MT. PLEASANT (WCBD) – With summer here some people may consider an ideal weekend to be spent at the pool or a backyard barbeque with a drink in their hand, but doctors say consuming alcohol in excessive heat could be a dangerous mix.

Dr. Jeffrey Yonce with Roper St. Francis Healthcare warns you should keep the risk of dehydration in mind if you are cracking open a cold one.

“If you’re having a light beer or a hard seltzer, I don’t want you to be under the assumption that you’re hydrating yourself,” said Dr. Yonce.

For every alcoholic drink, doctors recommend having one or two glasses of water as well.

“You may be doing actual physical activities and things like that, so combining that with alcohol which is a diuretic is gonna make you urinate more frequently, which is ultimately pulling water from our body and kind of urinating it out and that is in itself is gonna make you much more likely to feel dehydrated and have some potential consequences from that,” said Dr. Yonce.

The risks of mixing alcohol and the sizzling summer heat could make a dangerous cocktail. It makes it hard for your body to regulate its temperature effectively which can lead to serious health risks such as heat cramps, heat stroke, and even organ failure.

“Early symptoms like lightheaded, dizzy, you know more concerning symptoms, certainly confusion or feeling wobbling on your feet. You know those can all be very serious. They can lead to falls, injuries, syncopal events. You know for patients who have cardiac issues, they can put you more prone into going into maybe one of those cardiac events such as atrial fibrillation or other arrhythmias,” said Dr. Yonce.

Dr. Yonce says with the hot, humid temperatures here in the Lowcountry, drinking alcohol should be done responsibly.

“So, we all want to have fun and enjoy the beautiful weather that we’re in, but we all want to do it safely, not hopefully spend have an ER visit or night in the hospital as a repercussion from our decisions,” he said.

Doctors also recommend taking long breaks between beverages, not consuming them back-to-back, and heading indoors when it gets too hot.