• Age.
• Gender.
• Race or ethnicity.
• Physical condition (weight, fitness level, etc).
• Amount of food consumed before drinking.
• How quickly the alcohol was consumed.
• Use of drugs or prescription medicines.
• Family history of alcohol problems.

Older people tend to react to alcohol more than young adults. Since many seniors are on prescription medicines thus making them more at risk. And young adults are just as much as risk as older people since they tend to drink a lot more.

Excessive alcohol use, either in the form of heavy drinking (drinking more than two drinks per day on average for men or more than one drink per day on average for women), or binge drinking (drinking 5 or more drinks during a single occasion for men or 4 or more drinks during a single occasion for women), can lead to increased risk of health problems such as liver disease or unintentional injuries.

According to the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) survey, more than half of the adult U.S. population drank alcohol in the past 30 days. Approximately 5% of the total population drank heavily, while 15% of the population binge drank.

According to the Alcohol-Related Disease Impact (ARDI) tool, from 2001–2005, there were approximately 79,000 deaths annually attributable to excessive alcohol use. In fact, excessive alcohol use is the 3rd leading lifestyle-related cause of death for people in the United States each year.

This forensic test is used by a variety of individuals, professionals, corporations and agencies to get definitive answers about alcohol abuse among clients, defendants, relatives, victims, and employees who may have been touched by alcohol abuse.

• Attorneys, law enforcement agencies – use in custody cases to determine if a parent is fit to have custody, test repeat offenders of DUI, spousal abuse, post-accident testing of the person at fault if BAC was not established quickly enough, such as in a hit-n-run case.
• Human resources – find out if current employees or potential new hires are abusing alcohol to determine fitness to work (especially with vehicles and heavy machinery or public safety jobs) or to investigate a decline in job performance. Can also be used by staffing agencies that screen potential hires for substance abuse.
• Healthcare professionals, healthcare facilities – identify people with alcohol addiction or prove a patient does not have a dependency problem, measure efficacy of an alcohol treatment program, detect recidivism among alcoholic population, screen organ donors.
• Forensics – detection of ethanol in a post-mortem toxicology report may provide insight into the individual’s history of alcohol consumption which may be relevant to a case or cause of death; provide evidence of alcohol abuse as a probable cause of wrongdoing or foul play.
• Parents and other relatives – test your teenagers or other family members to be certain they are not abusing alcohol, detect potential abuse problems early in development in order to institute corrective treatment.
• Public Sector: Many public organizations and sectors examining the physiological and behavioral effects of alcohol can utilize this test to aid in their research (i.e. studies between the correlation of alcohol habits and risk of vehicular accidents).

Drinking is a problem if it causes trouble in your relationships, in school, in social activities, or in how you think and feel. If you are concerned that either you or someone in your family might have a drinking problem, talk to your doctor. If you rink everyday with every meal, you probably should check with your doctor. Also drinking is a cutural thing. In Japan, every man is expected to drink after long hour at work. So their alcoholics probably need much higher dose to qualify as an alcoholic.

The fact is that families, friends, and healthcare workers often overlook their concerns about older people drinking. Sometimes trouble with alcohol in older people is mistaken for other conditions related to aging. But, how the body handles alcohol can change with age. Seniors may have the same drinking habits, but their bodies have changed.

Alcohol abuse can make seniors more likely to have accidents, including falls and fractures and car crashes. Family members should pay special attention to the seniors if they notice any sign of abuse.

Source: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

• Stomach or intestinal bleeding if you take aspirin with drink.
• Antihistamines with alcohol will make you very sleepy.
• Alcohol with large doses of  acetaminophen, a common painkiller, may cause liver damage.
• Using alcohol with sleeping pills, pain killers, and anti-depression medicine can be deadly.

Source: National Institute on Aging

Often families, friends, and health care workers often overlook their concerns about older people drinking. People often think the symptoms of alcoholic in older people are just part of aging. But the problem is that as people get older, their body’s tolerance to alcohol also changes. They might get drunk easier and faster than they did before.

Drinking too much alcohol over a long time can:

• Lead to some kinds of cancer, liver damage, immune system disorders, and brain damage
• Worsen some health conditions like osteoporosis, diabetes, high blood pressure, and ulcers
• Make some medical problems hard for doctors to find and treat. For example, alcohol causes changes in the heart and blood vessels. These changes can dull pain that might be a warning sign of a heart attack.
• Cause some older people to be forgetful and confused. These symptoms could be mistaken for signs of Alzheimer’s disease.

Source: National Institute on Aging

• Do you drink alone when you feel angry or sad?
• Does your drinking ever make you late for work?
• Does your drinking worry your family?
• Do you ever drink after telling yourself you won’t?
• Do you ever forget what you did while you were drinking?
• Do you get headaches or have a hang-over after you have been drinking?

If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, you may have a drinking problem. Check with your doctor to be sure. Your doctor will be able to tell you whether you should cut down or abstain. If you are alcoholic or have other medical problems, you should not just cut down on your drinking–you should stop drinking completely. Your doctor will advise you about what is right for you.

Source: National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA)

Source: http://pubs.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/brochurewomen/women.htm#drinking

• Benefits

Heart disease: Once thought of as a threat mainly to men, heart disease also is the leading killer of women in the United States. Drinking moderately may lower the risk for coronary heart disease, mainly among women over age 55. However, there are other factors that reduce the risk of heart disease, including a healthy diet, exercise, not smoking, and keeping a healthy weight. Moderate drinking provides little, if any, net health benefit for younger people. (Heavy drinking can actually damage the heart.)

• Risks

Drinking and driving: It doesn’t take much alcohol to impair a person’s ability to drive. The chances of being killed in a single-vehicle crash are increased at a blood alcohol level that a 140-lb. woman would reach after having one drink on an empty stomach.

Medication interactions: Alcohol can interact with a wide variety of medicines, both prescription and over-the-counter. Alcohol can reduce the effectiveness of some medications, and it can combine with other medications to cause or increase side effects. Alcohol can interact with medicines used to treat conditions as varied as heart and blood vessel disease, digestive problems, and diabetes. In particular, alcohol can increase the sedative effects of any medication that causes drowsiness, including cough and cold medicines and drugs for anxiety and depression. When taking any medication, read package labels and warnings carefully.

Breast cancer: Research suggests that as little as one drink per day can slightly raise the risk of breast cancer in some women, especially those who are postmenopausal or have a family history of breast cancer. It is not possible, however, to predict how alcohol will affect the risk for breast cancer in any one woman.

Source: http://pubs.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/brochurewomen/women.htm#drinking