effects on a teenagers general health. Some teenagers do not realize how they are endangering their own bodies when they drink alcohol. There are both long- term effects of teenage drinking and immediate effects. An immediate effect of excessive drinking is brain damage. The brain is the first organ in the body that is affected when alcohol is introduced into the blood system. In comparison to the other organs affected by alcohol, the brain is affected the most (ADAMHA News 2). CAT scans show that excessive drinking alters the structure of the brain (ADAMHA News 4). Brain damage is associated with excessive amounts of drinking over a short time period.Alcohol has a long list of long term effects on the human body. An example of a long-term effect caused by continued heavy drinking is cirrhosis. Cirrhosis makes the liver in-effective by forming scar tissues around the liver that blocks blood flow through the liver (UMHS-Alcohol Related Diseases 1). Cirrhosis claims around twenty-eight thousand lives in the United States alone. This places cirrhosis at ninth for the causes of death in America (ADAMHA News 1). Alcohol is a factor in causing damage to the digestive system and cardiovascular system. Drinking over a long period of time results in disrupted heart rhythm, heart disease, and high blood pressure (ADAMHA 3)....
