These symptoms often occur in stages, depending on how intoxicated a person is. The table below shows common symptoms at each level of alcohol intoxication. A person’s breathing and blood circulation will be extremely slowed. Their motor responses and gag reflexes are nonfunctional, and their body temperature drops. The stages range from moderate consumption and occasional binge drinking to severe AUD. When people drink alcohol, it passes through the stomach and into the small intestine.
Finding support
- PHPs accept new patients as well as people who have completed an inpatient program of 1 to 2 weeks but still need focused recovery care.
- You must seek emergency medical treatment for a person who’s showing symptoms of alcohol poisoning.
- Contributors to this article for the NIAAA Core Resource on Alcohol include the writers for the full article, content contributors to subsections, reviewers, and editorial staff.
Teenagers and young adults often binge drink or engage in high intensity drinking. Despite many people gaining a pleasant intoxicating effect from alcohol, the substance is a depressant. Specifically, it slows areas of your brain that are responsible for basic life functions. This includes breathing, heart rate, body temperature, and gag reflex, which prevents you from choking. The early stage of alcohol dependence is characterized by noticeable lifestyle changes.
What are the symptoms of alcohol intoxication?
Choking on one’s vomit would be disastrous and may even be fatal, so we have to monitor people reaching this stage closely. You’ll need to go to hospital to be monitored if you have alcohol poisoning. It can cause serious complications, like liver and heart failure, which can be fatal.
Alcohol poisoning prevention
- Someone with alcohol poisoning will be breathing slowly or irregularly, have cold skin, be vomiting a lot, and perhaps have a seizure or lose consciousness.
- Our writers include physicians, pharmacists, and registered nurses with firsthand clinical experience.
- When BAC reaches high levels, blackouts (gaps in memory), loss of consciousness (passing out), and death can occur.
- A person is sober or low-level intoxicated if they have consumed one or fewer alcoholic drinks per hour.
- In addition to being aware of alcohol poisoning symptoms, you should also understand what you can do to prevent it from happening.
If you feel that you sometimes drink too much alcohol, or your drinking is causing problems, or if your family is concerned about your drinking, talk with your health care provider. Other ways to get help include talking with a mental health professional or seeking help from a support group such as Alcoholics Anonymous or a similar type of self-help group. Unhealthy alcohol stages of alcohol poisoning use includes any alcohol use that puts your health or safety at risk or causes other alcohol-related problems. It also includes binge drinking — a pattern of drinking where a male has five or more drinks within two hours or a female has at least four drinks within two hours. Over time, excessive drinking can lead to mental health problems, such as depression and anxiety.
