Dry January: The Health Benefits From Taking A Break From Alcohol : NPR

Now, if you’re worried that you are one of the 17 million U.S. adults who are alcohol dependent, and alcohol is causing you stress or harm, seek medical advice. As we’ve reported, there are a variety of treatments beyond Alcoholics Anonymous, including counseling, medications and support groups to help people who want to end that dependency. This NIAAA guide can help you find a program or approach that’s right for you. Over the past 12 years, Marshall has seen a lot of changes in the way people view sobriety. Back when he was getting sober, you either drank — or you didn’t, he says.

For drinkers who have become alcohol dependent, taking a short break is likely not an option. Many people who drink heavily have not had an easy road in managing their relationship with alcohol. “Some conditions might improve right away after the drinking stops—if they’re triggered by alcohol,” Dr. Genebriera says. But evaluations show, regardless of successful completion, taking up a month-long challenge to quit alcohol is linked to reductions in alcohol consumption six months and up to a year later.

What Happens When You Stop Drinking Alcohol?

You may find that alcohol-free sleep is much better quality and that you generally feel more rested and refreshed the next day. A 2016 British study of about 850 men and women who volunteered to abstain from alcohol during https://ecosoberhouse.com/ Dry January found that participants reported a range of benefits. For instance, 82 percent said they felt a sense of achievement. “Better sleep” was cited by 62 percent, and 49 percent said they lost some weight.

And while there is virtually no downside to taking a break from drinking alcohol — or quitting altogether — science is just beginning to study the ways abstinence might be good for you. “Viruses won’t be caused by alcohol, but you can be more vulnerable to them if you’re drinking,” he says. So, it’s not that sober living will give you a super-powered immune system—it’s just that it will get you back to your baseline, i.e. the efficient immune system you should have had before you started drinking. If you’re an otherwise healthy person, Dr. Galligan says it should take your immune system just a few weeks to bounce back. Drinking alcohol before bed, even one glass of wine – impacts our brain’s ability to go into REM sleep – the type of sleep that is restorative and helps us to really feel rested. Drinking can also give us a rebound effect when we wake in the early hours of the morning, when the alcohol in our system has worn off and our brains are overstimulated.

Additional Alcoholism Treatment Options

Another study published last year by researchers in Britain compared the health outcomes among a group of men and women who agreed to stop drinking for one month, with the health of a group that continued to consume alcohol. So far, there are a handful of studies that point to some benefits of abstinence for even moderate drinkers — in addition to the widely recognized benefits for people who have alcohol use disorder. In the far corner, about a dozen women in a group are clearly enjoying themselves too, but they are not drinking alcohol.

• Not only will it be good for the charity you are supporting, but it can make you more accountable.
• “There’s an antioxidant made by the liver called glutathione. You can get an indirect measure of how much oxidative stress the liver is under by measuring an enzyme called GGT that helps replenish glutathione stores,” White explains.
• “Even moderate drinkers who stop drinking for two months tend to overdrink when they start again,” Dr. Koob says.
• If your vacation from alcohol is temporary, proceed with caution when you start drinking again.
• In particular, conversations with friends tend to be more in depth when we’re not drinking – and we can find ourselves talking about a broader range of topics than before.

It is an idea to keep track of how much money you’re saving if you take a break from drinking – most people find that putting that money aside and saving up for something meaningful is an additional motivator. Not too long ago, a group of women in a bar who were not drinking alcohol would have seemed kind of strange. Still, abstaining from alcohol — on a short-term basis or longer term — is becoming more common. “They found that at the end of that month — just after one month — people, by and large, lost some weight,” says Aaron White, the senior scientific adviser to the director at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. If your vacation from alcohol is temporary, proceed with caution when you start drinking again.

Drugs & Supplements

Researchers have yet to uncover the specific ways that drinking raises your risk of developing these health conditions. And the benefits of sobriety might be years, not months, down the road. Still, it’s good to know that the protective effects can be both fast-acting and long-lasting. The more you drink, the more likely it is that you’ll damage parts of your heart that you really, really need. If you drink a lot, you might notice heart symptoms that seem to be worse—like palpitations and higher blood pressure—when you first stop drinking. It’s hardly a secret that having a few drinks alters the way your brain works.

• If going out for drinks feels more like a mandatory event and less like a fun occasion, you might be considering taking a break from alcohol—at least for a little while.
• But around 30% of people who start FebFast don’t get through the whole month alcohol-free.
• We can also find ourselves feeling anxious in the mornings after drinking because of the impact of the neurochemical glutamate on our brain.
• With this in mind, we’ve put together some common experiences that our Daybreak members have mentioned they’ve experienced when they took a break.
• Now, if you’re worried that you are one of the 17 million U.S. adults who are alcohol dependent, and alcohol is causing you stress or harm, seek medical advice.
• After all, a serving of alcohol is a 12-ounce beer, 5-ounce glass of wine, or 1.5 ounces of hard alcohol.1 Most people have more than that at happy hour or on the weekend.
• For drinkers who have become alcohol dependent, taking a short break is likely not an option.

The sober curious movement — people who are limiting their alcohol consumption — is relatively new. Early research suggests that even taking a short break from booze is good for your health. The “sober curious” or “sober sometimes” movement started as a challenge for those who felt they’d partied a little too hard over New Year’s weekend. First there was “Dry January,” when people could brag on social media about how they were taking a break from booze. Now there’s “Dry July” and even “Sober September.” And the movement has spread across the U.S., with people challenging each other to see what life is like without alcohol and share in that experience. If going out for drinks feels more like a mandatory event and less like a fun occasion, you might be considering taking a break from alcohol—at least for a little while.

For most people, participating in month-long challenges will provide a range of benefits and little downside, even over the longer term. Mindfulness practice has also been shown to help drinkers to change their drinking. Events like FebFast can encourage and support these good intentions. But around 30% of people who start FebFast don’t get through the whole month alcohol-free. It’s February and many people are starting to put into place their New Year’s resolution to drink less alcohol.