Sober Curious: Does Cutting Back on Alcohol Even A Little Bit Improve Health?

We’ve all heard that drinking is bad for your health, but that a glass of red wine can help you live longer. So what’s the deal?

Despite what you may have heard, the truth is that even small amounts of alcohol can cause long-term damage to your body, including an increased risk of cancer, heart disease, and stroke. However, there are some conflicting studies about whether just cutting back on alcohol will actually improve your health or if you need to practice complete sobriety from alcohol.

With more and more people talking about being “sober curious” and participating in one-and-done sobriety months like Dry December, you may even find yourself asking: Why does anyone ever choose to abstain from alcohol for a month?

It’s a question that hardly ever needs to be asked, except as we approach the end of a collective dry month.

It’s a common misconception that alcohol is good for you. The truth is that even small amounts of alcohol can cause long-term damage to your body, including an increased risk of cancer, heart disease, and stroke.

To answer that question, it’s helpful to know why people choose to abstain in the first place.

You’re likely to hear from a lot of people this month that “you can’t drink just one.” But is that true?

Well, it depends.

If you’re drinking for fun and socializing, then yes — you probably can drink just one. But if you’re drinking to get drunk, then no — you definitely can’t drink just one.

Most often, those who make the decision to stop drinking simply do so for health reasons — in other words, they want to improve their physical well-being by limiting their intake of alcohol. But there are also some who feel they have no control over their drinking and have vowed not only to give up drinking but also any form of alcohol or drug consumption whatsoever. This impulse to drink one after the other until you’re blackout drunk is something I am all too familiar with and a big reason why I and others decided to quit drinking for good.

What are the benefits of abstaining from alcohol altogether?

In terms of physical health alone, cutting back on booze does lead drinkers’ bodies into a healthier state overall (lowering blood pressure and reducing risk factors for heart disease), but these effects tend not to be immediate.

Researchers who tracked participants’ progress over time found that many were able to curb their intake without noticing any clear improvements until about six months after giving up hard liquor completely.

I believe you can notice changes in your health, physical and emotional, within one week, and certainly in one month.

A dry month is a respite from the usual pressures and temptations to drink and a chance to break some old habits.

If most people don’t start to experience health results until about six months after removing hard liquor from their diet, what’s the point in doing a dry month like Dry January or Sober October?

A dry month is a respite from the usual pressures and temptations to drink, and a chance to break some old habits.

The benefits of going alcohol-free for one month include:

Improved sleep
Increased energy
Better focus
Better health and digestion
Clearer skin
Fewer headaches
Improved mood and stress levels (especially if you’re prone to anxiety)
Better relationships
A stronger connection to your values and goals

Even if you’re one of the people who doesn’t experience any of the amazing health benefits above, a dry month is a chance to look at your drinking habits and evaluate whether they’re helping or hindering you. If you find that it’s not helping, then maybe it’s time to consider making some more permanent changes.

My own sobriety started with a 3-month experimental break from booze. Take it from me, a month off alcohol can be a great way to reset your drinking habits and get back in touch with what it means to be a drinker vs sober.

Health experts say that abstaining from alcohol can provide some health benefits. In fact, cutting back on drinking may even be one of the best things you can do for your health.

If you’re wondering how exactly alcohol hurts your health, it’s important to understand that alcohol is a toxin. A poison. Period.

Just like any other toxins in the body, regular exposure to them over time can lead to major health problems. This means that drinking too much alcohol can damage your liver, and cause cancer, heart disease, strokes, diabetes, high blood pressure, and depression.

While there’s no such thing as a safe amount of alcohol consumption, experts agree that cutting back on drinking at all, even a little bit, is one of the best things adults can do for their overall health.

So to rephrase my question from earlier in this article, why does anyone ever choose to drink alcohol when it’s a known toxin?

While there are certainly benefits to be gained from drinking in moderation, many have chosen to cut back or quit completely in order to reduce their chances of developing cancer, liver disease, or other ailments caused by alcohol consumption.

While some claim that there are certainly benefits to be gained from drinking in moderation (I just can’t think of any), many, like me, have chosen to cut back or quit completely in order to reduce their chances of developing cancer, liver disease, or other ailments caused by alcohol consumption.

The good news is that cutting back on alcohol can reduce your risk of:

heart disease
liver disease
cancer
diabetes
high blood pressure
stroke
depression
anxiety

Quitting drinking forever vs. a one-month commitment.

Quitting all at once can set people up for failure, according to Petra Leary, co-founder of Soberistas, an online community for women who want to live without alcohol. She said people should expect sobriety experiments like dry January to be a challenge because you’re challenging your brain chemistry as well as your social habits.

As with any challenge, the best way to approach your first sober January is with a sense of humor and a lot of self-compassion. If you do happen to fail, don’t beat yourself up about it.

“It’s not easy,” says Petra Leary, co-founder of Soberistas, an online community for women who want to live without alcohol. “If I were to tell people here at Soberistas that [they’ll] never have another drink again after Jan 1st…I’d be lying.”

Leary and fellow co-founder Liz Kaelin started the group in 2014 after recognizing that many women wanted support while they were working on their sobrieties but weren’t finding it anywhere else on the internet. They’ve since grown into one of the largest online communities devoted exclusively to female sobriety (there are some other resources out there as well). I am a big fan and email subscriber!

But if you find yourself looking forward to giving in at the end of a month, your body might be telling you something important about the relationship between alcohol and your own health.

You can’t escape the fact that we are social creatures. Our health is deeply intertwined with our interactions with other people, and one way that we connect is through shared experiences like drinking together, watching football together, or singing karaoke together.

But if you’re trying to cut back on alcohol for whatever reason — your job, schoolwork, your health — it’s not just those social connections that might suffer if they involve drinking too much. You may also be cutting out healthy habits that come naturally when drinking is involved: eating well, exercising regularly, and getting enough sleep.

I’ve found that the quality of my relationships and social connections increased after quitting alcohol. While I am able to acknowledge and remember fondly some of the fun times I had while drinking, there is not a single hangover I reminisce about, nor decisions I made while drunk that felt out of character (or not preferable) that I wish I could go back and do it the same way again. Sobriety means I never have to worry about that ever again and trust me, I still sing karaoke and have fun with my friends.

Final Thoughts: Does Cutting Back on Alcohol Even A Little Bit Improve Health?

We’re living in an age of wellness, where there are plenty of ways to control what you put into your body, and influencers, celebrities, and companies profiting off of “cleanses” or “toxin removal” and yet so few mention how simply quitting alcohol (and spending less money) can help you achieve all the same, research supported wellness benefits.

In this article, we explored how different levels of alcohol consumption affect your health. It turns out that even a little bit counts when it comes to alcohol intake. If you want to improve your overall well-being and live a healthier life, cutting back can make a big difference; quitting altogether can make an even bigger difference.

Read more on Medium about sobriety by Dara Laine Murray:

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