Golly. I have just passed 5 months without drinking alcohol. Not only am I not pregnant, or ill, this wasn’t even my intention. In fact I would have said that I didn’t want to give up drinking permanently, just a reset, to give my body a longer break. I was aiming for 3 months, and that felt fairly huge as a goal, but it turns out that not drinking is flipping marvellous so I’ve sort of accidentally carried on.
And honestly I really can’t recommend it enough.
– I haven’t had to use ANY willpower so I have no sense of deprivation or missing out.
– I haven’t had a single morning of waking up fuzzy headed.
– I haven’t noticed any negative impact on my social life.
– I find it very easy to feel ‘tipsy’ when in the right company, with all the accompanying silly banter, mild indiscretions, cheeky comments etc. It’s weird how you can feel like you’ve been drinking even when you haven’t.
– I love never having to fret about who’s driving or paying for a taxi.
– I love never having any sort of alcohol-induced headache, fuzzy head, queasy or post-booze tired feeling.
– I have more energy as a result.
– I enjoy remembering what happened in an evening … well mostly, I still have peri-menopausal brain fog so fail to remember most things!
– I haven’t had any alcohol-induced night sweats or poor sleep.
– My sleep generally has massively improved. I would always have described myself as a fairly poor sleeper but these days I’m pretty solid – fall asleep fairly quickly, wake for a wee, back to sleep and usually wake fairly early in the morning but I’ve always done that. Only now I can still feel refreshed and energetic even with an early waking.
– I am at the lower end of my normal weight range without any effort whatsoever.
– I even went on holiday last week, ate a fair amount of chocolate every day, ate large portions of chips on 5 out of 7 days and still didn’t put on a pound. That NEVER happened when drinking as I would typically put on anywhere between about 3-9 lbs in a week due to both the booze calories and the booze-induced excess snacking.
– I appear to have lost tum-fat as my jeans need a tighter belt – I assume therefore I’ve probably lost the more dangerous visceral fat.
– I’m drinking a lot more tea which is full of antioxidants – I’ve even learnt to use a teapot!
– My menstrual cycle as gone from an average of 23 days in the last year or so (killer) to approx 35 days (hurrah). Alcohol has a massive impact on hormones so, while this could be a coincidence, I imagine it’s been a factor.
– I’ve learnt that I’m quite happy with either an alcohol-free beer (with a lime wedge in) or a soda with lots of fresh lime in, when out.
– And I love the fact that I am minimising my risk of dementia, cancer, strokes and various other nasties.
The Husband has also been sober for 5 months. He only ever aimed for a month but also then just carried on as wasn’t missing it. We’ve done 2 holidays, a dinner dance, various nights out, a pub crawl, several pub quizzes etc .. not missed alcohol at all.
Several of the positive impacts above have only really kicked in during the last month or so. I don’t know why – maybe it takes quite a while for your body to start healing from the effects of 30 years of drinking?
I never thought it would be this easy to give up alcohol. I never even thought I wanted to – this only happened cos I was bored in the library with the kids one day and picked up Alan Carr’s book to help me with my usual dry Jan. In fact if you’d suggested I could / should give up alcohol 6 months ago, I would probably have said such things as: ‘I don’t need to’, ‘I’m a very moderate drinker’, ‘I don’t often get really drunk, just a couple of wines a few times a week’, ‘I enjoy it too much to want to stop’, ‘My diet is healthy to offset any damage’, ‘I’ve started drinking earlier in the evening and then stopping so it doesn’t affect sleep as much’, ‘I can take it or leave it and always stop in Jan so it’s not a big deal’, ‘I love pub crawls and having a few drinks with friends’, ‘I wouldn’t want to be the only one not drinking when others are, it’s tedious’ etc etc. Turns out that was all the unconscious programming speaking. (For more on that & how to stop drinking without willpower I’ll pop a link to the original blog in the comments, including book recommendations).
I don’t have a plan regarding drinking again, or staying sober, but for now I’m a very happy sober person and highly recommend it. But I would reiterate that there is a huge difference in how people go about quitting. If you are making a conscious decision and deciding to stop drinking, it’s doable but generally involves a lot of willpower. Versus what I did which was read a few books, to undo the subconscious programming we all have around alcohol. The second method made it really easy, no sense of deprivation, no willpower needed. Should you want to give up drinking I recommend you take the easy option.
Please like / share as you never know which of your friends might need to read this today, Sue X