Alcohol in small doses is okay, but when someone uses it as a crutch or develops an alcohol addiction, it can severely impact your health and happiness. According to the Mayo Clinic, having more than three alcoholic drinks in one day or over seven in one week is considered too much. Once you pass that threshold, it can start to impact everything around you. The good news is if you cut back to normal limits or quit altogether, you will see the following immediate benefits.
Weight Loss
When you drink alcohol, it slows your metabolism. When your metabolism burns at a slower rate, you gain weight more rapidly. Alcohol dehydrates you, which can lead to water weight and bloating. Finally, when you are inebriated, you tend to act impulsively and overeat, along with making other unhealthy decisions.
Increased Memory
Drinking alcohol affects your memory not just in the short term, but it can have lasting effects in the long term. Not only will you not likely remember what you did when drinking, but it can also hurt your long-term memory and put you at a greater risk for dementia and Alzheimer's Disease.
Hormone Regulation
Drinking too much alcohol messes with your body’s ability to regulate hormones. That can lead to moodiness, agitation, and depression. Also, drinking alcohol regularly can lead to anxiety. When you stop drinking alcohol, it helps to stabilize your mood and your life.
Increased Energy
Not only does drinking alcoholic beverages drain your motivation, but it also stops you from getting the rest that you need at night, leading to being tired. When you stop drinking alcohol, you will feel an energy surge that will allow you to focus better and become more motivated to do things like exercise and remain active.
Financial Savings
Alcohol is not cheap. Like other vices, there is a premium tax put on it, called a “sin tax.” If you are consuming alcohol regularly, or perhaps even too much, that is putting a financial burden on you that you probably aren’t recognizing. By quitting, you will see a huge uptick in the money you have left at the end of the month. Reward yourself by doing something you enjoy with the added savings.
Increased Productivity
When you have more energy and motivation, you work better and enjoy more accomplishments. When you accomplish things, it pushes you to be more productive and to achieve more. It is a cycle with a huge upswing for giving up alcohol.
Quality Sleep
Not only does drinking alcohol mess with the number of hours you stay asleep, but it can also decrease the quality of the hours that you sleep. When you stop drinking, you will enjoy more restful and restorative hours at night, which will fuel more energy and optimism during the waking hours.
Lose Belly Fat
People who stop drinking usually lose weight. The type of weight that they lose differs also from other weight loss because it is usually seen in the adipose fat layer of the belly. If you have had a hard time with those last five pounds, abstaining from drinking will most likely do the trick.
More Mental Clarity
Drinking alcohol regularly clouds not just your memory but also takes a toll on your ability to focus and mental clarity. When you stop drinking, you will immediately find that focusing on tasks becomes easier, and those things that might have stumped or frustrated you might be simpler than you could ever imagine.
Healthier Skin
Alcohol dehydrates you, and dehydration is horrible for your skin. Long-term dehydration can lead to premature aging of your skin and fine lines and wrinkles. The good news is that the aging look will begin to ease when you stop drinking and start hydrating.
Dehydration Effects Clear Up
Alcohol is a diuretic, meaning that it can help to reduce full buildup in the body, but only for the short term. Over time, it will cause dehydration, which leads to bloating, poor skin appearance, and overall sluggishness.
Better Digestion
When you drink alcohol, it slows down the digestive system and can lead to bloating, cramping, and either diarrhea or constipation. When you quit drinking, you will see that a lot of the digestion issues you might have had will clear up pretty immediately.
Immune System Improvement
Chronic alcohol consumption can lower your body’s ability to protect itself. Those who drink frequently often suffer from a higher risk of respiratory illnesses. It can also lead to a risk for other colds, flu, and viruses.
Lowered Risk of Liver Disease
Frequent and chronic alcohol consumption will increase a person’s susceptibility to liver disease. Your liver is an organ that serves to remove toxins from the body. When your liver is overloaded, it puts stress on it and can lead to the development of fatty liver disease and cirrhosis of the liver. The good news is when you quit drinking, your liver will regenerate itself.
Better Relationships
It is hard to be in a relationship with someone who drinks chronically. People who drink too much are often irritable, crabby, anxious, and depressed, and none of those are good things to have in a relationship. When you stop drinking alcohol, you can better manage your mood and how you communicate, which are two really great things to increase your relationship status.
Improved Parenting Skills
Kids learn by modeling their role models, and when you drink too much, they just might learn from you., Also, when you are inebriated, you aren’t able to make good decisions for yourself or your child. When you quit drinking, you will have a lot more energy to be a parent, more patience for parenting, and a much better role model for your children to emulate.
Increased Patience
When you are in a better mood, you are more patient. People who quit drinking often find that they can better handle stress than they could when they were drinking frequently. More patience allows you to have better relationships, more productivity, and perseverance. It also gives you more clarity about how to best handle stressful situations.
Decreased Risk of Injury
Inebriated people are more prone to accidents of all kinds. Even if you don’t get behind the wheel after drinking alcohol, it does predispose you to slipping and falling and just engaging in riskier behaviors than you would if you were sober. By being sober, you will make better choices, period.
Drinking alcohol isn’t all bad, but it can become bad when it starts to affect your life, relationships, health, and happiness. The good news is that quitting can have an immediate and profound effect on you in many ways. Many positive things come from putting the bottle down, and the rewards will quickly outweigh the hardships that can sometimes accompany trying to do so.
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