Effects of Alcohol on the Brain and Memory

Last updated December 27, 2023.
Edited and medically reviewed by Patrick Alban, DC. Written by Deane Alban.

Alcohol’s effects on memory and overall brain health can be good or bad depending on many factors. But even long-term damage can be overcome. Learn how.

Alcohol is regularly consumed in several countries with the most centenarians — France, Spain, Italy, and Japan. 

Regardless of which alcoholic beverages you prefer, there’s evidence that consuming alcohol in general offers health benefits, particularly when consumed in moderation with a meal. 

Red Wine

Red wine is an integral part of the daily diet in France, Spain, and Italy.

Sake

Sake, a rice-based alcoholic beverage, is a part of the traditional Japanese diet.

The people of Japan are more likely to live to be 100 than anywhere else in the world. 

A cup of sake with mugwort tea is a regular nightcap of seniors who live in Okinawa, one of the handful of longevity pockets known as Blue Zones. 

Beer

Beer is high in flavonoids, beneficial plant compounds found in brain foods like blueberries and dark chocolate. 

Xanthohumol is a flavonoid found in hops, a main ingredient in beer, that can improve memory by stimulating the vagus nerve. 

The vagus nerve runs from the brain to the digestive tract and is a major facilitator of the mind-body connection.

Champagne

Champagne, like red wine, is high in polyphenols. 

Besides being potent antioxidants, these compounds support the hippocampus and cortex, two areas of the brain responsible for memory and learning.

One to three glasses per week may offset age-related memory loss and delay the onset of dementia. 

How Alcohol Protects Memory Later in Life

It seems it’s never too late to reap the benefits of alcohol for a healthier brain.

What Does “Moderate” Alcohol Consumption Mean?

What you drink — beer, wine, liquor, or champagne — doesn’t seem to be nearly as important as how and how much you drink.

Whenever you see evidence that drinking offers health benefits, you’ll almost always notice that the modifier “moderate” goes along with it.

It’s common sense that having one drink every day does not have the same effect on your brain as binge drinking seven drinks on a Saturday night.

But what exactly does moderate drinking mean?

The official definition differs around the world.

In the US, the official guidelines for moderate consumption are one drink daily for women and two for men.

But these numbers are not universal.

In wine-drinking countries like France and Spain, the government guidelines are more generous, allowing two drinks daily for women and four for men.

On the Greek island of Ikaria, people well into their nineties push the limit of moderate drinking, drinking red wine, often home-brewed, throughout the day. 

You can find a complete list of alcohol consumption guidelines around the world at the International Alliance for Responsible Drinking.

NUTRITION FOR THE MIND/BODY CONNECTION

It’s almost impossible to live a lifestyle that provides all the nutrients needed for good brain health and performance. The reason? All of us confront multiple nutrient thieves — stress, poor diet, insomnia, pharmaceuticals, pollution, and more — that steal nutrients that the brain needs to thrive.

Taking quality nutritional supplements:

• Provides the building blocks to create new brain cells and brain chemicals
• Helps increase resilience to stress to avoid mental burnout
• Supplies the brain with the fuel it needs for mental energy

A foundational principle of mental health and cognitive performance is to supply the body with the best nutrition possible. See why I recommend Performance Lab.

Dr. Pat

What Defines One Drink

The next question that needs answering is “What constitutes one drink?”

It’s widely accepted that 12 ounces of beer, 5 ounces of wine, or 1.5 ounces of hard liquor is considered one drink.

Why Alcohol Consumption Guidelines Differ for Men and Women

You’ll notice that the alcohol guidelines for men and women are different.

This is not just because men, on average, are larger.

Due to gender differences in hormones and body composition, women metabolize alcohol less efficiently and consequently get drunk on less alcohol. 

A woman absorbs roughly 30% more alcohol into her bloodstream than a man of the same weight who has consumed an equal amount of alcohol.

In addition, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) reveals that women’s brains are more vulnerable to alcohol-induced damage than men’s. 

How Excessive Alcohol Affects the Brain

While there’s a substantial body of evidence that moderate drinking promotes health, the same can’t be said of “immoderate” drinking.

The Effects of Alcohol on the Brains of Young Adults

The brains of teens and young adults, which are not fully formed until around 25 years of age, are particularly vulnerable to brain damage from excessive drinking. 

Unfortunately, binge drinking is a huge problem among teens and young adults.

It’s estimated that 33% of college students engage in binge drinking. 

Disturbingly, this phenomenon has now trickled down to high schools as well. 

Excess alcohol impairs the activity of brain receptors responsible for learning, putting young people at high risk for memory loss.

And not all the damage is immediately evident.

Binge drinking in youth can increase the risk of memory loss later in life.

Alcohol and Memory Loss in Seniors

While moderate drinking can help keep seniors mentally sharp, years of heavy drinking take their toll.

One large study of 7,000 seniors found that those who had 2.5 daily drinks experienced memory loss six years earlier than those who drank moderately. 

Alcohol is responsible for alcohol-related dementia, one of the most common causes of dementia following Alzheimer’s. 

Alcohol-related dementia is believed to be a contributing factor in over 20% of all dementia cases. 

How Chronic Alcohol Abuse Damages the Brain

People of all ages who chronically abuse alcohol can develop alcohol-related brain damage, also called alcohol-related brain impairment (ARBI).

Typical symptoms are memory loss, an inability to learn new things and follow conversations, and becoming mentally muddled and mixing up pieces of information. 

Heavy drinkers report significantly more memory problems than light drinkers.

They are more likely to miss appointments, forget birthdays, leave appliances on, and misplace everyday items.

Another side effect of chronic alcohol abuse is malnutrition.

