While drinking alcohol is a source of enjoyment for many older adults, it can also pose health risks. These risks include memory loss, injuries, and potentially harmful interactions with commonly prescribed medications, even at low levels of alcohol consumption. In January 2021, the University of Michigan National Poll on Healthy Aging asked a national sample of adults age 50–80 about their alcohol use and reasons for drinking.

Rising alcohol use among older adults

When participants also were given an infusion of alcohol, this decreased by another 19%. Receive free access to exclusive content, a personalized homepage based on your interests, and a weekly newsletter with topics of your choice. Many alcoholics rationalize their addiction, thinking that it is only themselves they are affecting.

Finding Help For Those Who Alcoholism Affects

• This puts older adults at higher risks for falls, car crashes, and other unintentional injuries that may result from drinking.
• Extrinsic aging is when your skin ages faster than it should because of your environment and how you live.
• These risks include memory loss, injuries, and potentially harmful interactions with commonly prescribed medications, even at low levels of alcohol consumption.
• It can open the doors to temptation, to find relaxation in a bottle.
• Today more than 10 percent of adults 65 and older are binge drinkers, according to a 2019 study of nearly 11,000 U.S. adults published in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.
• Our 20-something daughter fled New York and moved back home, bringing Brooklyn cocktail culture with her.

The harm and potential death of a patient can be the beginning of a dark spiral, especially if it happens while under the influence. Due to the higher risk of discrimination and stigma compared to non-LGBTQ demographics, the abuse of alcohol is also more likely to lead to co-occurring disorders. Dealing with these issues without someone who understands the depth of the situation can add unnecessary difficulty. Putting aside the sheer number of deaths and assaults that have resulted from college drinking and looking solely at the academic issues, 1 in 4 students admitted to having experienced academic issues because of drinking. Dropping classes, missing deadlines, and being put on academic probation can potentially jeopardize the student’s future and chance at their dream career.

Taking the Presidential Physical Fitness Test

• You’ve likely amassed years of skills and experience during your life and career that can be passed to benefit the younger generation.
• Some studies have found that LGBTQ+ people have higher rates of alcohol use, and are at higher risk of developing an alcohol use disorder.
• Here are signs that you may be drinking more than is healthy.
• As you get older, alcohol starts to affect you more than usual.
• On top of that, an individual’s brain is still developing well into their twenties.
• Many people who drink wade into this territory, going past the zone of unknown risk and into more dangerous drinking behaviors.
• Similarly, those who reported feeling isolated some of the time or often in the past year were more likely to have increased drinking during the pandemic than those who hardly ever felt isolated (19% vs. 10%).

Other evidence of alcohol-related signs of aging is mostly anecdotal and includes stories of alcohol leading to wrinkles and inflammation. Skin, however, does have the ability to bounce back (for the most part), depending on the length of the heavy drinking. People also sometimes start drinking more with retirement, which brings more time and opportunity, says Jeffrey Johnson, an addiction medicine specialist at Northwestern Medicine Central DuPage Hospital in Winfield, Illinois. People older than 65 who don’t take any medications should average no more than one drink a day (seven per week) and have no more than three at one sitting. (A drink is one 12-ounce can or bottle of beer, one 5-ounce glass of wine, or one 1.5-ounce shot of an 80-proof or less liquor.) Talk with your doctor to find out what’s right for you.

Tip 4: Look for healthier ways to cope with stress

However, you can always take steps to adopt a healthier relationship with alcohol. The first step is to learn about common reasons for drinking, signs of excessive drinking, and the unique risks alcohol poses to older adults. I ask Koob if just drinking more water would dilute the alcohol in my system. Staying hydrated https://ecosoberhouse.com/article/causes-of-alcoholism-why-are-people-alcoholics/ may help limit a blood-alcohol surge, he says, but the physiology of aging will prevail. And the old trick of alternating drinks with something nonalcoholic can help you pace yourself, he adds. But that system may indicate you’re still planning on drinking too much in one session and risking harm to your liver.

• Invite them to a simple outing, like a walk in the park, so you can get to know each other better.
• (Our sense of thirst, funnily enough, is dulled with age.) Alcohol pulls water from your body, hence my cotton mouth and headache.
• That means the beer or two you could drink without consequence in your 30s or 40s has more impact in your 60s or 70s.
• It can impact your physical, emotional, and spiritual health, too—making you not only look but also feel older than you are.

Drinking Across the Lifespan: Focus on Older Adults

• The effects of alcohol on the brain are more potent in older people.
• However, some data suggest men drink an average of 3.5 servings of beer or 1.8 servings of wine on days when they drink beer and wine.
• As people start to get older, many find it harder to cope with the changes that they see every day.
• Because of this, older adults must drink responsibly more than ever.
• If you drink it in moderation (about one glass a day), some studies show that it might be good for your heart.

Brief interventions can be used during medical visits to address concerns with alcohol use. These interventions should emphasize education on how the health risks of alcohol use change as people age. Health professionals should also routinely ask older adults about whether they use any other drugs when drinking alcohol and counsel them about the risks of combining alcohol with other drugs. Adult women on the whole drink less alcohol than men and have lower rates of alcohol-related disease and death.

Your Body and Alcohol

However, when they allow their addiction to enter their place of work, they can be setting off a chain reaction that harms many others down the line. Alcoholism doesn’t discriminate; it can affect any age, sex, gender, race, or education. Notably, the vast majority of these deaths were among men, with the highest prevalence in the age group. I wanted to say thank you to my section leaders in the Section of Cardiovascular Medicine, Drs. Eric Velazquez and Steven Pfau who have supported my research by giving me a lot of protected research time. As a cardiologist who primarily sees older adults at the VA, many of my patients have exposures to ischemic injury, trauma, and toxins that cause cell injury.

We strive to create content that is clear, concise, and easy to understand. No content on this site, regardless of date, should ever be used as a substitute for direct medical advice from your doctor or other qualified clinician. AARP is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that empowers people to choose how they live as they age. Log in or create an account for a personalized does alcohol make you look older experience based on your selected interests. They can be well educated, successful, and affluent, but their AUD still causes a strain on their lives and relationships, hurting the ones closest to them. They may not realize it until something negative happens, like they are arrested or cause a major accident, but their addiction is just as damaging as any other.

It also affects the healthy functioning of your digestive system, making it harder for you to absorb essential nutrients. This includes vitamins A, B, D, and E; minerals like calcium, magnesium, iron, and zinc; and even basics like proteins and carbohydrates. Alcohol’s all-around negative effect on nutrition means that heavy drinkers often become malnourished. This limits the body’s ability to maintain itself, resulting in faster aging.