MD on November 04, 2021 
Alcohol can affect your body in different ways, depending on how much you drink. In general, experts say it’s OK to have up to one drink a day if you’re a woman or two if you’re a man. Overdo it, and you raise your odds for short-term risks like falls and car crashes. 
If you drink heavily for a long time, alcohol can affect how your brain looks and works. Its cells start to change and even get smaller. Too much alcohol can actually shrink your brain. And that’ll have big effects on your ability to think, learn, and remember things. 
Alcohol’s slow-down effect on your brain can make you drowsy, so you may doze off more easily. But you won’t sleep well. Your body processes alcohol throughout the night. Once the effects wear off, it leaves you tossing and turning. You don’t get that good REM sleep your body needs to feel restored. 
Alcohol irritates the lining of your stomach and makes your digestive juices flow. If enough acid and alcohol build up, you get nauseated and you may throw up. Years of heavy drinking can cause painful sores called ulcers. It can also lead to irritation of the lining of the stomach, called gastritis. 
our small intestine and colon get irritated, too. Alcohol throws off the normal speed that food moves through them. That’s why hard drinking can lead to diarrhea, which can turn into a long-term problem. It also makes heartburn more likely because it relaxes the muscle that keeps acid out of your esophagus, the tube that connects your mouth and stomach. 
Your brain helps your body stay well-hydrated by producing a hormone that keeps your kidneys from making too much urine. But when alcohol swings into action, it tells your brain to hold off on making that hormone. That means you have to go more often, which can leave you dehydrated. When you drink heavily for years, that extra workload and the toxic effects of alcohol can wear your kidneys down. 
Your liver breaks down almost all the alcohol you drink. In the process, it handles a lot of toxins. Over time, heavy drinking makes the organ fatty and lets thicker, fibrous tissue build up. That limits blood flow, so liver cells don’t get what they need to survive. As they die off, the liver gets scars and stops working as well, a disease called cirrhosis. 
Normally, this organ makes insulin and other chemicals that help your intestines break down food. But drinking too much alcohol jams that process up. The chemicals stay inside the pancreas. Along with toxins from alcohol, they can cause inflammation in the organ over time, which can lead to serious damage. 
That cotton-mouthed, bleary-eyed morning-after is no accident. Alcohol makes you dehydrated and makes blood vessels in your body and brain expand. That gives you your headache. Your stomach wants to get rid of the toxins and acid that alcohol churns up, which gives you nausea and vomiting. 
One night of binge drinking can jumble the electrical signals that keep your heart’s rhythm steady. If you do it for years, you can make those heart rhythm changes permanent and cause what’s called arrhythmia. And alcohol can wear your heart out. Over time, it causes heart muscles to droop and stretch, like an old rubber band. 
Alcohol widens your blood vessels, making more blood flow to your skin. That makes you blush and feel warm and toasty. But not for long. The heat from that extra blood passes right out of your body, causing your temperature to drop. On the other hand, long-term heavy drinking boosts your blood pressure. 
You might not link a cold to a night of drinking, but there might be a connection. Alcohol puts the brakes on your body’s defenses, or immune system. Your body can’t make the numbers of white blood cells it needs to fight germs. So for 24 hours after drinking too much, you’re more likely to get sick. Long-term heavy drinkers are much more likely to get illnesses like pneumonia and tuberculosis. 
These powerful chemicals manage everything from your sex drive to how fast you digest food. To keep it all going smoothly, you need them in the right balance. But drinking alcohol may have an impact. For example, some studies suggest that moderate alcohol drinking can affect fertility for some women. 
Alcohol impacts your hearing, but no one’s sure exactly how. It could be that it messes with the part of your brain that processes sound. Or it might damage the nerves and tiny hairs in your inner ear that help you hear. However it happens, drinking means you need a sound to be louder so you can hear it. 
