Tell-Tale Physical Traits of a Heavy Alcohol Drinker, Per Experts

Clinical psychologist Geri-Lynn Utter grew up in Kensington, Pennsylvania — one of Philadelphia’s grittiest corners — where her family ran a bar that opened at 7am and closed at 2am every day.

As a girl there, Utter would watch big-bellied factory workers show up to steady their hand tremors before their shifts, return at 3pm, and leave at closing. They’d come back the next day to rinse and repeat. 

Now a clinical psychologist who works with people with addictions, Utter knows alcohol use disorder falls on a spectrum. While some people with it do look like those bar patrons, many look perfectly healthy. 

Others fall in between, acquiring some undesirable physical traits due to the way alcohol affects all organs of the body. Insider talked to Utter and other specialists about some tell-tale signs of alcohol misuse or abuse — and how to change your patterns for better health and looks. 

You can develop wrinkles earlier in life.

Alcohol is a diuretic, meaning it causes your body to lose water, leading to dehydration. And dehydrated skin tends to sag and wrinkle, Dr. Joseph Volpicelli, a psychiatrist and addiction medication researcher in Plymouth Meeting, Pennsylvania, told Insider.

“I have patients who spent all this time getting botox or plastic surgery, and all this money on lotions, but the real problem is in their wine rack,” he said. 

Older-looking skin can also be related to how the body detoxifies alcohol: by recruiting certain nutrients and antioxidants to your liver at the expense of your skin, Lorna Driver-Davies, senior nutritional therapist at Wild Nutrition, told Refinery 29. 

Alcohol disrupts sleep, too, and poor sleep saps your face of precious time to repair. 

You have a reddish face.