Alcohol headache, Triggers, Genetic Predisposition, Alcoholism Statistics, Causes, Effects & Treatment

Alcohol can trigger headaches, including migraines, cluster headaches, and tension-type headaches. Around 30 percent of people who experience recurrent migraines report alcohol as a trigger. About half of those with less common headache disorders, such as cluster headaches, paroxysmal hemicrania, hemicrania continua, and familial hemiplegic migraine, also notice that alcohol precipitates their headaches.

If you have chronic headaches, identifying and avoiding your triggers can substantially improve your quality of life. To determine if drinking is one of yours, it’s helpful to learn the signs of alcohol headaches.

Types of Alcohol Headaches

There are two well-recognized types of alcohol headaches. According to criteria from the International Classification of Headache Disorders:

• An immediate alcohol headache occurs within three hours of consuming alcohol (previously referred to as a cocktail headache).
• A delayed alcohol headache, which can begin between five and 12 hours after consuming alcohol, (known as a hangover headache).

There have been several proposed explanations for how alcohol headaches are triggered. Red wine is the type of alcohol most often reported as a headache trigger. Tannin, a component in red wine, has been long considered the culprit. In addition to red wine, other alcoholic beverages, including beer, white wine, and liqueur, have also been reported as headache triggers.

Substances such as sulfites, histamine, and tyramines are found in alcohol and may contribute to headaches as well. It has also been proposed that alcohol triggers an inflammatory response that can lead to an alcohol headache.

Genetic Predisposition

It has been suggested that a tendency to experience alcohol headaches could be genetic. And researchers suggest that experiencing an unpleasant effect from drinking alcohol may alter alcohol consumption.

• Taking an over-the-counter pain medication
• Making sure you stay hydrated; opt for water and/or beverages with electrolytes, such as sports drinks

• Eating something bland, if you are hungry
• Getting some rest

We are used to hearing about Alcoholism quite often, we even lightly use the term most of the time to refer to someone who just likes to drink, but it is a really serious disease and should not be taken lightly. In the scientific article ‘The Definition of Alcoholism’ Morse RM, Flavin DK, published on Jama Network Journal, a 23-member multidisciplinary committee of the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence and the American Society of Addiction Medicine conducted a 2-year study of the definition of Alcoholism.

Therefore, the committee agreed to define Alcoholism “as a primary, chronic disease with genetic, psychosocial, and environmental factors influencing its development and manifestations. The disease is often progressive and fatal. It is characterized by impaired control over drinking, preoccupation with alcohol, use of alcohol despite adverse consequences, and distortions in thinking, most notably denial. Each of these symptoms may be continuous or periodic.”

Alcohol Use Disorder (AUD) in the United States

According to the 2019 NSDUH, 14.5 million people ages 12 and older had AUD. This number includes 9.0 million men and 5.5 million women. This problem threatens a big number of young people too, as stated by the same source, an estimated 414,000 adolescents between the ages of 12 to 177 had AUD. This number includes 163,000 males and 251,000 females. 

An estimated 95,000 people, approximately 68,000 men, and 27,000 women die from alcohol-related causes annually, making alcohol the third-leading preventable cause of death in the United States. The first is tobacco, and the second is poor diet and physical inactivity.

The effects of a drink of alcohol can vary a lot from one person to the next, but it usually takes about an hour for your body to metabolize one drink. Alcohol stays in the body for different periods of time depending on how much you drank, your body weight, and your sex. Factors that influence how quickly alcohol leaves the system include your age, height and weight, and amount of food in your stomach at the time you drink.

But Alcoholism can affect multiple organs of the body, including the brain, heart, liver, pancreas, and even the immune system.

• Brain: alcohol interferes with the brain’s communication pathways, and can affect the way the brain looks and works. These disruptions can change mood and behavior, and make it harder to think clearly and move with coordination. 
• Heart: drinking a lot over a long time or too much on a single occasion can damage the heart, causing problems including:
  • Cardiomyopathy – Stretching and drooping of heart muscle
  • Arrhythmias – Irregular heart beat
  • Stroke
  • High blood pressure 
• Liver: Heavy drinking takes a toll on the liver, and can lead to a variety of problems and liver inflammations including:
  • Steatosis, or fatty liver
  • Alcoholic hepatitis
  • Fibrosis
  • Cirrhosis
• Pancreas: alcohol causes the pancreas to produce toxic substances that can eventually lead to pancreatitis, a dangerous inflammation and swelling of the blood vessels in the pancreas that prevents proper digestion.
• Immune System: drinking too much can weaken your immune system, making your body a much easier target for disease.  People who drink chronically are more liable to contract diseases like pneumonia and tuberculosis than people who do not drink too much.  Drinking a lot on a single occasion slows your body’s ability to ward off infections – even up to 24 hours after getting drunk.