Call 888-647-0579 to speak with an alcohol or drug abuse counselor.

Who Answers?

Alcohol's Effects: Old vs. Young People

Study Shows Older People Less Likely to Realize How Alcohol Is Affecting Them

Social drinking seems to impair older people more than their younger drinking buddies. Also, older people are less likely to realize how the alcohol is affecting them, according to a new study.

The study, published in The Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, is based on a research study with 42 older participants between the ages of 50 and 74 and 26 younger participants between the ages of 25 and 35. All participants were social drinkers and nonsmokers.

For the study, some participants from each age group consumed a moderate amount of alcohol while others drank non-alcoholic placebo beverages. Participants took a test at 25 minutes and 75 minutes after drinking. The tests required them to connect letters and numbers in order with a line. It was designed to measure visual-motor coordination, planning, and the ability to move from one task to the next.

Participants also rated how intoxicated they felt and how much they thought the alcohol impaired their performance on the tests.

Although peak breath-alcohol measures were similar between the older and younger groups of drinkers, older participants who had received alcohol took longer to complete the test than the younger participants did. This performance age gap did not happen with non-drinkers. A difference wasn’t seen between the older participants and younger participants who had consumed non-alcoholic beverages.

“That doesn’t sound like much, but five seconds is a big difference if you’re in a car and need to apply the brakes,” researcher Sara Jo Nixon, a psychiatry professor at the University of Florida’s McKnight Brain Institute, says in a news release. “It can mean the difference between a wreck, and not-a-wreck.”

Also, older drinkers were less likely to realize they were impaired at the testing 25 minutes after alcohol consumption. That can be dangerous, as older drinkers may think they are fine to drive when they are not. At 75 minutes after alcohol consumption, the older drinkers reported more impairment although their test performance was similar to the older participants who hadn’t consumed any alcohol.

Nixon offers this advice: “If you have a couple of drinks at dinner, sit around, have dessert — don’t drive for a while.”

Alcohol consumption among older adults is likely to become a larger public health issue. More than half of adults over the age of 55 drink in social settings, according to background information in the study. Also, the percentage of the population that is older is projected to increase dramatically over the next couple of decades. By 2030, one in five U.S. residents will be over the age of 65.

source: Web MD

More Treatment & Detox Articles

Mother of six speaks of her drug addiction and how she got help

Amina is 35 years old. She is married and has six children. She is also addicted to heroin. A housewife from Herat Province in Afghanistan, Amina started using drugs at the age of 10, when she was working as a carpet weaver. The job was strenuous and her workmates advised her to use opium to….

One little glass can't hurt an alcoholic, can it?

Can a recovering alcoholic still have the occasional drink, or is it the road back to oblivion? Claire had been sober for two years when she began a relationship with another recovering alcoholic. One evening at his house he made a suggestion. “How do you think we would react if we had just one drink?”….

Alcohol-free weekend raises awareness

Those who decide to give up alcohol this Easter weekend won’t necessarily be doing so because of holiday tradition. For those involved in the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence, it will represent an effort to raise awareness of alcohol disease. The three-day challenge, always the first weekend of April, kicks off the 23rd….

Needle-exchange programs Christian thing to do

The Texas Legislature is currently considering bills that would allow the establishment of programs to enable injecting drug users to exchange used syringes for sterile ones, as a proven means of reducing the spread of blood-borne diseases. The Senate version of the bill has already passed, by a vote of 23-6. An almost identical bill….

Clinical physician argues changes needed to cut into alcohol abuse

Fighting the estimated $5 billion impact of alcohol and drug abuse on society requires more than stricter criminal laws, a physician told a local group Friday. Dr. Richard Brown, Wisconsin Initiative to Promote Healthy Lifestyles clinical director, argued there are several ways to cut such costs in courts, social services and health care: Boost community….