The impact of alcohol on aging is multifaceted. Evidence shows that alcoholism or chronic alcohol consumption can cause both accelerated (or premature) aging – in which symptoms of aging appear earlier than normal – and exaggerated aging, in which the symptoms appear at the appropriate time but in a more exaggerated form. The effects of alcohol abuse/misuse on the aging process include hypertension, cardiac dysrhythmia, cancers, gastrointestinal disorders, neurocognitive deficits, bone loss, and emotional disturbances especially depression. On the other hand, research also shows that drinking moderate amounts of alcohol may protect healthy adults from developing coronary heart disease. The American Heart Association cautions people not to start drinking, if you are not already drinking.

Alcohol is a potent neurotoxin. The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism has found, "Alcoholism may accelerate normal aging or cause premature aging of the brain." Another report by the same agency found, "Chronic alcohol consumption, as well as chronic glucocorticoid exposure, can result in premature and/or exaggerated aging." Specifically, alcohol activates the HPA axis, causing glucocorticoid secretion and thus elevating levels of stress hormones in the body. Chronic exposure to these hormones results in an acceleration of the aging process, which is associated with "gradual, but often dramatic, changes over time in almost every physiological system in the human body. Combined, these changes result in decreased efficiency and resiliency of physiological function." Chronic stress and chronic heavy alcohol use cause a similar premature aging effect, including nerve cell degeneration in the hippocampus.

The long-term effects of alcohol (also known formally as ethanol) consumption range from cardioprotective health benefits for low to moderate alcohol consumption in industrialized societies with higher rates of cardiovascular disease to severe detrimental effects in cases of chronic alcohol abuse. Health effects associated with alcohol intake in large amounts include an increased risk of alcoholism, malnutrition, chronic pancreatitis, ], and cancer. In addition, damage to the central nervous system and peripheral nervous system can occur from chronic alcohol abuse. The long-term use of alcohol is capable of damaging nearly every organ and system in the body. The developing adolescent brain is particularly vulnerable to the toxic effects of alcohol. In addition, the developing fetal brain is also vulnerable, and fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASDs) may result if pregnant mothers consume alcohol.

The inverse relation in Western cultures between alcohol consumption and cardiovascular disease has been known for over 100 years. Many physicians do not promote alcohol consumption, however, given the many health concerns associated with it, some suggest that alcohol should be regarded as a recreational drug, and promote exercise and good nutrition to combat cardiovascular disease. Others have argued that the benefits of moderate alcohol consumption may be outweighed by other increased risks, including those of injuries, violence, fetal damage, liver disease, and certain forms of cancer. Alcohol liver disease (ALD) accounted for four fifths of all chronic diseases in Ireland in 2013.

Withdrawal effects and dependence are also almost identical. Alcohol at moderate levels has some positive and negative effects on health. The negative effects include increased risk of liver diseases, oropharyngeal cancer, esophageal cancer and pancreatitis. Conversely moderate intake of alcohol may have some beneficial effects on gastritis and cholelithiasis. Of the total number of deaths and diseases caused by alcohol, most happen to the majority of the population who are moderate drinkers, rather than the heavy drinker minority. Chronic alcohol misuse and abuse has serious effects on physical and mental health. Chronic excess alcohol intake, or alcohol dependence, can lead to a wide range of neuropsychiatric or neurological impairment, cardiovascular disease, liver disease, and malignant neoplasms. The psychiatric disorders which are associated with alcoholism include major depression, dysthymia, mania, hypomania, panic disorder, phobias, generalized anxiety disorder, personality disorders, schizophrenia, suicide, neurologic deficits (e.g. impairments of working memory, emotions, executive functions, visuospatial abilities and gait and balance) and brain damage. Alcohol dependence is associated with hypertension, coronary heart disease, and ischemic stroke, cancer of the respiratory system, and also cancers of the digestive system, liver, breast and ovaries. Heavy drinking is associated with liver disease, such as cirrhosis. Excessive alcohol consumption can have a negative impact on aging.

