Similar considerations apply to the evaluation of comorbid disorders. Moreover, the ECA program defined alcohol use disorders as the occurrence of enough symptoms to meet the associated diagnostic criteria over the life course. The sporadic occurrence of isolated symptoms, perhaps years apart, provides an insufficient basis for testing competing hypotheses related to comorbidity. A discussion of comorbidity with psychiatric disorders will follow. Alcohol has been shown to be directly toxic to the liver.
Alcohol can damage the brain in many ways.
The most serious effect is Korsakoff's syndrome, characterized in part by an inability to remember recent events or to learn new information. Based on ECA data, alcoholics are 21.0 times more likely to also have a diagnosis of antisocial personality disorder compared with nonalcoholics. Antisocial personality disorder. Comorbid ASPD has prognostic and treatment implications for alcoholics. Bulimics commonly exhibit multiple drug use disorders and have high rates of alcoholism.