With the improvement of living standards, alcohol consumption and alcoholics in China are growing rapidly. According to statistics, from the early 1980s to the early 1990s, the proportion of alcoholics in the general population in northern China rose from 0.21% to 14.3%. At the same time, the incidence of alcoholic liver disease in China is increasing, with a prevalence of about 4.3% to 6.5% in the ALD population, and severe alcoholic liver disease due to long-term alcoholism is often seen. Early stage alcoholic liver disease mostly has no obvious clinical symptoms, only fatty liver visible on ultrasound. Moderate fatty liver disease can be seen as abdominal distension, fatigue, aversion to grease, loss of appetite, low food intake, emaciation, yellow eyes and skin, and some may have symptoms such as right upper abdominal pain. Long-term alcohol consumption may further lead to alcoholic cirrhosis and the appearance of ascites. A small amount of ascites may have no obvious symptoms, while a large amount of ascites may have abdominal distention, such as pregnancy-like, protruding belly button, and edema of both lower limbs; some of them may have blood vomiting and black stool solution. Severe weakness, severe abdominal distension, rapidly deepening jaundice, and coagulation disorders are seen in patients with severe alcoholic liver disease. Treatment for alcoholic liver disease includes abstinence from alcohol, nutritional support, liver preservation and anti-fibrosis, liver transplantation, etc. For mild to moderate alcoholic liver disease, conventional treatment measures can slow down or even reverse the progression of alcoholic liver disease. In contrast, in severe alcoholic liver disease, the disease progresses rapidly, with a recent mortality rate of 50%, and conventional treatment is ineffective. Glucocorticoids have powerful anti-inflammatory and immunosuppressive effects, which can reduce the recent mortality rate of severe alcoholic liver disease from 50% to 10%. Glucocorticoids suppress immune response, reduce pro-inflammatory factors and stabilize hepatocyte membranes, thus significantly improving liver damage in the short term. Although hormones can treat severe alcoholic liver disease, not all alcoholic liver disease requires hormone therapy. In mild cases, the disease can be controlled by simply applying treatment such as alcohol cessation, liver protection and enzyme reduction, and hormone application is not needed. In particularly severe cases, the application of hormones may lead to more complications and aggravate the disease, and hormones cannot be applied. Therefore, clinicians need to apply professional assessment scales to evaluate the disease and choose the appropriate time to administer the drugs. In addition, the application of glucocorticoids may also cause complications such as gastrointestinal bleeding and aggravation of infection, which require combined medication to mitigate adverse reactions. In conclusion, hormone is a double-edged sword, if applied well, it can quickly relieve the disease; on the contrary, it may outweigh the losses and lead to the aggravation of the disease, which requires specialized treatment of liver disease and medication under the guidance of hepatologists to give full play to the “positive energy” and reduce side effects.