For those who survived the New Year’s Eve celebrations without remembering much, the reasons could be life threatening if it involved too much alcohol. The Sun recently posted a piece on the alcohol pressures that can surround this annual holiday.

An obsession to turn every day into New Year’s Eve is the dividing line between an alcoholic and a non-alcoholic. At the same time, the non-alcoholic can have as much to fear on New Year’s Eve.

Dr. Marc Eckstein, medical director of the Los Angeles Fire Department and associate professor of emergency medicine at USC’s Keck School of Medicine noted that those who are unaccustomed to drinking have a lower tolerance for alcohol. An alcoholic can function with quite a bit of alcohol in their system; a teetotaler can enter a state of respiratory collapse with very little alcohol consumed by comparison.

Women are more susceptible to alcohol than men for reasons as simple as they weigh less and the amount of enzyme needed (produced by the liver) to neutralize alcohol is proportional to body weight.

Sleeping after drinking a large amount of alcohol – relative to the person’s tolerance levels – is a dangerous move. Those individuals sleeping after drinking should be awoken or 9-1-1 should be called as they could be unconscious, indicating alcohol poisoning.

At the same time, alcohol deadens the gaga reflex. If a sleeping person were to vomit, they could breathe the vomit into their lungs and asphyxiate. Alcohol also has the potential to shut down breathing altogether.

The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism noted that dangers increase on New Year’s Eve because revelers do not recognize that driving-related skills and decision-making abilities are diminished long before physical signs of intoxication occur.