From a fatter wallet to a smaller waistline, giving up alcohol can have a tremendous effect on your life. Use this opportunity to break free of habits - like pouring a glass of wine (or three) every night - and give your body a short detox.
Passing on the booze for a few weeks, months, or years, does more than revive your body during abstinence, it can also have long-term effects! One study found that after six months, those who participated in a “Dry January” challenge reported having fewer drinks per week, and getting drunk less often.
A few other benefits you can expect include weight loss, better sleep, higher immunity, healthier skin, and the ability to make more meaningful social connections.
Alcohol and Your Immune System
The National Center for Biotechnology Information published a study about Alcohol and the Immune System, it states:
“Clinicians have long observed an association between excessive alcohol consumption and adverse immune-related health effects such as susceptibility to pneumonia. In recent decades, this association has been expanded to a greater likelihood of acute respiratory stress syndromes (ARDS), sepsis, alcoholic liver disease (ALD), and certain cancers; a higher incidence of postoperative complications; and slower and less complete recovery from infection and physical trauma, including poor wound healing… [alcohol can also] impair the body’s ability to defend against infection, contribute to organ damage associated with alcohol consumption, and impede recovery from tissue injury.”
In other words, alcohol weakens your immune system, can create systemic inflammation in your body, and ultimately lead to infection and disease.
Do You Have Support
Whether you’re going alcohol-free for a month or the rest of your life, it’s important to have people around you who support you.
Unfortunately, we live in a society where consuming alcohol is extremely normalized and even encouraged. For younger people, drinking alcohol is a rite of passage and is seen as behavior that finally helps you transition from child to adult. We’re inundated with ads for alcohol and jokes about “needing” a drink, or phrases like, “it’s five o’clock somewhere!”
In reality, alcohol isn’t good for us. In fact, it’s a mild poison that we should all be consuming in moderation - if at all.
Alcohol Masking
Some people don’t recognize that they’re introverted until they start laying off the booze and discover that the only way they can tolerate being around large groups of people is when they’re drinking. In other words, while sober, you might realize that you prefer a more mellow evening with alone time to recharge.
This is just one example of a personality trait that can become uncovered with sobriety.
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