Higher-risk drinkers
If you’re in this group, you have an even higher risk of damaging your health compared with increasing-risk drinkers.
Higher-risk drinking is:
• regularly drinking more than 8 units a day or 50 units a week if you're a man
• regularly drinking more than 6 units a day or 35 units a week if you're a woman
Again, alcohol affects the whole body and can play a role in numerous medical conditions. You have a much higher risk of developing alcohol-related health problems. Your body has probably suffered some damage already, even if you’re not yet aware of it.
Compared to non-drinkers, if you regularly drink above higher-risk levels:
• You could be 3-5 times more likely to get cancer of the mouth, neck and throat.
• You could be 3-10 times more likely to develop liver cirrhosis.
• Men could have four times the risk of having high blood pressure, and women are at least twice as likely to develop it.
• You could be twice as likely to have an irregular heartbeat.
• Women are around 1.5 times as likely to get breast cancer.
The more you drink above the higher-risk threshold, the greater the risks. So some of the health risks can be even higher than those above. You’re likely to have the same problems as increasing-risk drinkers: feeling tired or depressed, or gaining extra weight.
You may be sleeping poorly or having sexual problems. And, like increasing-risk drinkers but possibly more so, you’re likely to be in worse physical shape than you would be otherwise, whatever your age or sex. You could also have high blood pressure.
At these levels, your drinking may make you argumentative, which might damage your relationships with family and friends.