Recent studies have focused on understanding the mechanisms by which moderate alcohol consumption confers cardiovascular benefit.

Alcohol (also known as ethanol) has a number of effects on health. Short-term effects of alcohol consumption include intoxication and dehydration. Long-term effects of alcohol consumption include changes in the metabolism of the liver and brain and alcoholism. Alcohol intoxication affects the brain, causing slurred speech, clumsiness, and delayed reflexes. Alcohol stimulates insulin production, which speeds up glucose metabolism and can result in low blood sugar, causing irritability and possibly death for diabetics. A 2014 World Health Organization report found that harmful alcohol consumption caused about 3.3 million deaths annually worldwide.

However, some effects of alcohol consumption are beneficial. Although even moderate alcohol consumption increased the risk of death in younger people, it has been shown to "decrease" the risk of death for individuals ages 55+ (due to decreased risk of ischemic heart disease).

The median lethal dose of alcohol in test animals is a blood alcohol content of 0.45%. This is about six times the level of ordinary intoxication (0.08%), but vomiting or unconsciousness may occur much sooner in people who have a low tolerance for alcohol. The high tolerance of chronic heavy drinkers may allow some of them to remain conscious at levels above 0.40%, although serious health hazards are incurred at this level.

Alcohol also limits the production of vasopressin (ADH) from the hypothalamus and the secretion of this hormone from the posterior pituitary gland. This is what causes severe dehydration when alcohol is consumed in large amounts. It also causes a high concentration of water in the urine and vomit and the intense thirst that goes along with a hangover.

Stress, hangovers, and the oral contraceptive pill may increase the desire for alcohol because these things will lower the level of testosterone and alcohol will acutely elevate it. Tobacco has the same effect of increasing the craving for alcohol.

Individuals with an alcohol use disorder will often complain of difficulty with interpersonal relationships, problems at work or school, and legal problems. Additionally, people may complain of irritability and insomnia. Alcohol abuse is also an important cause of chronic fatigue.

Signs of alcohol abuse are related to alcohol's effects on organ systems. However, while these findings are often present, they are not necessary to make a diagnosis of alcohol abuse. Signs of alcohol abuse show its drastic effects on the central nervous system, including inebriation and poor judgment; chronic anxiety, irritability, and insomnia. Alcohol's effects on the liver include elevated liver function tests (classically AST is at least twice as high as ALT). Prolonged use leads to cirrhosis and liver failure. With cirrhosis, patients develop an inability to process hormones and toxins. The skin of a patient with alcoholic cirrhosis can feature cherry angiomas, palmar erythema and — in acute liver failure — jaundice and ascites. The derangements of the endocrine system lead to the enlargement of the male breasts. The inability to process toxins leads to liver disease, such as hepatic encephalopathy.

Alcohol abuse can result in brain damage which causes impairments in executive functioning such as impairments to working memory, visuospatial skills, and can cause an abnormal personality as well as affective disorders to develop. Binge drinking is associated with individuals reporting fair to poor health compared to non-binge drinking individuals and which may progressively worsen over time. Alcohol also causes impairment in a person's critical thinking. A person's ability to reason in stressful situations is compromised, and they seem very inattentive to what is going on around them. Social skills are significantly impaired in people suffering from alcoholism due to the neurotoxic effects of alcohol on the brain, especially the prefrontal cortex area of the brain. The social skills that are impaired by alcohol abuse include impairments in perceiving facial emotions, difficulty with perceiving vocal emotions and theory of mind deficits; the ability to understand humour is also impaired in alcohol abusers. Adolescent binge drinkers are most sensitive to damaging neurocognitive functions especially executive functions and memory. People who abuse alcohol are less likely to survive critical illness with a higher risk for having sepsis and were more likely to die during hospitalization.

