Lessons from my break from alcohol
After a 4.5 week break, I started drinking against last Thursday. I ended up having a few drinks each night of the weekend and then had a bigger day for the Super Bowl where we reserved the top floor of a bar. I learned a lot in the last 5 weeks of giving up alcohol and then restarting drinking again.
While I get the benefits of not drinking, I do believe I am in a good spot where I can drink again and be okay. So for now, I will continue to drink every now and then. I wanted to write a final blog post about those learnings and put an end to this experiment.
The biggest difference in giving up alcohol for me was clearly the sleep. I fell asleep easier. I had a much more consistent sleep schedule. And I overall felt more rested. Sleeping sober 6-7 hours felt better than sleeping 8-9 hours with drinking the night before.
On a similar topic, it’s brutally obvious that I need to cut back on my drinking solely for the sleep benefits. I have struggled with energy and sleep the past two years and it’s clear now that alcohol has been the biggest contributor to that.
My overall mood has generally been happier. I would often struggle with Mondays and would go as far to say I felt depressed a lot of Mondays. Giving up alcohol revived my Mondays significantly. I still had a lot of stress but my base level was much better consistently.
I had a lot of more energy and enthusiasm for work as well.
I also noticed that I dreamt a lot more when I was sober. This is likely a sign that I was getting to REM sleep much easier.
My skin was also noticeably better. I’m not a skincare routine nut like my wife, but I noticed that my skin cleared up. After this weekend of drinking, I can notice myself breaking out a bit.
Like most Asians, I suffer from a bad gut. Not drinking for sure helped out with that significantly. I felt healthier overall. Given that Sunday was the Super Bowl, my last couple of days have been rather tough on the gut.
I felt that I had more energy during my workouts for sure. But it wasn’t night or day. I think a lot of it had to do more with the better rest. I do feel much less bloated though.
Overall though physically, I felt great. I golfed better when I was sober. I had more focus on my golf game and I had a lot more confidence. It was great to see this.
My biggest fear of not being able to be social without alcohol was largely false. I went to parties. I went to bars. I had fun. Of course it was incredibly tempting to drink when everyone else around me was also drinking, but I also was able to manage quite well. This was perhaps one of the biggest surprises. I was not as reliant on drinking as I thought.
I didn’t miss alcohol nearly as much as I would’ve thought. At the end of the day, more energy and a better overall mood consistently outweighed the benefits of drinking for the most part. I now know I need to be more conscience when I do drink… that extra drink at night is not worth it.
In terms of stress relivers, I didn’t need alcohol as much as I thought. It was nice to be able to battle stress in healthier ways.
While I don’t believe I need to go fully alcohol free, I am feeling a lot more aware and conscience of the downsides of alcohol. I’m glad I took the 4.5 weeks off from drinking.