Three generations of women preparing healthy food together in their kitchen.

Drink less,
live more.

 
Literally, that’s the recipe — according to decades of studies that document the ways that excessive drinking harms our bodies and brains. On the flip side, when we drink less, we avoid a lot of pain. Not just fewer headaches and hangovers, but a lower risk of serious long-term health problems like cancer, heart disease and depression.11

Excessive drinking can cause:

Illustration of prostate

Prostate: Drinking alcohol raises your risk of prostate cancer.12

Illustration of colon

Colon: Drinking alcohol raises your risk of developing colorectal cancer.14

Illustration of heart

Heart: Binge drinking puts you at higher risk for high blood pressure, strokes and heart disease.13

Illustration of man's head and neck in profile

Head and neck: Regular heavy drinking raises your risk for developing cancers of the head and neck, including mouth, throat, voice box and esophagus.14

Illustration of liver

Liver: Excessive drinking contributes to three types of liver disease: fatty liver, alcohol-related hepatitis and cirrhosis.15

Illustration of brain

Brain: Alcohol can trigger mood and behavioral changes or make them worse, including depression, anxiety, memory loss and alcohol dependency.16

Breasts: Drinking alcohol increases your risk for breast cancer.17

 

Does any alcohol consumption increase the risk to your health?

Many factors can affect your risk for these and other health harms including age, medication interactions, pregnancy or gender. For some people, drinking any alcohol is too much. Any decrease in the amount of alcohol you drink, will decrease your risk of cancer and other harms. 24

Talk with your health care provider to understand more about your personal risk and head to our resources page for support to drink less.

How are alcohol and cancer linked?

Alcohol is classified as a Group 1 carcinogen, meaning it is known to cause cancer. After drinking alcohol, the body breaks it down into acetaldehyde, a chemical that damages your DNA and prevents your body from repairing that damage. With the DNA damaged, a cell can begin growing out of control and create a cancer tumor.

Because alcohol is a carcinogen, lower levels of drinking can also be harmful even if you don’t feel drunk.25

 Beyond our bodies

Drinking and motor vehicle deaths

The number of driving deaths that involve alcohol has more than doubled in Oregon in recent years, from 70 in 2010 to 191 in 2020. Oregon has one of the highest rates of alcohol-impaired driving deaths in the nation.18

Harms can happen in a flash

It can take years for excessive drinking to cause heart disease or cancer. Or it can end in death in a matter of hours or minutes, when it contributes to suicide, violence, and falls or other injuries. Binge19 drinking can lead to death by alcohol poisoning — most common among middle-aged men ages 35 to 64.

Uneven impact on communities

People in Oregon of all racial and ethnic backgrounds and at all income levels drink excessively. But the harms fall disproportionately on Black and Indigenous communities and people with lower incomes and less education, who experience higher rates of alcohol-related diseases and other harms.20

It affects all of us

You don’t have to drink a lot or at all to be affected by excessive drinking. Children, families, communities — we all pay the costs. Moreover, excessive drinking costs Oregon $4.8 billion per year, including lost earnings for workers and revenue for businesses, health care expenses, criminal justice costs, and car crashes. That’s $1,100 for every person in Oregon.21