Alcohol abuse among pregnant women causes their baby to develop fetal alcohol syndrome. Fetal alcohol syndrome is the pattern of physical abnormalities and the impairment of mental development which is seen with increasing frequency among children with alcoholic mothers. Alcohol exposure in a developing fetus can result in slowed development of the fetal brain, resulting in severe retardation or death. Surviving infants may suffer severe abnormalities such as abnormal eyes, fissures, lips and incomplete cerebella. Some infants may develop lung disease. It is even possible that the baby throughout pregnancy will develop heart defects such as ventricular septal defect or atrial septal defect. Experts suggest that pregnant women take no more than one unit of alcohol per day. However, other organizations advise complete abstinence from alcohol while pregnant.

Essential tremors—or, in the case of essential tremors on a background of family history of essential tremors, familial tremors—can be temporarily relieved in up to two-thirds of patients by drinking small amounts of alcohol.

Ethanol is known to activate aminobutyric acid type A (GABAA) and inhibit N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) glutamate receptors, which are both implicated in essential tremor pathology and could underlie the ameliorative effects. Additionally, the effects of ethanol have been studied in different animal essential tremor models. (For more details on this topic, see Essential tremor.)

Binge drinking, or heavy episodic drinking, is a modern epithet for drinking alcoholic beverages with an intention of becoming intoxicated by heavy consumption of alcohol over a short period of time.

Binge drinking is a style of drinking that is popular in several countries worldwide, and overlaps somewhat with social drinking since it is often done in groups. The degree of intoxication, however, varies between and within various cultures that engage in this practice. A binge on alcohol can occur over hours, last up to several days, or in the event of extended abuse, even weeks. Due to the long-term effects of alcohol misuse, binge drinking is considered to be a major public health issue.

Binge drinking is associated with a profound social harm, economic costs as well as increased disease burden. Binge drinking is more common in males, during adolescence and young adulthood. Heavy regular binge drinking is associated with adverse effects on neurologic, cardiac, gastrointestinal, hematologic, immune, musculoskeletal organ systems as well as increasing the risk of alcohol induced psychiatric disorders. A US-based review of the literature found that up to one-third of adolescents binge-drink, with six percent reaching the threshold of having an alcohol-related substance use disorder. Approximately one in 25 women binge-drinks during pregnancy, which can lead to fetal alcohol syndrome and fetal alcohol spectrum disorders. Binge drinking during adolescence is associated with traffic accidents and other types of accidents, violent behavior as well as suicide. The more often a child or adolescent binge drinks and the younger they are the more likely that they will develop an alcohol use disorder including alcoholism. A large number of adolescents who binge-drink also consume other psychotropic substances.

The short-term effects of alcohol consumption range from a decrease in anxiety and motor skills at lower doses to unconsciousness, anterograde amnesia, and central nervous system depression at higher doses. Cell membranes are highly permeable to alcohol, so once alcohol is in the bloodstream it can diffuse into nearly every cell in the body.

The concentration of alcohol in blood is measured via blood alcohol content (BAC). The amount and circumstances of consumption play a large part in determining the extent of intoxication; for example, eating a heavy meal before alcohol consumption causes alcohol to absorb more slowly. Hydration also plays a role, especially in determining the extent of hangovers. After excessive drinking, unconsciousness can occur and extreme levels of consumption can lead to alcohol poisoning and death (a concentration in the blood stream of 0.40% will kill half of those affected). Alcohol may also cause death indirectly, by asphyxiation from vomit.

Alcohol can greatly exacerbate sleep problems. During abstinence, residual disruptions in sleep regularity and sleep patterns are the greatest predictors of relapse.

From the ICD-9 database:

- A chronic disease in which a person craves drinks that contain alcohol and is unable to control his or her drinking. A person with this disease also needs to drink greater amounts to get the same effect and has withdrawal symptoms after stopping alcohol use. Alcoholism affects physical and mental health, and can cause problems with family, friends, and work.

