6 Unexpected Benefits of Quitting Drinking
Did you know that the ethanol found in the alcohol you drink is the exact same ethanol used to power your car? Yeah...crazy right? This fact was hard for me to hear when I was drinking. I never wanted to accept the fact that alcohol was worse for my health than many people say. Instead, we are told that moderate drinking is okay, and that some alcohol can actually improve our heart health. This may be true, but the binge drinking that I was taking part in was doing nothing but harm to my body. I never knew just how much alcohol was damaging my health, until I gave it up and started to see the benefits of quitting drinking.
The sad truth is, no matter how bad alcohol is for our health, many people are so addicted to it that they physically cannot give it up no matter how badly they want to. When I was drinking, I slowly watched alcohol deteriorate my health, my friendships, and my life, yet I still continued to consume it. That is the scary part about addiction.
This past week, I hit my 6 months of sobriety milestone (whoo hoo!). In honor of this, I want to talk about 6 of the most amazing, yet unexpected, benefits I have experienced since quitting drinking.
1. Your weekends feel longer.
Say it with me now...NO! MORE! HANGOVERS! Gone are the days that I wasted my weekends nursing a headache and a nauseous stomach. When you wakeup hangover free, the weekend seems longer and full of endless possibilities! I could have predicted that I wouldn't experience hangovers anymore, but I never knew just how much alcohol was consuming my weekends until I quit.
In addition, alcohol tends to speed up our concept of time. I don't know about you, but when I was day drinking, it seemed like 8 hours went by in the blink of an eye. And don't even get me started on blacking out. There is no better way to waste a day or night than by blacking out for several hours and not remembering a single part of it.
I was sick of waking up every Sunday, overwhelmed with anxiety, wondering where the fuck the weekend went. Now that I have quit drinking, my weekends feel like they are 48 hours long-just like they are supposed to.
2. You gain confidence.
I was the queen of drinking to combat my social anxiety and to help improve my confidence. I thought that in order to be seen as "fun", I needed the help of "liquid courage". Instead, I have found the exact opposite to be true. One of the best and most unexpected benefits of quitting drinking has been gaining more confidence than I ever thought possible. Alcohol makes us more self-aware than we like to admit and chips away at any sliver of confidence that we do have. I was not able to realize this until I gave up drinking and was forced to put myself in uncomfortable situations without relying on the crutch of alcohol. I am more confident now than I ever have been in my life.
3. You will be a friendlier person.
"You treat others how you treat yourself". When I was drinking, I did not like myself, I was rude to myself, and therefore, I was rude to others. This inner self-hatred was reflected outward onto my boyfriend, my friends, and my family. I was constantly irritable, angry, or depressed. Without alcohol in my life, I like the person I'm becoming. This inner self-love radiates from within me. I am not easily irritated, I smile at strangers, and I treat everyone with respect.
4. You will attract more like-minded and positive people into your social circle.
I thought that giving up alcohol would shrink my social circle. To my surprise, I have actually found the opposite to be true. Without even realizing it, I have attracted many supportive and like-minded people into my life. Quitting drinking has made me realize which friendships were benefiting me and which were not. It has allowed me to reinvent my social circle. Currently, I am working towards removing the toxic friendships from my life and instead filling it with people who are constantly encouraging and supporting one another.
5. You will look (and feel) better.
It's no secret that quitting drinking will help you feel better, but I never imagined that it would help me look so much better as well. Looking back at old pictures of myself in my drinking days is borderline frightening. I'm not sure if anyone else can see the difference in my appearance from then to now, but I sure can. My face is puffy, my skin is horrendous, and my eyes constantly look tired.
We all know that alcohol can directly affect your appearance because it dehydrates the body. What many people don't realize is that drinking can also indirectly affect your appearance. When we are regularly consuming alcohol, we become lazy and may neglect taking care of ourselves. Now that I have quit drinking, I have so much more time to take care of myself physically, which in turn, improves my outward appearance.
6. You will have a better outlook on life.
I never realized how much my thinking was centered on immediate gratification until after I quit drinking. If something did not benefit me in that moment, I seldom did it. I was afraid to think about the future, so I rarely did.
Now that I am sober, one of the most unexpected benefits of quitting drinking has been my improved outlook on life. I practically spring out of bed each morning because I am so excited for the day ahead. I have discovered new things I am passionate about that make me hopeful and excited for the future.
Resources
If you want to figure out if giving up alcohol is right for you, please feel free to check out my post titled, The Journal Exercise That Convinced Me to Quit Drinking. It will help bring to light the things in your life that are taking up most of your mental and physical energy. From there, you can figure out what you should eliminate to ultimately become a happier, more productive person.
Finally, if you need help fixing your current relationship with alcohol, I highly recommend checking out the book, This Naked Mind by Annie Grace. In this book, the author dives deeper into the reasons people say they drink and helps the reader work towards building a better relationship with alcohol.