Alcohol & Health
Treatment
Helping Alcoholics
Medically Reviewed by Dr P. E. Pancoast, MD
In this article
Heavily drinking alcohol can cause brain damage and adversely affect the heart and liver. Aside from affecting your internal organs, it can also negatively impact your skin and face.
The effects of alcohol on the skin and face include:
Alcohol causes inflammation, affecting you internally and externally. It’s also filled with empty calories, so it tends to cause weight gain.
Alcohol is also dehydrating. Your body tries to retain as much water as possible to counteract the dehydration, causing puffiness.
Several facial changes indicate alcoholism. These include:
People with AUD tend to have a grayish tint to their skin. This is because chronic heavy alcohol consumption causes a vitamin A deficiency, which makes it difficult for your skin to retain a healthy tone.
Jaundice can cause a yellowing of the eyes and skin. This condition is associated with liver disease.
Your liver is responsible for processing and flushing waste from the system. When it can’t do this, toxins build up and affect your health.
If someone has an existing liver disorder or participates in chronic alcohol abuse enough to cause liver damage, jaundice is likely to develop.
People with AUD often have swollen, bloated faces. This is because the body protects itself by retaining as much water as possible to counteract substance abuse’s dehydrating effects.
Additionally, some people experience an inflammatory response to drinking alcohol, which causes bloating.
One of the main reasons people with AUD develop a red tint when drinking is because alcohol forces the blood vessels in the face to expand and contract. The blood vessels push closer to the skin’s surface and/or break or collapse.
Spider veins might also develop, especially in the eyes. This is why people’s eyes look bloodshot during and after drinking.
Rhinophyma, or “drinker’s nose,” causes a heavy drinker’s nose skin to look thick and bumpy. This is due to alcohol’s effects on the blood vessels.
When someone drinks, their blood vessels expand and are more visible. They might also burst or collapse. Over time, this causes the skin to thicken and change texture.
Usually, a drinker’s nose is caused by heavy drinking, sun exposure, and genetics. This means that not every alcoholic will develop a drinker’s nose.
Over 3 million people use BetterHelp. Their services are:
Answer a few questions to get started
While it’s not necessarily a medical emergency, a red face while drinking is a sign that your body struggles to eliminate the toxins from alcohol. If you ignore these symptoms and continue drinking, you risk serious health problems.
There’s also evidence that people who experience facial redness and continue to drink have a higher risk for cancer. This includes esophageal and breast cancer. This increased risk is because acetaldehyde is carcinogenic.3,4
Alcohol triggers inflammation and causes blood vessels to dilate and sometimes break. Not only does this affect your organs but also your skin.
Alcohol can also worsen rosacea. According to a study in the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology, alcohol consumption increases the risk of rosacea in women.
Rosacea is a chronic skin condition that causes redness and/or small, red bumps on the face. For those who already have rosacea, drinking alcohol frequently triggers flare-ups.1
Some people also experience something known as an alcohol flush reaction. This reaction is an indication you have alcohol intolerance.
It occurs in people with a genetic deficiency in the aldehyde dehydrogenase 2 (ALDH2) enzyme. This enzyme is responsible for breaking down acetaldehyde.
Acetaldehyde is a toxic substance produced by the body as it metabolizes alcohol. If your body lacks enough ALDH2, the toxin builds up in your body and causes flushing.
People with this deficiency also experience:2
Certain medications can also cause alcohol flush. These include medicines that alter your body’s ability to metabolize alcohol, including:
Yes. If you experience a reaction after drinking alcohol, you can ask your healthcare provider for an ethanol patch test.
The test is simple and takes only a few minutes. A drop of ethanol is placed on your arm and covered with gauze. You probably have an intolerance if there are signs of redness, swelling, or itching within a few minutes.5
Some people have no problem drinking and suddenly become intolerant as they age. This is because their body changes later in life. Therefore, the way they respond to alcohol can also change.
Older adults also tend to get drunk faster than they did when they were younger. This is due to two factors:
You can do a few things to reduce redness when drinking alcohol. These include:
Everyone is different, but most people only have a red face for a few hours after drinking. The redness fades as the body metabolizes the toxins in alcohol. If chronic heavy drinking has damaged your skin, it could take longer to fade.
They’ll connect you to an addiction and mental health counselor
Find a TherapistAnswer a few questions to get started
There are other physical signs of heavy drinking. For example:
People with alcohol addiction, also known as alcohol use disorder (AUD), tend to have dry skin. They might develop skin sores, puffiness in the skin, and acne.
Alcohol is dehydrating, which negatively impacts skin health. Other skin signs of alcoholism include:
Alcoholism also affects sleep habits. With little sleep, you may experience:
Alcohol is high in “empty calories.” This means you get little to no nutrition for the calories you consume. The more someone drinks, the likelier they are to gain weight.
Additionally, alcohol is dehydrating. It causes the body to retain water, resulting in bloating.
Frequent heavy drinking can damage the cerebellum. This area of the brain located near the top of the brainstem regulates balance, fine motor movement, and coordination.
The liver removes toxins from the blood. Over time, heavy drinking taxes the liver and can lead to cirrhosis. This is a condition in which healthy tissue is replaced with scar tissue.
Liver damage is a progressive problem. It usually begins with fatty liver disease. Alcohol-related hepatitis might develop, which leads to alcohol-related cirrhosis. However, even without fatty liver disease or hepatitis, you can experience liver damage from heavy drinking.
Chronic heavy drinking causes liver tissue to be replaced with scar tissue. Eventually, the liver stops functioning properly.
BetterHelp offers affordable mental health care via phone, video, or live-chat.
Find a TherapistAnswer a few questions to get started
The best way to treat red face caused by drinking is to avoid alcohol. If redness is caused by a gene deficiency, there isn’t much you can do about it other than not drinking.
Some people use antihistamines to reduce or prevent redness. However, this isn’t advisable.
Using medication interferes with your body’s signal that you’re accumulating toxic levels of acetaldehyde. You’re interfering with your natural immune system. If you use medication and continue to drink, you’re at risk of overdoing it and causing damage to the body. Medication doesn’t “cure” you; it just masks your symptoms.
If you choose to drink and want to mask redness, consider using makeup to cover the flush. You’ll still feel the effects, but your skin won’t look as rosy.
In this article
