One in six Americans binge drink today. If binge drinking is such a widespread phenomenon, is it really that serious?
Yes. Over 2,000 deaths every year are the result of alcohol poisoning.
But what about binge drinking just on occasion? Excessive drinking, even by those who aren’t alcohol dependent, damages the body. And it can hurt those around you.
In this article, we’ll cover the dangers to yourself and others of binge drinking. And we’ll explain how you can stop.
Dangers of Binge Drinking
Binge drinking damages the body. Depending on the severity, it can impact everything from your liver to your brain.
Besides organ damage, drinking heavily increases the risk of cancer and chronic illness.
However, these symptoms usually appear over time. What can be immediate – after just one bout of binge drinking – is external damage.
External Dangers
Even if you escape internal damage, binge drinking immediately impairs your judgment. This mental danger easily and frequently leads to accidental injury.
As alcohol also impairs decision-making, excessive drinking can also lead to violence. STIs and unwanted pregnancies are also common results of overdrinking.
How to Get and Stay Sober
What if you’ve tried to stop binge drinking, but it hasn’t stuck?
That’s okay! You haven’t failed.
Binge drinking is a difficult habit to break, as it involves the body. The body craves what you stop feeding it, especially in the case of alcohol. To help you make progress, here are two ways to make sobriety stick.
Avoid Triggers
To help sober living stick, identify what triggers in you the need to drink. Triggers can be highly specific, such as:
- Emotional triggers
- Locations
- Social situations
Once you know what brings on the desire to drink, you can avoid it. By removing the biggest causes, your desire to drink will reduce dramatically.
For some people, this may be enough to help them stop drinking alcohol. But for more serious conditions, there are many treatment options to help.
Seek Treatment
Withdrawal can be a complicated process, as your mind and body adjust to a lack of alcohol. The key to getting sober is seeing these problems coming, and treating them.
For example, in extreme cases, alcohol withdrawal can lead to itching so intense that people damage their own skin. But once you find out about alcoholic itching, you can prepare yourself to endure it. Seek support from friends, family or medical professionals to cope.
Find Alcoholism Treatment that Works for You
There are several ways to recover from a binge-drinking lifestyle. These include everything from support programs to spending time in a rehabilitation center. Each of these treatments and all the options in between suit different types of binge drinking.
Wherever you or your loved one is in their sobriety journey, there are resources that will help. For more advice on alcoholism and sobriety, search “sober” in the bar at the top of our site.