Alcohol abuse can lead to a deficiency in thiamine (vitamin B1), resulting in a neurological disorder known as Wernicke’s encephalopathy (WE). 

If caught in time, WE can be reversed with thiamine supplementation, but if left untreated, it can lead to anterograde amnesia, a neurological disorder characterized by serious memory loss. 

It can contribute to dementia and Alzheimer’s later in life.

If you suspect that your alcohol intake has impacted your memory or mental health, the obvious step is to moderate your intake or quit drinking entirely.

It’s never too late to change your drinking habits for the better.

Until recently, it was believed that alcohol-related brain damage was irreversible, but this is now known to be untrue.

The brain is remarkably resilient and can grow new brain cells and heal throughout a lifetime, a property known as neuroplasticity.

Even when alcohol abuse has altered the size, structure, and function of the brain, the damage can be reversed surprisingly fast.

After just one day of alcohol abstinence, some increase in gray matter can be detected.

After only two weeks of abstinence, the brain measurably increases in volume leading to significantly better cognitive function. 

Long periods of alcohol abstinence can restore even a heavy drinker’s brain to normal. 

However, there is more that you can do besides letting time perform its magic.

There are proactive steps you can take to speed up your brain’s recovery process.

Replace Nutrients Depleted by Excessive Alcohol Use

When too much alcohol is consumed, nutritional status suffers.

Alcohol abuse decreases the ability to absorb nutrients, while its diuretic effect washes important nutrients away.

Substituting alcohol for food can further leave you lacking in the macronutrients protein and fat.

If you are concerned about the effects of alcohol on your brain, shore up your nutritional status with a good multivitamin supplement along with an omega-3 or fish oil supplement.

If you are looking for something to specifically undo the damage done by too much drinking, the number one supplement you should try is milk thistle.

It has been used for thousands of years to offset the liver-damaging effects of toxins such as insect stings, snake bites, poisonous mushrooms, and too much alcohol. 

It can even help repair and grow new liver cells.

And of course, supplements are no substitute for a healthy diet.

Consider eating a Mediterranean-based diet. 

It’s not only delicious, it’s widely thought to be the healthiest eating plan of all.

A Mediterranean diet is also a good way to prevent mental decline.

One study that followed over 2,000 seniors for years found that eating a Mediterranean diet reduced the risk of Alzheimer’s by 40%. 

The Effects of Red Wine and Resveratrol on the Brain

No discussion about alcohol’s effects on the brain would be complete without taking a closer look at red wine, its active compound resveratrol, and the Mediterranean diet.

Which of these, or a combination of these, is responsible for the reported health and cognitive benefits?

Of all alcoholic beverages, red wine has by far the best reputation as a healthy drink due to its antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties.

And red wine is an integral part of the Mediterranean diet.

But there’s no reason to believe that you can isolate red wine from the rest of the Mediterranean diet and expect to get similar health benefits.

Dan Buettner is a National Geographic explorer, renowned longevity expert, and author of the bestseller The Blue Zones: 9 Lessons for Living Longer From the People Who’ve Lived the Longest.

According to Buettner, there are several factors responsible for the pockets of longevity and low incidences of depression and dementia found in places like Ikaria, Greece and Sardinia, Italy. 

It’s not red wine nor even the Mediterranean diet alone that makes these people the healthiest and most long-lived in the world.

It’s their entire healthy lifestyle package — less stress, more exercise, more time outdoors, better social connections, and a strong purpose in life.

Are Red Wine’s Benefits Due to Resveratrol?

There are close to 1,000 different chemical compounds found in red wine and none gets more attention than resveratrol. 

Resveratrol first made its way into the limelight after researchers at Harvard Medical School found that it slowed aging in yeast and later found that it extended the life expectancy of overweight mice. 

As usual, the media and supplement manufacturers jumped all over this and started promoting resveratrol as a “fountain of youth” in a bottle.

But resveratrol is only one of many health-promoting compounds in red wine.

Many scientists believe it’s the full range of polyphenols, not just resveratrol, that’s responsible for red wine’s health benefits.

Thousands of studies have been done on resveratrol.

Research shows that it may protect against depression, memory loss, anxiety, brain damage from stroke, hearing loss, neuroinflammation, and Alzheimer’s — in rats and mice. 

Surprisingly few studies have been conducted on humans. 

One small study found that resveratrol enhanced brain function, memory, and brain connectivity in overweight older adults. 

However, the most significant human study done on resveratrol is the Chianti Study.

Nearly 800 senior men and women in the Chianti region of Italy were tracked for nine years.

Study participants ate their normal diet which is naturally high in resveratrol-rich foods, including red wine. 

Researchers were surprised to find no correlation between dietary resveratrol levels and the rates of heart disease, cancer, and death.

What About Resveratrol Supplements?

If you are cutting back or eliminating alcohol entirely, can you get the benefits of drinking red wine from taking a resveratrol supplement?

There is no compelling evidence that supplemental resveratrol offers any real health benefits.

Plus, there are two inherent reasons that resveratrol supplements don’t work very well.

They have a low bioavailability and a short half-life once consumed. 

According to one study, less than 1% is available to reach the brain. 

Food Sources of Resveratrol

It’s been determined that to get therapeutic amounts of resveratrol from red wine, you’d have to drink 750 to 1,500 bottles a day. 

(This definitely does not qualify as “moderate” drinking!)

Fortunately, you don’t have to rely on red wine for resveratrol.

Red wine gets its resveratrol from grapes and so can you.

You can get similar benefits from drinking grape juice or eating grapes. 

The next best sources of resveratrol are cocoa powder and dark chocolate. 

Resveratrol is also found in pistachios, peanuts, peanut butter, blueberries, raspberries, and cranberries.