There are many alcoholic treatment groups who consider this a disease. There are many reasons for this, mainly in therapeutic orientation. I have a presentation to do on alcohol and its effects on the heart and heart disease, but I can't find any information on the subject. The only information that I have found was from the American Heart Association, and that was only a paragraph on the subject. I need to do a 20 min.
Ethanol has several effects on the heart.
These can be separated into effects on the electrical system and effects on the muscle itself. This is called holiday heart and is often seen in the emergency room a day or three after holidays like New Years, etc. Other individuals will have irregular beats while imbibing, but only seen on monitors not with symptoms. In regards to the muscle, some patients experience what is called alcoholic cardiomyopathy. This is a weakening of the heart muscle with exposure to alcohol leading to heart failure with repeated exposure.