- A disorder characterized by a pathological pattern of alcohol use that causes a serious impairment in social or occupational functioning.

- A primary, chronic disease with genetic, psychosocial, and environmental factors influencing its development and manifestations. The disease is often progressive and fatal. It is characterized by impaired control over drinking, preoccupation with the drug alcohol, use of alcohol despite adverse consequences, and distortions in thinking, most notably denial. Each of these symptoms may be continuous or periodic. (morse & flavin for the joint commission of the national council on alcoholism and drug dependence and the american society of addiction medicine to study the definition and criteria for the diagnosis of alcoholism: in jama 1992;268:1012-4)

- For most adults, moderate alcohol use is probably not harmful. However, about 18 million adult Americans are alcoholics or have alcohol problems. Alcoholism is a disease with four main features:

- craving - a strong need to drink

- loss of control - not being able to stop drinking once you've started

- physical dependence - withdrawal symptoms, such as nausea, sweating, or shakiness when you don't drink

- tolerance - the need to drink greater amounts of alcohol to feel the same effect

- Temporary mental disturbance marked by muscle incoordination and paresis as the result of excessive alcohol ingestion.

According to the DSM-IV criteria for alcohol dependence, at least three out of seven of the following criteria must be manifest during a 12-month period:

- Tolerance

- Withdrawal symptoms or clinically defined alcohol withdrawal syndrome

- Use in larger amounts or for longer periods than intended

- Persistent desire or unsuccessful efforts to cut down on alcohol use

- Time is spent obtaining alcohol or recovering from effects

- Social, occupational and recreational pursuits are given up or reduced because of alcohol use

- Use is continued despite knowledge of alcohol-related harm (physical or psychological)

Stolle, Sack and Thomasius define binge drinking as episodic excessive drinking. There is currently no worldwide consensus on how many drinks constitute a "binge", but in the United States, the term has been described in academic research to mean consuming five or more standard drinks (male), or four or more drinks (female), over a 2-hour period. In 2015, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, citing the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, defines binge drinking as "a pattern of drinking that brings a person’s blood alcohol concentration (BAC) to 0.08 grams percent or above. This typically happens when men consume 5 or more drinks, and when women consume 4 or more drinks, in about 2 hours." and estimated that about 16% of American adults met these binge drinking criteria four times per month. One 2001 definition from the publication "Psychology of Addictive Behavior" states that 5 drinks for men and 4 drinks for women must be consumed on one occasion at least once in a two-week period for it to be classed as binge drinking. This is colloquially known as the "5/4 definition", and depending on the source, the timeframe can vary. In the United Kingdom, binge drinking is defined by one academic publication as drinking more than twice the daily limit, that is, drinking eight units or more for men or six units or more for women (roughly equivalent to five or four American standard drinks, respectively). In Australia, binge drinking is also known as risky single occasion drinking (RSOD) and can be classified by the drinking of seven or more standard drinks (by males) and 5 or more standard drinks (by females) within a single day. When BEACH (Bettering the Evaluation of care and health) conducted a study which gathered information of people over the age of 18, it defined binge drinkers as those who consumed six or more standard drinks on one occasion whether that be weekly or monthly.

The above definitions are limited in that they do not take into account the time period over which the drinking occurs or the body mass of the person drinking. A person could be defined as a binge drinker even if he or she never becomes intoxicated. The term, however, has succeeded in drawing public awareness to the problem of excess drinking..

Other, less common definitions rely on blood alcohol concentration (BAC). For example, the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) defines the term "binge drinking" as a pattern of drinking that brings a person’s blood alcohol concentration (BAC) to 0.08 grams percent or above. Whatever the numerical definition used, heavy drinking or rapid consumption over a short period of time with the intention of becoming intoxicated is often implied when the term is used colloquially, since four or five drinks consumed over the course of a whole day and as an accompaniment to meals will not have the same effects as the same amount consumed over a couple of hours on an empty stomach.

