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- Abstinence can be a way to avoid the risks that come with sex — like pregnancy and STDs — until you’re ready to prevent and/or handle them. Abstinence can also help you focus on other things in your life that are important to you, like friends, school, sports, activities, having fun, and planning for your future.
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Embarking on a journey of sobriety can have profound effects on your body, leading to positive changes over days, weeks, months, and years. Let's explore this transformative process and its impact on your health in the immediate and longer term.
- Overview
- What Alcohol Does to Your Body
- Physical Benefits of Quitting Alcohol
- Mental Health Benefits of Quitting Alcohol
- Cognitive Benefits of Quitting Alcohol
- How to Get Help Quitting Alcohol
At a Glance
Alcohol has many negative effects on your physical and mental health. The benefits of quitting drinking are often apparent soon after you stop, and will only continue to improve the longer you abstain from drinking.
Even if you know that there are benefits to quitting alcohol, it does not mean that it’s easy to stop drinking—especially if you’ve been misusing alcohol for a long time.
Research shows that some damage to your brain, liver, heart, and gut done by alcohol will slowly heal when you stop drinking. While it’s true that alcohol withdrawal symptoms can be severe, they will not last forever. Once you get through that part of the process, you’ll start to feel better physically and mentally.
In this article, we’ll talk about the health risks that come with drinking and the benefits of quitting alcohol.
The Rise of the California Sober Lifestyle
Joseph Volpicelli, MD, PhD, founder and medical director of the Volpicelli Center and executive director of the Institute of Addiction Medicine, says that alcohol can have a negative effect on your mental, emotional, and physical health.
Unhealthy drinking is a continuum. Cognitive, emotional, and sleep disturbances can occur at even moderate levels of drinking. As one drinks more over time, these disturbances get worse and become more difficult to reverse.
— JOSEPH VOLPICELLI, MD, PHD, FOUNDER AND MEDICAL DIRECTOR OF THE VOLPICELLI CENTER
One of the most profound ways that alcohol affects you is through what it does to your body. After you drink alcohol, Volpicelli explains that the small molecules inside it get absorbed by your gut. From there, they travel to other parts of your body and affect organ systems, including the cardiovascular, immune, and nervous systems, along the way.
As alcohol is broken down and metabolized by your body, toxins get released. Some will eventually get broken down into less harmful compounds, but your body's ability to process these substances is limited.
Excessive drinking can lead to the build-up of toxic, highly cancer-causing (carcinogenic) compounds that contribute to inflammation in your body, especially in your liver.
Better-Looking Skin
One outer body place where you’ll notice the negative effects of alcohol on your body is your skin. For example, drinking alcohol can cause: Broken capillaries on the face and nose Dry skin due to dehydration Inflammation Jaundice (with chronic, long-term use) Reduced collagen levels, resulting in loose, saggy skin When you stop drinking, your skin gets more elastic and the redness and discoloration on your face will slowly fade.
Weight Management
Alcohol robs your body of nutrients and derails your metabolism. Alcoholic beverages are a source of added sugar and empty calories. Binge drinking can lead to consuming an extra 600 calories or more in a day. The National Institute on Alcoholism and Alcohol Abuse defines binge drinking as a pattern of alcohol consumption that brings blood alcohol concentration (BAC) levels to 0.08 g/dLi in a short period of time (about 2 hours). This typically occurs after five or more drinks for men and four or more drinks for women. A big part of alcohol recovery is taking steps to improve your lifestyle through changes like diet and exercise. If you’ve been trying to get to and maintain a weight that supports your health, quitting alcohol can help you meet that goal. How Your Body Metabolizes Alcohol
Better Nutrition
Drinking alcohol can make it harder to stay nourished. Sometimes, people with alcohol use disorder “drink” meals instead of having nutritious meals. So, they’re not getting the carbohydrates, protein, fat, vitamins, and minerals their body needs to function. Alcohol can also affect digestion, storage, utilization, and excretion of nutrients. That’s why it’s common for people who use alcohol to be malnourished. When you stop drinking and start focusing on your health, you’ll likely start to feel better once your body is properly nourished. Alcohol's Effect on Nutrition
Quitting alcohol won’t just protect your physical health—it can also improve your mental well-being.
