Alcohol and Physical Health
Janet Hadley
Creating an Alcohol Safe Workplace?, Without Killing the Buzz | Keynote Speaker | Alcohol Education | HR and Wellbeing Services | Enhancing Wellbeing | Reducing Absence | Boosting Productivity | Including Everybody
Since training as a sober coach, I’ve worked with dozens of people to re-set their relationship with alcohol. My clients have a wide range of reasons for feeling unhappy about how much they are drinking, but interestingly, physical health is rarely sited as a primary motivator.
I can understand this. When I was drinking, I had very little regard for the impact this might be having on my body. Aside from the bulge around the waistline of my jeans, there was very little to see in terms of any lasting impact of my over-indulgence. Yes, there were sometimes hangovers, but these are short lived and easy to put down to experience. Everyone loses the odd Sunday morning, after all.
I had a vague understanding that alcohol was bad for me on some level, but it wasn’t until I got sober that I really started to read up on the statistics that I fully appreciated the reality of what alcohol is and what it does. I think David Nutt sums it up best in his excellent book, “Drink?: The New Science of Alcohol and Your Health”. According to David, if alcohol were discovered today and subjected to the same rigorous health and safety standards of all other food in the UK, the amount that would be deemed safe to drink is one glass of wine. Per year. Yes, you are reading that correctly, one glass per adult per year.
Perhaps then it’s not surprising that some of first benefits I noticed when I stopped drinking were physical. My sleep was the first thing to recover. No more waking at 3am and promising myself I’ll have a weekend off boozing next week…only to find that by the next Friday, the Wine Witch was back whispering, “Go on, you deserve it,” in my ear.
Better sleep lead quickly on to having more energy. I went through a rather annoying stage of bouncing out of bed at 6am every day (don’t worry, I’m over that now). I am, however, still inclined to get my trainers on and get out for an early morning walk or a run now that I’m not processing alcohol every weekend morning.
I also noticed how much better my brain function was within just a few weeks of stopping drinking.??My short-term memory improved and the brain-fog I’d been putting down to middle age or perimenopause seemed to lift overnight.
Next up was my skin. Its papery grey tone was replaced by a new, dewy youthfulness. Forget expensive night creams: sobriety is the best anti-aging hack I’ve ever tried!
领英推荐
After that the results started coming in thick and fast: my nails are stronger, my hair is shinier, my teeth are whiter, I’m finally shifting those extra pounds around the waistline.
When I go on to consider what’s happening inside my body, I feel even better about my decision. I’ve reduced my risk of contracting over 60 chronic conditions including at least 7 different cancers, liver disease and dementia.
Like so many of my clients, the magnitude of these benefits has taken me completely by surprise. I honestly thought that going alcohol-free was something I ‘had’ to do, not something I wanted to do. If only I’d known how much better life would be, I’d have done it decades ago.
Choose Sunrise
At Choose Sunrise, we believe that nobody should feel afraid to ask for help with alcohol use. Join us to learn how to rediscover joy by having a complete reset of your relationship with alcohol through the 101 Days to Sober programme. Find out more?here.
Originally published at https://www.choosesunrise.co.uk/post/alcohol-and-physical-health