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Is Increased Alcohol Tolerance Dangerous?

Man with high alcohol tolernace

Alcohol tolerance refers to heavy drinkers who need to consume an increasing amount of alcohol to produce the same effects as were produced before, with lesser amounts. An increased alcohol tolerance is the result of a combination of factors including body mass and gender, but the main reason for an elevated alcohol tolerance is expressed by a prolonged or heavy consumption of alcoholic beverages. There are two primary types of alcohol tolerance, one being the metabolic tolerance, and the other one referring to functional tolerance.

The first type of tolerance comes as a response to an increase in the use of alcohol, because of which the liver starts producing more of the enzyme alcohol dehydrogenase. A person with increased alcohol tolerance will have an elevated enzyme production which causes faster alcohol processing that is synonym with a lower blood alcohol concentration (BAC) and a faster elimination process. One of the dangers expressed by this kind of increased alcohol tolerance is that a larger production of alcohol dehydrogenase corresponding with an escalated liver activity can damage the liver.

The second type of alcohol tolerance, the functional tolerance, is a result of a chronic use of alcohol followed by the person’s desensitization. One of the concerns associated with this particular kind of alcohol tolerance is that although the drinker’s sensitivity to the alcohol’s effects may be decreased, the BAC levels of that person continue to rise.

The danger of increased alcohol tolerance is that this can lead people into thinking that as long as they don’t feel drunk their health is not at risk. This is a common misconception amongst those with increased alcohol tolerance. Truth is, any kind of alcohol tolerance, whether it is a high, or a low alcohol tolerance, has its dangers. In the latter case a low alcohol tolerance often characterizes novice drinkers who are more seriously affected by the effects of alcohol drinking. Drinkers with an increased alcohol tolerance cannot trust their body signals anymore in order to assess when they’ve had too much to drink, therefore they may end up drinking really large amounts with various health consequences, including alcoholic coma and death.

It is possible to assess one’s tolerance using an alcohol tolerance calculator, but such results are never completely accurate as the results depend on a variety of additional factors, including personal health and recent food consumption. People with a high alcohol tolerance can bring its value back to normal by taking a drinking pause of preferably 30 days, by limiting the number of drinks served to 4 standard drinks, and by avoiding consuming large amounts of alcohol at once since this leads to a rise in BAC levels which induces an increase in the liver enzymes responsible for tolerance.

If you can’t solve your alcohol problems alone, please seek for the help of your family. Let them support you and try to cooperate as much as possible. If this fails it means that your increased alcohol tolerance is too severe. It’s possible that you can’t withstand cravings and end-up drinking secretly.

In this case you should seriously consider to ask for professional help. From our experience, if you live in Florida, we can recommend you New Beginnings alcohol detox. They provide safe and comfortable alcohol detoxification programs on an outpatient basis. Each treatment is built after carefully analyzing the patients drinking habits and alcohol problems. If you’re too far away from Florida you can research the web for a similar alcohol detox center in your area.

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