Heavy drinking can throw off your calcium levels. Along with the hormone changes that alcohol triggers, that can keep your body from building new bone. Your bones get thinner and more fragile, a condition called osteoporosis. Alcohol also limits blood flow to your muscles and gets in the way of the proteins that build them up. Over time, you’ll have lower muscle mass and less strength.
Why does my body temp go up after drinking alcohol?
Why do I feel hot after drinking alcohol? – Your body temperature control, known as thermoregulation, is impacted when you consume alcohol. The alcohol causes unusual thermoregulation activity as it influences the mechanisms your body uses to either warm you up or cool you down.
As you drink alcohol your liver has the job of digesting it. Your liver can only digest so much alcohol at a time and the more you drink the longer it takes for the liver to perform this task. During this time, your liver gives off heat as it works and blood alcohol levels rise. Over this period the alcohol in your system acts as a ‘vasodilator’,
This means that the alcohol widens and relaxes your blood vessels. As people who flush red when they drink know, alcohol increases blood flow to the skin (called ‘vasodilation’). “This increases skin temperature and makes you feel warm,” says Professor of human and applied physiology Michael Tipton.
Does alcohol warm your body temperature?
Myth 1: Drinking alcohol can keep you warm in the winter Just one alcoholic drink can make you feel as if you’re warmer, but it actually lowers your core body temperature and increases your risk of hypothermia. That’s because drinking alcohol reverses the normal process and reflexes that control our body temperature.
Is it normal to get a fever after drinking?
Types of Alcohol Related Liver Disease –
Alcholol Related Steatohepatitis (ASH): Fat accumulates inside liver cells, making it hard for the liver to work properly. This early stage of liver disease occurs fairly soon after repeated heavy drinking. Usually it is symptom free but upper abdominal pain on the right side from an enlarged liver may occur. Steatosis goes away with alcohol abstinence. Alcoholic Hepatitis: This condition is marked by inflammation, swelling and the killing of liver cells. This scars the liver, which is known as fibrosis. Symptoms may occur over time or suddenly after binge drinking. They include fever, jaundice, nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain and tenderness. Up to 35 percent of heavy drinkers develop alcohol hepatitis, which can be mild or severe. If it is a mild case, stopping the drinking can reverse it. Alcohol Related Cirrhosis : The most serious form of ALD, it occurs when the entire liver is scarred, causing the liver to shrink and harden. This can lead to liver failure. Usually the damage cannot be reversed. Between 10 to 20 percent of heavy drinkers develop cirrhosis typically after 10 or more years of drinking.
Alcohol hepatitis and alcohol cirrhosis previously were called alcohol steatohepatitis (ASH), a term that still arises among some circles.
Can I take paracetamol after drinking alcohol?
Can I drink alcohol while taking paracetamol? Drinking a small amount of alcohol while taking paracetamol is usually safe. Try to keep to the recommended guidelines of no more than 14 units of alcohol a week.
How long does it take for liver to recover from alcohol?
How ARLD is treated – There’s currently no specific medical treatment for ARLD. The main treatment is to stop drinking, preferably for the rest of your life. This reduces the risk of further damage to your liver and gives it the best chance of recovering.
- If a person is dependent on alcohol, stopping drinking can be very difficult.
- However, support, advice and medical treatment may be available through local alcohol support services,
- A liver transplant may be required in severe cases where the liver has stopped functioning and doesn’t improve when you stop drinking alcohol.
You’ll only be considered for a liver transplant if you’ve developed complications of cirrhosis, despite having stopped drinking. All liver transplant units require a person to not drink alcohol while awaiting the transplant, and for the rest of their life.
How can you tell if you have an alcohol allergy?
Symptoms – Signs and symptoms of alcohol intolerance — or of a reaction to ingredients in an alcoholic beverage — can include:
Facial redness (flushing) Red, itchy skin bumps (hives) Worsening of pre-existing asthma Runny or stuffy nose Low blood pressure Nausea and vomiting Diarrhea