How Alcohol Affects Your Eyes

Let’s face it: drinking alcohol is fun sometimes. And, when done responsibly, the negative impacts should be minimal, right? For the most part, sure. In fact, some studies even show that an occasional glass of red wine is good for you due to its antioxidant content. However, it’s also true that alcohol can have some very real adverse effects on the human body. From liver damage to impaired decision-making, the substance can wreak havoc if not used in moderation. But, what about its impact on vision? What does alcohol do to your eyes?

If you’ve ever had one too many, you can probably confirm that alcohol impacts vision in the short term. But what about the long term? Can alcohol affect eyesight permanently? Keep reading to learn more about the correlation between alcohol use and vision issues.

Does Alcohol Affect Eyesight?

If you’re just a social drinker, you’re in luck. Consuming alcohol every once in a while will not have any real negative effects on your eyes. As with most good things in life, moderation is key. If you drink a little here and there, there may be some temporary effects such as dizziness and blurry vision, depending on how much alcohol you consume and how high your tolerance is. But, they will nearly always go away. This is especially true if you take care of your body after drinking alcohol. Hydration is key here – both before and after your night out. Making sure you get plenty of sleep afterward will help your body recover, too!

On the other hand, if you drink heavily or often, you are at a much higher risk for short-term changes in your vision as well as permanent damage. You are much more likely to experience blurry vision after drinking alcohol the more you drink. This is why stopping once you have reached your limit is so important.

Additionally, repeated episodes of heavy drinking can lead to some very serious eye conditions. As you may already be aware, drinking alcohol is very hard on the liver. What most people don’t know, though, is that the liver and the eyes are closely related. In fact, everything is related in the body, which is why paying attention to your holistic health is so important.

Effects of Heavy Drinking on Eyesight

If you experience liver damage due to excessive drinking, you may be setting yourself up for a whole host of vision problems. An inflamed liver often experiences liver blood deficiencies as well as liver heat, all of which have been connected to conditions like myopia, floaters, and blurry vision. Keeping your liver healthy is essential to warding off these issues as you age. A

Beyond the liver, drinking a lot of alcohol over a long period of time also damages the brain and impairs its ability to function. As you can probably imagine, your eyes are even more closely connected to your brain than they are to your liver. When you drink too much over the course of many years, you are at risk of developing permanently blurred vision or even double vision. This is because alcohol weakens your eye muscles over a period of time. Beyond just being annoying, this effect is also dangerous – it can also decrease your reaction time.

Drinking too much can also alter your peripheral vision, causing you to have tunnel vision. Your pupils will also react more slowly, so they will not be able to constrict or open up as well. This can make driving very difficult since you can’t react well to headlights. It can also reduce the ability to see colors. It will be difficult to distinguish between different shades of similar colors if your eyes have been damaged by alcohol. These unfortunate impairments in vision can also point toward much more severe problems.

Can Alcohol Make You Go Blind?

In short, the answer is yes, although not directly. Alcoholism has been connected to a variety of conditions that lead to blindness, such as age-related macular degeneration (AMD) and optic neuropathy.

The links between AMD and alcohol consumption aren’t yet 100% understood. However, we do know that alcohol is a neurotoxin, meaning that it causes brain damage via oxidative pathways. This could certainly impact the retina and lead to AMD.  Additionally, increased oxidant stress associated with excess alcohol consumption causes tissue damage all over the body, including the eyes. Furthermore, many heavy drinkers also experience poor nutrition in the rest of their diets, so they often don’t consume enough eye-healthy vitamins or antioxidants. All of these lead to decreased vision, increased risk of AMD, and the potential for blindness.

Optic neuropathy, on the other hand, can cause loss of vision (which will most likely be painless), decreased peripheral vision, and problems seeing colors. It is also an ongoing condition that grows worse over time.

Other Impacts of Alcohol on the Eyes

Even if your drinking doesn’t lead to AMD or Optic Neuropathy, there are still other, more minor issues you should worry about. For one, migraines are also a result of drinking too much. These migraines can be accompanied by sensitivity to light and other related vision problems. It can also reduce your ability to drive safely at night.

You may also experience red eyes after drinking, or they may physically hurt. This is because too much alcohol causes the blood vessels in your eyes to grow, making your eyes appear red and bloodshot and sometimes feel painful.

Alcohol can also impact how well your eyes move and respond to your brain. This is because rapid eye movement is another side effect that can occur in those who consume too much alcohol over a long period of time. This condition is where your eyes move involuntarily back and forth. On the other hand, some people may experience a sort of paralysis of the eyes, due to a lack of necessary vitamins brought on by excessive drinking.

How to Avoid Alcohol-Related Eye Problems

You don’t have to give up alcohol entirely to prevent these negative vision-related side effects. As we mentioned before, drinking occasionally is not likely to cause any damage to your eyesight.

However, if you are a heavy drinker or have struggled with alcoholism in the past, you need to take control of your habits in order to save your eyesight (and your overall health, for that matter, but for now we’ll focus on your vision!). The good news is that there will be a difference in your eyes before and after quitting alcohol – even just a month will allow your liver to heal quite a bit if it isn’t too damaged already.

If you do consume alcohol, practice good habits while drinking. Pace yourself and never drink on an empty stomach. Also, be sure to drink water in between your alcoholic drinks in order to prevent yourself from getting drunk. Limit yourself to one drink an hour and remember that one drink can equal a glass of wine, a shot of hard liquor, or a can/bottle of beer.

Be aware of how much alcohol is being put into your mixed drinks as well, and always ask if you are not sure what is in the drink. It is much better to be informed about the alcohol content of your drinks than to pay the price later!

Additionally, you should know your own limits. You need to be aware of how much alcohol you can handle and make sure you stay within that limit. You should also monitor how often you drink to your own personal limit (or over it). By taking these steps, you can still enjoy the social effects of alcohol while protecting your eyes.