• Alcohol Facts
    • What are the Unit Guidelines?
    • What happens if you drink too much?
    • Alcohol and Calories
    • Alcohol Myths and Facts
    • Talking to your children about alcohol
    • Alcohol and Mental health
  • Cutting Down
    • Support for drinking too much
    • Go Slo(w) - Tips to cut down
    • Alternatives to alcohol
    • What is Binge Drinking?
    • What is alcohol dependency?
    • Their drinking - your support
    • External Links
  • FAQs
  • Insights
  • Login
  • Take the Test
  • LOGIN
  • ALCOHOL FACTS
  • CUTTING DOWN
  • FAQs
  • BLOG
  • ABOUT
  • TAKE THE DRINK TEST
  • T&Cs

ALCOHOL FACTS

What happens if you drink too much?

Drinking too much alcohol in one go can lead – unsurprisingly - to intoxication, blackouts and loss of memory. This can also include vomiting and loss of control and inhibition. Drinking too much can also lead to unprovoked arguments, accidents, injury and embarrassment.

These are some of the short-term side effects of excessive drinking, however the longer term effects are sometimes more hidden as the body’s internal organs start to suffer from alcohol abuse.

Drinking above recommended guidelines means you are more likely to develop:

  • cancer
  • alcohol dependence
  • high blood pressure
  • liver disease
  • stroke

Depending on how much you drink you could be

  • 3 to 5 times more likely to get cancer of the mouth, neck and throat.
  • 3 to 10 times more likely to develop liver cirrhosis.
  • Twice as likely to have an irregular heartbeat.

In addition, men are four times more likely to develop high blood pressure.

And women are 1.5 times more likely to get breast cancer and twice as likely to develop high blood pressure

Related Content

What are the Unit Guidelines? Alcohol and Calories Alcohol Myths and Facts

Useful Resources

Find support I was slowly killing myself Tips to drink less
© Copyright 2025 Alcohol Health Network
  • About
  • FAQs
  • Contact Us
  • Privacy
  • T&Cs

This site uses cookies. By continuing to browse the site you are agreeing to our use of cookies. Find out more.

Accept