Jaundice after heavy drinking - how serious is this?

After a night of heavy drinking, a friend woke up with yellow skin on his arms chest and face. has he done permanent liver damage or if he stays off the booze for a while will he be ok?

I should probably add that it was quite short-lived - after a couple of hours he looked (and felt) okay.
Thanks for all the answers, much appreciated.

I suspect this is not the only time he has had too much to drink!
This is a serous warning sign that his liver may be in serious trouble. I suggest he attends his GP and has his liver function tests checked. NO ALCOHOL AT ALL at least until he finds out how much damage is done.

I would suggest he goes to the doctor, this is not good.

This is extremely serious. He is drinking himself to death and may have done serious permanent damage to his liver. Either that or he may have Hepatitis which is being aggravated by his drinking. Either way he needs to see a doctor for some liver testing pronto. There is always the possibility he has liver cancer and the drinking is aggravating it as well. It's better to get it checked out immediately. It's not something to say lets wait and see...

It's his liver screaming out for a f u c k i n g break. I don't think it will cause ny lasting damage but if he carrys on the way he's going, he could run into problems.

jaundice is a disease and needs to be treated, giving up booze for a week wont do it.

It doesn't sound good. Had they been complaining of any other symptoms prior? From what I remember people with liver problems tend to have a tiggling sense all over and then later you would show signs such as you've discribed suggesting that the liver might be shutting down.

VERY bad!!!!!
Get to the hospital now.
heavy drinking damages the liver! So many people continue to ignore this but it is a proven fact......

thats what i love about us blokes, we bloody stupid!!! get him to go see his g.p NOW!!! his liver sounds asif its about to do a george best on him but the only way to be sure is to get some tests, most notably the liver function test (you hear thew Dr's in E.R or casualty asking for an LFT?), done. itll require about 10ml of blood and will effectively be an mot for his liver and will tell him how much of a mess he's in but do it now...that or get measure up for a coffin!!!

its his liver saying gimme a break, its serious tho get him to hospital and get it sorted and it guna take more than a week off drink to sort it he might have scirosis of the liver, not good.

Well this cant be answered easily. I would tell your frind to worry very much and stay off the booze until the damage to the liver has time to repair.
Or there is always the chance he can have a transplant then he can keep boozed up until the next liver transplant.
Pop along to see the doctor, it could be the colourant in the booze.

That's pretty heavy duty. Check his or her eyes and see if there is any yellow-ish tone near in the whites. It'll almost look like they're wearing odd contacts.

Get a yellow pages or look online for a local AA meeting and get moving towards recovery. I'm almost 40 and lost close to 1/3 of my life to drinking like that. I've been clean and sober for 10.5 years now and life is awesome. Yeah, I still have bad days and times like everyone else, but I do it sober.