An alternative colloquial term for binge drinking, "going on a bender", formerly implied a drinking spree of several days.

The health effects of wine are mainly determined by its active ingredient alcohol. Some studies found that drinking small quantities of alcohol (up to one standard drink per day for women and one to two drinks per day for men) is associated with a decreased risk of heart disease, stroke, diabetes mellitus, metabolic syndrome and early death. However, other studies found no such effect. Drinking more than the standard drink amount increases the risk of heart disease, high blood pressure, atrial fibrillation, stroke and cancer. Mixed results are also observed in light drinking and cancer mortality.

Risk is greater in younger people due to binge drinking which may result in violence or accidents. About 88,000 deaths in the US are estimated to be due to alcohol each year. Alcoholism reduces a person's life expectancy by around ten years and excessive alcohol use is the third leading cause of early death in the United States. According to systematic reviews and medical associations, people who are nondrinkers should not start drinking wine.

Wine has a long history of use as an early form of medication, being recommended variously as a safe alternative to drinking water, an antiseptic for treating wounds, a digestive aid, and as a cure for a wide range of ailments including lethargy, diarrhea and pain from child birth. Ancient Egyptian papyri and Sumerian tablets dating back to 2200 BC detail the medicinal role of wine, making it the world's oldest documented human-made medicine. Wine continued to play a major role in medicine until the late 19th and early 20th century, when changing opinions and medical research on alcohol and alcoholism cast doubt on its role as part of a healthy lifestyle.

Substance abuse, also known as drug abuse, is a patterned use of a drug in which the user consumes the substance in amounts or with methods which are harmful to themselves or others, and is a form of substance-related disorder. Widely differing definitions of drug abuse are used in public health, medical and criminal justice contexts. In some cases criminal or anti-social behavior occurs when the person is under the influence of a drug, and long term personality changes in individuals may occur as well. In addition to possible physical, social, and psychological harm, use of some drugs may also lead to criminal penalties, although these vary widely depending on the local jurisdiction.

Drugs most often associated with this term include: alcohol, cannabis, barbiturates, benzodiazepines, cocaine, methaqualone, opioids and some substituted amphetamines. The exact cause of substance abuse is not clear, with the two predominant theories being: either a genetic disposition which is learned from others, or a habit which if addiction develops, manifests itself as a chronic debilitating disease.

In 2010 about 5% of people (230 million) used an illicit substance. Of these 27 million have high-risk drug use otherwise known as recurrent drug use causing harm to their health, psychological problems, or social problems or puts them at risk of those dangers. In 2015 substance use disorders resulted in 307,400 deaths, up from 165,000 deaths in 1990. Of these, the highest numbers are from alcohol use disorders at 137,500, opioid use disorders at 122,100 deaths, amphetamine use disorders at 12,200 deaths, and cocaine use disorders at 11,100.

A drug-related blackout is a phenomenon caused by the intake of any substance or medication in which short term and long term memory creation is impaired, therefore causing a complete inability to recall the past. Blackouts are most frequently associated with GABAergic drugs. Blackouts are frequently described as having effects similar to that of anterograde amnesia, in which the subject cannot recall any events after the event that caused amnesia. Research on alcohol blackouts was begun by E. M. Jellinek in the 1940s. Using data from a survey of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) members, he came to believe that blackouts would be a good determinant of alcoholism. However, there are conflicting views whether this is true. The negative psychological effects of an alcohol-related blackout are often worsened by those who suffer from anxiety disorders. Impairment of the liver will also allow more alcohol to reach the brain and hasten the individual's blackout.

The term "blackout" can also refer to a complete loss of consciousness, or syncope.

