Plus, alcohol impairs your body’s ability to absorb essential nutrients from foods. Lastly, unhealthy alcohol use often goes hand in hand with unhealthy eating, loss of appetite, or disrupted mealtimes. When I was drinking, greasy hangover food was a staple. Cutting out alcohol improved my physical fitness, and my diet.

From Stress to Serenity: 99 Strategies for Managing Mental Health without Alcohol

For example, you may have developed a co-dependent relationship, or a family member, friend, or employer may have been enabling you without even knowing it. Depending on the type of dependency, PAWS can last from six months to two years after you stop using drugs or alcohol. I founded The Sober School to show you there’s another way out of your shame that doesn’t involve AA or rehab. White Claw is known as one of the most popular hard seltzer brands in the world, and they’ve just introduced their first non-alcoholic option.

• Dealing with peer pressure to drink can be challenging, but there are strategies you can use to stay true to your decision to stop drinking alcohol.
• I have friends that still drink alcohol and I have new friends that don’t.
• It’s also important to ask your loved one directly what you can do to help, especially during special events where alcohol may be served.
• Of course, if we could, you know, teach kids from a very early age, you know, all emotions are welcome.
• And like just enough already, this is the most important thing you’ll ever do.
• And some people may not be supportive of your decision to be alcohol-free.

Alternative Lay Language for Medical Terms for use in Informed Consent Documents

“To the drinker, it might feel like alcohol is helping with sleep when, in fact, it reduces the quality of sleep,” he says. Koob points to a 2018 study in JMIR Mental Health, which has shown that one or two servings of alcohol before sleep disrupts your nervous system to decrease your body’s ability to relax during sleep. But I worry that people are getting so caught up in the claims surrounding leaky gut that they may miss diagnosing an underlying disease. https://ecosoberhouse.com/article/15-benefits-of-the-alcohol-free-lifestyle/ For example, people with celiac disease often have bowel trouble and brain fog — this should be assessed by a physician and treated accordingly. Feeling sluggish all the time could be because of iron deficiency anemia, and constipation and bloating may be related to hypothyroidism or irritable bowel syndrome. If you’re suffering, we need to methodically examine the whole picture — and not leave it simply at “leaky gut” — to get you feeling your best.

• “People might be surprised to learn that 10% of all breast cancers are attributable to consumption of alcohol, which is one of the primary risk factors for developing the cancer, even at low volumes of consumption,” he says.
• Because he is a member of a support group that stresses the importance of anonymity at the public level, he does not use his photograph or his real name on this website.
• Consider professional help or support for you and your family.
• If a parent has AUD, a child may experience excessive stress because they don’t know what mood their parent will be in from day to day.

Navigating Social Situations Without Drinking

Alcohol may be a big part of how many people socialise and celebrate, but it can have a negative impact on our lives in a range of ways, as Alcohol Awareness Week (July 1-7), coordinated by Alcohol Change UK, highlights. My patients often ask me how to check if they have a leaky gut. There are some sophisticated tests benefits of living alcohol free we do in the laboratory to measure intestinal permeability — such as using specialized devices called Ussing chambers involving biopsies taken during an endoscopy. These kinds of tests are not available in a standard doctor’s office, and I would be wary of any third-party company offering unvalidated testing.

• While not everyone will qualify for free rehab programs, cost still doesn’t need to be a barrier to treatment.
• People in recovery from a substance use disorder frequently have problems meeting work-related responsibilities, maintaining employment, and managing money.
• And even people who, you know, we’ve had people in the sober club, who I remember was one woman who’d been sober for something like 18 months, but then she was about to go on a long haul flight.
• Intoxication can also present other unpredictable events, including physical dangers.
• In the past I moved along the gray scale; different ages, different friendship groups, different jobs, different circumstances, different seasons, and different living arrangements all led to different drinking patterns.

Many people who abstain are often subjected to personal questions, or perhaps an unspoken assumption that they must be dealing with an addiction. So, I think you know what, once you ditch the booze, then almost everyone starts to become really interested in all the other pieces. Because how will you not you know, once you start to like yourself, and you what you can start to focus on self-care.

• Sobriety hasn’t been a ‘one and done’ experience for me; it’s been a process over the last few years, and I’m so grateful to acknowledge that I’m still a work in progress, as I believe we all are.
• By walking away from alcohol, I have changed the trajectory for future generations.
• It was a mindset of abundance that Boast discovered while learning how to date while sober.
• If PAWS is severe or if you’re experiencing prolonged symptoms, a medical professional can help you work through them and remain in recovery without relapse.
• You know, the unconscious mind says, well, obviously, you just numb it out right now.
• And so much of what you were saying resonated with me and you know, I thought of a bunch of different things to talk about.