A glass of wine with dinner, a beer after work, a cocktail in the sunshine on holiday. Alcohol makes an appearance in so many parts of our lives it can be easy to forget that, like many drugs, it’s addictive, both physically and psychologically. Many are addicted to it. If you drink regularly, your body builds up a tolerance to alcohol. Tolerance is a physiological response we have to any drug: the more you consume, the more your body needs to have the same effect. Regular drinking induces certain enzymes in your liver that break up (metabolise) alcohol.

Brain systems get tolerant to alcohol too, and although you may be able to walk a straight line after drinking quite a lot, this means the brain has adapted so that next day the brain cells ‘expect’ alcohol. Withdrawal symptoms such as anxiety and jitteriness occur, and you can find yourself drinking alcohol just to relieve that. When you’re drinking most days you can become psychologically dependent on alcohol too. Breaking your drinking cycle is an important way to test for – and tackle – this kind of dependence.

If you’re dependent on alcohol, you increase your risk of developing high blood pressure, stroke, coronary heart disease and liver disease. Prolonged heavy drinking damages your liver. An estimated 7 out of 10 people with alcoholic liver disease (when the liver is damaged by alcohol misuse) have an alcohol dependency problem. The most serious form of alcoholic liver disease, cirrhosis, means the liver has been scarred from continuous, long-term damage.

Heavy drinking, especially bingeing, makes platelets more likely to clump together into blood clots, which can lead to heart attack or stroke. In a landmark study published in 2005, Harvard researchers found that binge drinking doubled the risk of death among people who initially survived a heart attack. Heavy drinking can also cause cardiomyopathy, a potentially deadly condition in which the heart muscle weakens and eventually fails, as well as heart rhythm abnormalities such as atrial and ventricular fibrillation.

If you use alcohol to try and improve your mood, you may be starting a vicious cycle. If you think your mental health is suffering because of your heavy drinking, but you feel you’re not able to stop, ask for professional help. Start with a visit to your GP or by contacting your physician.

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