Public health practitioners have attempted to look at substance use from a broader perspective than the individual, emphasizing the role of society, culture, and availability. Some health professionals choose to avoid the terms alcohol or drug "abuse" in favor of language they consider more objective, such as "substance and alcohol type problems" or "harmful/problematic use" of drugs. The Health Officers Council of British Columbia — in their 2005 policy discussion paper, "A Public Health Approach to Drug Control in Canada]" — has adopted a public health model of psychoactive substance use that challenges the simplistic black-and-white construction of the binary (or complementary) antonyms "use" vs. "abuse". This model explicitly recognizes a spectrum of use, ranging from beneficial use to chronic dependence.

The key of FASD can vary between individuals exposed to alcohol during pregnancy. While consensus exists for the definition and diagnosis of FAS, minor variations among the systems lead to differences in definitions and diagnostic cut-off criteria for other diagnoses across the FASD continuum. The central nervous system damage criteria particularly lack clear consensus. A working knowledge of the key features is helpful in understanding FASD diagnoses and conditions, and each is reviewed with attention to similarities and differences across the four diagnostic systems. More than 400 problems, however, can occur with FASD.

FASDs encompass a range of physical and neurodevelopmental problems that can result from prenatal alcohol exposure. The most severe condition is called fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS), which refers to individuals who have a specific set of birth defects and neurodevelopmental disorders characteristic of the diagnosis.

Some accept only FAS as a diagnosis, seeing the evidence as inconclusive with respect to other types. Partial fetal alcohol syndrome (pFAS) refers to individuals with a known, or highly suspected, history of prenatal alcohol exposure who have alcohol-related physical and neurodevelopmental deficits that don’t meet the full criteria for FAS. The subtypes of pFAS are alcohol-related neurodevelopmental disorder (ARND) and alcohol-related birth defects (ARBD). In addition to FAS, pFAS, ARND, and ARBD, any other conditions believed to be related to prenatal alcohol exposure, such as spontaneous abortion and sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), are also considered to be on the spectrum of related disorders. It is unclear as of 2017 if identifying a FASD-related conditions benefits the individual.

Drunkorexia is a colloquialism for self-imposed starvation or binge eating/purging combined with alcohol abuse. The term is generally used to denote the utilisation of extreme weight control methods (such as the aforementioned starvation or purging) as a tool to compensate for planned binge drinking.

Research on the combination of an eating disorder and binge drinking has primarily focused on the patterns of college-aged women, but the phenomenon has also been noted among young men. Studies show that college students engage in this combination of self-imposed malnutrition and binge drinking to avoid weight gain from alcohol. A study by the University of Missouri found that 30% of female college students admitted that within the last year they had restricted food in order to consume greater quantities of alcohol. The same study found that men are more likely engage in similar behavior in order to save money for purchasing alcohol. According to the study, 67% of students who restrict calories prior to alcoholic beverage consumption do so to prevent weight gain, while 21% did so to facilitate alcohol intoxication.

According to the Eating Disorder Center of Denver, of the participating college-aged females in an adjunct research study, about 75% met the criteria for alcohol abuse.

'Showbuzz', a CBS news site, has broadcast that, "Drunkorexia is a media coined term reflecting an alarmingly real trend among young women. The non-medical slang term refers to women who choose to eat less so they can party without gaining weight."

R. Andrew Chambers, MD, Assistant Professor, Institute of Psychiatric Research and Director, Laboratory for Translational Neuroscience of Dual Diagnosis Disorders notes that many celebrity blog sites report similar patterns of behavior among young actresses such as Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton, and that the condition could be mimicked within the entertainment industry and contemporary youth culture at large.

Alcohol myopia is a cognitive-physiological theory on alcohol abuse in which many of alcohol's social and stress-reducing effects, which may underlie its addictive capacity, are explained as a consequence of alcohol's narrowing of perceptual and cognitive functioning. The alcohol myopia model posits that rather than disinhibit, alcohol produces a myopia effect that causes users to pay more attention to salient environmental cues and less attention to less salient cues. Therefore, alcohol's myopic effects cause intoxicated people to respond almost exclusively to their immediate environment. This "nearsightedness" limits their ability to consider future consequences of their actions as well as regulate their reactive impulses.