Many people with alcohol use disorder also have other mental health conditions like depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, or schizophrenia.
According to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, 9.2 million U.S. adults had both mental health disorders and a substance use disorder in 2018, yet nearly 60% did not get treatment.
While scientists don’t totally understand the link, they do know that many people use alcohol and other substances to self-medicate when they have symptoms of mental health conditions—even though doing so can actually make mental health symptoms worse.
Volpicelli says that some of the negative effects of alcohol on mental health can be reversed if you stop drinking.
For example, research shows that people will see their stress levels, relationships, work performance, and self-confidence get better when they get sober.
Your brain is sort of between your body and mind, so you'll see a lot of benefits of quitting alcohol here as well. You may notice that you have better memory and can think more clearly after you stop drinking alcohol.
Heavy drinking can actually cause the part of the brain that’s critical to memory and learning (hippocampus), to shrink.
Quitting alcohol and abstaining for several months to a year gives your brain a chance to try to recover.
"While for some people these structural changes are not reversible, most people are able to show less shrinkage in one to three months with alcohol abstinence," says Volpicelli.
When you stop drinking, it can also reverse the negative effects alcohol has had on your cognitive functions like problem-solving, memory, and attention.
Research suggests that you may start seeing cognitive improvements two to four weeks after you stop drinking.As your cognition improves, you may find that you can remember information and concentrate better, and planning and organizing tasks get a lot easier.
If you want to reduce your alcohol use and stop drinking, there is help and support for you. Behavioral interventions, medications, and social support can all play a role in your alcohol recovery.
Start by talking to your doctor about how much alcohol you’ve been using and your plan to quit. It’s important that you work with your doctor when you’re ready to stop drinking rather than trying to do it alone.
Chronic, heavy alcohol use is associated with worse alcohol withdrawal symptoms when you try to stop, and can even be dangerous. There’s also a severe form of alcohol withdrawal called delirium tremens (DT) that causes confusion, hallucinations, nausea, rapid heart rate, and seizures.
DT can be life-threatening, so you should get immediate medical attention if you have these symptoms after you quit drinking.
Other medicines, counseling, and psychosocial support can also help to abstain or reduce unhealthy drinking. The important point is that one must be aware of the bad consequences of drinking and take steps to stop or reduce excessive drinking.
— JOSEPH VOLPICELLI, MD, PHD, FOUNDER AND MEDICAL DIRECTOR OF THE VOLPICELLI CENTER
- You Might Dodge Accidents. Alcohol plays a role in at least half of all serious trauma injuries and deaths from burns, drownings, and homicides. It’s also involved in four out of 10 fatal falls and traffic crashes, as well as suicides.
- Your Heart Gets Healthier. You might think that a regular glass of red wine or other alcoholic beverages might be good for your heart. But that may not be true, or true only for light sippers (less than one drink a day).
- Your Liver May Heal. Your liver’s job is to filter toxins. And alcohol is toxic to your cells. Heavy drinking -- at least 15 drinks for men and eight or more for women a week -- can take a toll on the organ and lead to fatty liver, cirrhosis, and other problems.
- You Might Drop Pounds. A glass of regular beer has about 150 calories, and a serving of wine has about 120. On top of those mostly empty calories, alcohol ramps up your appetite.
Feb 15, 2024 · Explore the vital role of abstinence in recovery, covering different types, benefits, and support mechanisms like CBT and DBT. Learn how to practice it successfully with strategies for a healthier, sober life.
Research has found that just four weeks without a drink can be enough to start lowering both blood pressure and heart rate.*. Your risk of type 2 diabetes has already started to reduce (in one study insulin resistance came down by an average of 28 per cent) and your cholesterol levels should be starting to lower.
May 28, 2019 · Abstinence is the only realistic treatment goal for everyone. Celebrities such as Anne Hathaway, Lena Dunham, and Russell Brand have all made their abstinence recovery journeys public. And if...
Jul 7, 2014 · Abstinence, however, can become unhealthy – psychologically – when you want to have sex but aren’t. “People will say, ‘I want to but I’m shy,’ or ‘I don’t know how to approach people.’. That’s...
