On the other hand, if you drink in moderation, alcohol doesn’t affect LDL and instead increases good cholesterol (HDL). Cirrhosis of the liver (severe scarring of the liver) can occur over time in those who drink excessively. Community water fluoridation became widespread throughout the U.S. in the 1960s and is heralded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as one of the 20th century’s greatest public health interventions. Alcohol-induced sleep may feel deeper due to its sedative effects, but it’s actually fragmented and less restorative.

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Other medicines, counseling, and psychosocial support can also help to abstain or reduce unhealthy drinking. The important point is that one must be aware of the bad consequences of drinking and take steps to stop or reduce excessive drinking. Alcohol use and poor sleep are closely linked because alcohol messes with your sleep-wake cycle. For one, drinking alcohol makes falling and staying asleep much harder.Alcohol also relaxes the muscles in your throat, so you’re more likely to have problems like snoring or disorders like sleep apnea. When you quit drinking, you’ll probably notice that the colds, flu, and other illnesses you always seem to catch happen less often.

Improved Sleep

• Lowering alcohol intake also lowers the amount of acetaldehyde in the body.
• He adds, ” Alcohol limits the amount of REM (rapid eye movement) sleep that we get per night and as a result, this can impact concentration levels, productivity, and our ability to learn new information and create new memories.”
• Heavy drinking can take a toll on this organ, leading to other complications.

Many use alcohol to reduce stress and promote relaxation, but chronic alcohol use increases levels of the stress hormone cortisol. “Sometimes people drink alcohol to help them relax or navigate social anxiety, only to find it makes things worse,” says McMahon. Alcohol has sedative properties, so while it may cause you to fall asleep faster, your sleep quality will suffer, says McMahon. That’s because alcohol reduces time spent in the restorative REM stage of sleep, she explains. Alcohol is linked with several types of cancer, including mouth, throat, voice box, esophagus, liver, colon and rectum, and breast cancer in females. And the risk of developing these cancers increases with the amount and duration of alcohol consumption, says Drug rehabilitation Andrews.

benefits of not drinking alcohol – including just how much it affects your sex life – explained by the experts

• Mixed drinks are worse once you add in all those sugars and other carbs.
• But that may not be true, or true only for light sippers (less than one drink a day).
• For those with an alcohol use disorder, there are effective prescription medications that can be helpful when abstaining from alcohol.
• Just another one of the huge health benefits of not drinking alcohol.
• Alcohol misuse can lead to serious health problems like liver disease and cancer.

When you don’t drink alcohol for a month, you might lose weight, reverse liver damage, improve the look of your skin, get better sleep, =https://ecosoberhouse.com/ and so much more! We’ve provided a timeline of benefits below from one day to one year. Symptoms can range from headache, elevated blood pressure, heart palpitations, and nausea and vomiting to tremors, hallucination and in severe cases death. Nevertheless, people who have AUD should take extra care before suddenly quitting or significantly decreasing their intake as they can experience symptoms of alcohol withdrawal.

This better sleep is caused by more REM sleep, the deepest stage of sleep where dreaming and memory occur. Whether you’re sober curious, wanting to learn about the health benefits of sobriety, or looking join a challenge like Sober October, let’s dive into what happens when you stop drinking. The three- to five-week period is also when sugar cravings brought on by the lack of alcohol tend to subside, Johnson adds. And, assuming you haven’t indulged those craving the past few weeks, you could find your clothes fit a what happens when you stop drinking alcohol bit looser.

A second issue is financing the houses, which often includes government funding. Finally, halfway houses require residents to have completed or be involved in some type of formal treatment. For a variety of reasons some individuals may want to avoid formal treatment programs. Some may have had negative experiences in treatment and therefore seek out alternative paths to recovery.

• This could include friends who understand your journey, family members who encourage your choices, or support groups like Alcoholics Anonymous or SMART Recovery.
• It’s just hard to explain to people that you’re going to be useless for a few weeks because you have actual love for gin.
• Being sober curious means different things to different people.

Clean and Sober Transitional Living (CSTL)

• Second is to expand on these findings by considering potential implications of our research for inpatient and outpatient treatment and for criminal justice systems.
• Whether it’s taking up a sport, diving into arts and crafts, or learning to play a musical instrument, new hobbies can provide a sense of achievement and distraction from cravings.
• When I stopped drinking, not only did my recovery dictate that I needed lots of time to myself, lots of self-care, and lots of nights in, I discovered that I was, in fact, someone who relishes in alone time.

This fear may manifest as an intense and persistent anxiety. =https://ecosoberhouse.com/ When you’re in early recovery, even good days can be tough. It feels like you’re pulled in 521 directions at once, and there’s the constant draw to fall back into old habits. But when life sucks, staying sober can be more than hard, it can feel like it’s next to impossible.

Can meditation or mindfulness help with overcoming the fear of being sober?

But now that I’m sober I can’t really figure out why it was a bad thing. My dad was an alcoholic and was a terrible parent, which was another reason I wanted to be sober, I didn’t want to become him. But…I dont want kids, and im not an angry drunk, so it’s not really the same. Before people say it, I do struggle with depression from time to time, but I dont think thats an issue here. I’m not sad, I don’t want to die, and antidepressants haven’t helped. Plus I think they actually motivated me to do healthier things.

Educate yourself about sobriety to demystify your fears

When it seems like all you want to do is forget, to go get high or drunk and be gone, if only for a few moments, remember what addiction’s cost you. Remember what life was like when every moment was chaos and unmanageable. Remember how family and friends wouldn’t return calls or didn’t trust to leave you alone.

Published in Exploring Sobriety

You are a mirror now, a flashlight of sobriety in a society that is laced with the judgment that it’s abnormal to abstain from alcohol. People will assume you drink and will be very curious about why you don’t have a drink in your hand when they do. Ask any sober person whether they want to go to a cocktail party or stay in with a pack of La Croix, The Crown, and a bathrobe. I’d bet nine out of 10 of us won’t even answer, and we’ll just laugh because it’s alcoholism treatment such a ridiculous question.

There’s always a reason to drink.

Set challenging, but obtainable, goals for yourself and stick to them. If you have the drive to push yourself a little bit harder (even if it’s just running an extra block or eating a protein bar instead of skipping breakfast), you’ll find that your stress, anxiety and physical fatigue will diminish. If you’re interested in the book that started it all, check out “Sober Curious” by Ruby Warrington, who spearheaded the movement to reevaluate our relationship with alcohol. Given the social aspect of drinking, it might be challenging to break away from alcohol in group settings, but there are things you can do to ease the burden.

If you’re like most drinkers, you’ve likely surrounded yourself at some point with a group of people who also drink. I’d argue that many of us gravitated to a group of friends who have drinking habits that align with our own, and we did this because we didn’t want sober friends. It’s seen as normal to drink, and quitting that drug can feel like breaking a social pact. So your bold, life-improving decision to not drink will mean changes almost everywhere you look. Here are some surprising (and not-so-surprising) occurrences that will inevitably happen to your relationships, your identity, even your free time, and how I’ve learned to deal with each one. The Calm app puts the tools to feel better in your back pocket, with personalized content to manage stress and anxiety, get better sleep, being sober sucks and feel more present in your life.