Alcohol's ability to alter behavior and decision-making stems from its impact on synaptic transmission at GABA receptors. Alcohol's effects on the synaptic level dampen the brain's processing ability and limit attentional capacity.

Overall, the alcohol myopia theory proposes that intoxicated individuals will act rashly and will choose overly simple solutions to complex problems.

An infant withdrawing from methadone can have sleeping difficulties, seizures and a higher risk of dying from Sudden infant death syndrome. Methadone withdrawal occurs after 7–14 days. If a child is premature they have a lower risk of severe symptoms. Those born < 35 weeks’ after gestation have lower CNS abstinence scores than term infants. It may be because preterm infants may have been exposed to less of the drug, possess an immature nervous system and lower adipose tissue.

LSD use by the mother produces symptoms. Since polydrug abuse often accompanies the use of LSD the symptoms may be masked. Abnormal feeding, tremors and hypertonia can be seen in the infant. Withdrawal symptoms manifest as hypertonia, tremors, poor feeding, and abnormal feeding patterns.

Blackouts can generally be divided into 2 categories, "en bloc" blackouts and "fragmentary" blackouts. En bloc blackouts are classified by the inability to later recall any memories from the intoxication period, even when prompted. These blackouts are characterized also by the ability to easily recall things that have occurred within the last 2 minutes, yet being unable to recall anything prior to this period. As such, a person experiencing an en bloc blackout may not appear to be doing so, as they can carry on conversations or even manage to accomplish difficult feats. It is difficult to determine the end of this type of blackout as sleep typically occurs before they end, although it is possible for an en bloc blackout to end if the sufferer has stopped drinking in the meantime. Fragmentary blackouts are characterized by a person having the ability to recall certain events from an intoxicated period, and yet being unaware that other memories are missing until reminded of the existence of those 'gaps' in memory. Research indicates that such fragmentary blackouts, also known as brownouts, are far more common than en bloc blackouts. Memory impairment during acute intoxication involves dysfunction of episodic memory, a type of memory encoded with spatial and social context. Recent studies have shown that there are multiple memory systems supported by discrete brain regions, and the acute effects of alcohol and learning and memory may result from alteration of the hippocampus and related structures on a cellular level. A rapid increase in blood alcohol concentration (BAC) is most consistently associated with the likelihood of a blackout. However, not all subjects experience blackouts which implies that genetic factors play a role in determining central nervous system (CNS) vulnerability to the effects of alcohol. The former may predispose an individual to alcoholism, as altered memory function during intoxication may affect an individual’s alcohol expectancy, one may perceive positive aspects of intoxication while unintentionally ignoring the negative aspects.

Lifestyle diseases are defined as diseases linked with the way people live their life. This is commonly caused by alcohol, drug and smoking abuse as well as lack of physical activity and unhealthy eating. Diseases that impact on our lifestyle are heart disease, stroke, obesity and type II diabetes. The diseases that appear to increase in frequency as countries become more industrialized and people live longer. They can include Alzheimer's disease, arthritis, atherosclerosis, asthma, cancer, chronic liver disease or cirrhosis, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, metabolic syndrome, chronic renal failure, osteoporosis, stroke, depression, obesity and vascular dementia. In the U.K the death rate is four times higher from respiratory disease caused by an unhealthy lifestyle

Some commenters maintain a distinction between diseases of longevity and diseases of civilization. Certain diseases, such as diabetes, dental caries and asthma, appear at greater rates in young populations living in the "western" way; their increased incidence is not related to age, so the terms cannot accurately be used interchangeably for all diseases.

Ethanol is the type of alcohol found in alcoholic beverages. It is a volatile, flammable, colorless liquid that acts as a central nervous system depressant. Ethanol can impair different types of memory.