6 Vision Problems Associated With Heavy Drinking

Eye problems from heavy alcohol use extend far beyond getting blurry vision when you’re drunk. There are short-term and long-term effects that can impair vision and cause permanent vision loss.

What You’ll Learn:

• Why the risk of eye problems from heavy drinking should be taken seriously.

• What causes the pupils to respond more slowly.

• Why blurry vision has a lot to do with alcohol’s effect on muscle control.

• How eye misalignment causes double vision.

• What causes cataracts to happen earlier for heavy drinkers.

• What speeds up macular degeneration.

• The reason why chronic heavy drinking leads to toxic optic neuropathy.

• What you can do to reduce your drinking and protect your vision.

Anyone who has drunk alcohol to the point of intoxication probably registered that their vision wasn’t as sharp as it usually is.

Experiencing vision changes when alcohol is in your system is common, but what many people don’t realize is that heavy drinking can cause short-term and long-term eye problems.

Doctors stress that people should protect their vision for good reason. Eyes are highly complex, involving nerves, nerve cells, a delicate lens and brain signaling. Some types of damage are extremely difficult to impossible to reverse.

Here’s a closer look at how heavy drinking can harm your vision.

Six Vision Problems Caused by Heavy Alcohol Use

Alcohol has a serious impact on the brain and body. Every drink adds up in terms of your eyesight. If you’re a heavy drinker, over time the damage can cause some serious vision problems.

Some of the issues are temporary, but others could be permanent.

Slow Pupils

Your pupils expand and contract in response to light. They expand to take in more light and constrict when it’s bright out. Typically, this happens near instantaneously.

But after an episode of heavy drinking the slowed reaction time can affect how your eyes adjust to brightness and depth.

Slow pupils have the biggest effect on night vision. When the light is low, your pupils need to dilate quickly or you won’t be able to register much.

Blurry Vision

Blurry vision isn’t about the lens focusing. It’s mostly connected to the eye muscles working slower. Nerve signals from the brain take longer to relay messages to the eyes and vice versa so processing what is seen isn’t as easy.

At the same time, muscles that coordinate vision aren’t so coordinated and the eyes are misaligned.

There’s also a muscle inside the eye called the ciliary muscle. Alcohol has a negative effect on ciliary muscle movement, which makes it hard to focus, especially close up.

Double Vision

Six muscles, known as extraocular muscles, around each eye control movement. Alcohol weakens these muscles and causes them to not work together. Double vision is the result of uncoordinated muscles that can’t properly align the eyes.

Slowed brain signals and cranial nerves are another factor. And neurological damage can also contribute to double vision that could be permanent.

The eyes must be aligned and the brain signals need to be timed right for there to be one cohesive visual from two eyes. It’s what’s known as image merging, and it’s essential for day-to-day functioning.

Early Cataracts

Cataracts are a condition where the naturally clear lens of the eyes become cloudy. This can lead to a variety of vision problems like:

• Blurred vision

• Seeing rings around light

• Colors looking faded

• Impaired night vision

Generally, cataracts begin forming in the 40s and 50s but don't become noticeable until the 60s. Heavy alcohol use can speed up that timeline. Oxidative stress and protein imbalances from alcohol are the cause.

The oxidative stress reduces antioxidants that protect the eyes while proteins on the lens clump together. Dehydration from alcohol use makes things worse.

This is a vision problem that is highly dose dependent. A large-scale study found that the risk correlated with the amount of lifetime drinking and cutting back on alcohol slows the progression of cataracts.

Macular Degeneration

Early onset macular degeneration is more common in people who drink heavily for a prolonged period. To be more specific, drinking 4+ drinks a day has been shown to increase the risk and speeds up the progression of macular degeneration.

This is another vision issue connected to oxidative stress that chemically changes and damages the retina.

Restricted blood flow from heavy drinking is another known cause for early-onset macular degeneration that can quickly lead to advanced age-related macular degeneration.

Toxic Optic Neuropathy

Toxic optic neuropathy is when there’s optic nerve damage primarily from exposure to toxins or chemicals, and it’s more likely to happen if you drink heavily.

It’s not directly because of the toxins in alcohol, it’s because of the nutritional deficiencies that come with heavy drinking.

Poor absorption of vitamin B12 is at the root of the problem. Even if you get vitamin B from your diet, alcohol disrupts your gut’s ability to absorb it.

Optic nerves need vitamins for energy production and to keep oxygen free radicals under control so that they don’t damage retinal ganglion cells.

Toxic optic neuropathy develops over time creating central vision loss. You’ll also have impaired color perception, with many people have difficulty perceiving shades of green and red.

What You Can Do to Drink Less and See Better

The less you drink, the less your eyesight could suffer. Even if you go from being a heavy drinker to drinking moderately, that helps prevent further damage that could permanently impact your vision.

Research shows that after quitting alcohol the eyes can recover, sometimes in a matter of days or weeks.

Naltrexone is an FDA-approved medication that’s used to help curb alcohol cravings so that it’s easier to drink less or quit drinking entirely, even if you’re a heavy drinker.

Just one pill a day blunts the dopamine release after drinking alcohol so you have less of an urge to drink.

Cutting back can be hard if you’re a heavy drinker. Naltrexone gives you support on a biological level that you can’t get through willpower or therapy alone. Take our Alcohol Use Assessment to find out if naltrexone is a solution worth exploring.