You hear this sometimes “oh Jimmy? Yeah he drank himself to death after his wife died” But this actually possible? Does the body reach a point where it can’t process alcohol at a certain point?
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Specifically, alcohol is a *GABA agonist*. What that means is that alcohol activates the same receptors that the neurotransmitter GABA activates.
GABA is an important neurotransmitter in your brain that turns neurons off and limits how active they can be. It’s essentially an *off* button for neurons. That is *super* important because without it the neurons would go out of control, causing seizures and other problems. That’s what happens if you drink too much too often and then suddenly stop. Your brain has stopped producing as much GABA, relying on the alcohol to do the job. When you suddenly stop drinking, there isn’t enough GABA to make up for the lack of alcohol and it causes problems.
The flip side is that too much alcohol at one time overwhelms the GABA receptors, limiting the neurons too much. Your brain can’t function and starts shutting down which then affects things like your breathing and heartbeat. This is acute alcohol poisoning.
Alcohol is also mildly toxic to all of your cells, so your liver breaks it down to protect your body. Too much alcohol can overwhelm your liver and damage cells throughout your body. It also thins your blood and damages your blood vessels. So, again, too much at one time will kill you that way.
Chronic overdrinking similarly damages your body, but in smaller bits that your body can’t quite fix, so it accumulates. In particular, alcohol interferes with your liver’s ability to remove scar tissue and regenerate itself. Over time, this causes a build up of scar tissue in your liver, limiting its ability to function to remove other toxins in your body. This is *cirrhosis*. Eventually, toxins start building up that damage your body and you die.
The alcohol is also weakening your blood vessels and damaging your heart, leading to heart disease. So you are also at risk of a heart attack or stroke. Just to make it even worse, alcohol is a mild carcinogen, so it increases your risk of cancer.
To be clear, drinking responsibly is not a significant health risk. Heavy binge drinking and over-drinking often are health problems.
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