Does drinking harm the heart?

For starters, large amounts of alcohol (more than two drinks a day) can raise your blood pressure to unhealthy levels. If, for example, you drink the equivalent of a six-pack of beer, a pint of whiskey, or a bottle and a half of wine every day for 10 years, that drinking will almost certainly damage parts of your heart. The result is often cardiomyopathy, a condition in which the heart muscle becomes weakened. In fact, after blocked arteries, alcohol is the second most common cause of cardiomyopathy in the United States.

Damaged hearts can’t pump efficiently. They’re also susceptible to blood clots and strange rhythms (arrhythmia), especially during alcohol binges. (Some doctors call these arrhythmia episodes “holiday heart.”) If you keep drinking, the consequences are severe. About half of all alcoholics who keep drinking after developing cardiomyopathy die within four years.

The good news is that much of the damage is reversible. When alcoholics with cardiomyopathy abstain from drinking, blood pressure drops and the heart can quickly grow stronger. Best of all, more than 90 percent of them will still be alive four years later.Heavy drinking — usually described as three or more drinks a day — over long periods of time has also been linked to hypertension (high blood pressure), stroke, cardiac arrhythmia, and sudden death.