Alcohol and Eye Health: The Effect of Alcohol on Vision
Get the highest quality detox and addiction help everyone deserves. Luckily, double vision is not dangerous unless you’re behind the wheel. Otherwise, it will not affect your overall eye health, because it will go away once you sober up. However, while you are under the influence, it will cause you to lose depth perception.
Focus, leading to blurred vision
- Sensitivity to light is probably the most well-known side effect of a hangover.
- Some immediate effects of intoxication include blurred vision, double vision, and dry eye.
- Several other health issues can also result from long-term heavy drinking.
- Dr Teenan said the risk of suffering adverse effects of heavy drinking is increased in older generations.
Nystagmus may sometimes cause you to lose balance or to have trouble balancing yourself while standing for long periods. We experience rapid eye movements at night during our REM cycle of sleep. Rapid eye movements while awake, however, are a rare and unusual occurrence. Unfortunately, there is no treatment available for the disease, only methods of coping with your new vision. You can also try slowly lowering the number of drinks you consume in a week over time instead of quitting cold turkey.
Use Lubricated Eye Drops
One question we hear often is about yellow eyes and whether they relate to alcohol use. Alcohol consumption refers to the intake of drinks containing ethyl alcohol. A study involving patients with open-angle glaucoma who abstained from alcohol had a 63% lower risk of severe visual impairment or blindness.
Symptoms may include difficulty focusing on objects, eye strain, and a strong sense of heaviness in the eyes. In contrast, when consumption is excessive, that often leads to a buildup of toxins causing alcohol eyesight damage and eye problems. Oftentimes even small amounts of liquor or spirits could cause puffy and bloodshot ‘alcohol eyes’.

This build-up causes jaundice, making the whites of your eyes turn yellow. Drinking alcohol disrupts communication between your eyes and brain. The increased blood pressure puts additional strain on delicate eye vessels. Your body tries to compensate by dilating blood vessels even more.
Why 2026 Could Be the End of Traditional Opticians
People are mostly aware of its negative long-term impacts when it comes to risks of liver cancer, obesity, and its addictive qualities. It’s also widely known that drinking and driving drunk vision is extremely dangerous, due to the short-term effects of alcohol consumption. What tends to slip under the radar, however, is the impact of heavy drinking on other parts of your body, particularly your eyes.
What that looks like in everyday life
Possible treatments include corrective lenses or glasses to correct blurred or distorted vision and the use of eye drops to address bloodshot eyes. In this review, the concept of heavy drinking will be clarified through both quantitative and qualitative descriptions of daily alcohol consumption based on moderate or heavy alcohol abuse. In addition to these immediate effects, chronic dehydration from regular heavy drinking can lead to longer-term eye health problems. Therefore, it is crucial to maintain adequate hydration, especially when consuming alcohol. Alcohol is a diuretic, causing your body to remove fluids faster and giving you dry eyes.

Short-Term Effects of Alcohol on Eyes
- In extreme cases, prolonged alcohol abuse and subsequent withdrawal can lead to severe conditions such as optic neuropathy and optic atrophy.
- But your eyes are also affected—often right away, and sometimes for life.
- Reading, driving, and recognizing faces become extremely difficult.
- Excessive drinking also commonly causes vision changes, such as blurred vision, double vision, or difficulty focusing.
- Normally, our liver is responsible for the bile being sent out of the body.
However, these changes will go away once the alcohol has cleared the system. We think of our patients as family and have been leaders in eye care since 1981. Our modern advanced technology and friendly and supportive staff have led to Alcohol Use Disorder our being one of the premier eye care and centers for surgery on the western coast of Florida.

Swelling of the blood vessels in the eye or the look of red bloodshot eyes is a common feature of those who have been lifetime drinkers. Another problem that excessive drinking leads to is migraine headaches, as the eye becomes sensitive to light; the result is pain. This slowed reaction time, in combination with loosened and less responsive muscles, is https://ecosoberhouse.com/ the primary source of alcohol’s impact on your eyes and your vision.
How Does Drinking Affect Eyesight?
- This can result in double vision or diplopia, where the eyes struggle to work together properly under the influence of alcohol.
- Symptoms of AMD include faded colours, blurry vision, and deteriorating central vision, so early detection and treatment is vital to prevent this.
- Understanding the potential risks of alcohol consumption concerning AMD is fundamental for promoting eye health and making better lifestyle choices.
However, change in visual functions have always been focused in ethanol intoxications. Drinking a lot of alcohol over a long period of time can cause damage to the brain that may impair your eyesight. In fact, it is not unheard of for heavy drinkers to develop permanently blurred or double vision. Alcohol can also decrease your ability to see contrast in colors and alter your peripheral vision.
Retinal Vein Occlusion (RVO)
In fact, it is one of the most prominent symptoms of alcohol blindness. There’s a reason the phrase “drinking yourself blind” floats around. It isn’t just a witty remark or an old wives’ tale – it is the truth. Another effect of decreased reaction times is the iris taking longer to contract, which is the process of making the pupil smaller. The pupil allows light into the eye but, if the iris doesn’t contract quickly enough when exposed to bright light, it lets far too much light into the eye.