Is Alcohol Keeping You Stuck?
Do you feel just ok for some reason that remains mysterious to you? Like you’re doing all the things that you “should” be doing to be healthy, happy, and fit but somehow you still feel stunted. You’re still more anxious than you expected you would be or not be as far in your journey with certain projects or aspirations as you expected you would be? Do you feel uninspired or plain snippy too often for comfort?
My next question is, do you drink alcohol on a regular basis? Or, in other words, is your alcohol intake habitual? Alcohol intake doesn’t have to be in large quantities to do the dirty work that it does. If you consume alcohol habitually (1 glass or 5) it could be the culprit in keeping you in that “neutral” position. Doing all the things that should make you feel 100% can still be stunted by habitual alcohol consumption and I’m going to tell you how in this post. No worries! I’ll offer some possible solutions and ways to distract yourself from alcohol too.
This post may contain affiliate links to products. I make a commission if they’re purchased using the links I provide at no cost to you. Please go to my terms and conditions page for more information.
What Does Alcohol Affect?
Everything! Your brain, your sleep and your energy, your memory, your weight, your exercise routine, and your motivation. I could go on but those are the topics I’m going to cover in this post because I don’t want to end up writing a book! So, let’s dive into some light science behind exactly how alcohol slows you down and gets in the way of your best self.
Alcohol Affects your Brain
Alcohol is a depressant because it depresses brain activity, it’s not because it will depress you. I will explain why it can lead to feelings of depression and anxiety in a bit. At first, after you consume alcohol, serotonin, and dopamine increase. You’ve pushed a chemical button by consuming that alcohol. But your body is always trying to achieve “homeostasis,” meaning your brain wants everything to be running harmoniously and equally… not experiencing extreme pleasure or extreme pain. But, when something “extreme” like alcohol is consumed and then stopped (you’ve had your last drink), your brain is left with a deficit when it’s not being consumed. That deficit is felt by us in the form of depressing or anxious feelings.
Alcohol is Extreme?
Let me explain my description of alcohol as “extreme,” When we consume something like chocolate, according to research, our feelings of pleasure increase, from baseline, about 50%, sex 100%, nicotine (a drug) 150% and amphetamines (obviously another drug) about 1000%. So, when you STOP taking that feel-good inducing chemical the resulting deficit is felt in EQUAL amounts to the pleasure it brought on. That means if you ingest amphetamines, and your pleasure increases 1000% then your deficit is also going to be felt at 1000%. Mind blowing! Side note: this is how addiction starts. This is why addiction is considered a cycle. But that’s a whole other blog post!
If you want to learn more about this interesting information either read this article. If you really want to learn the nitty gritty on alcohol consumption read Annie Grace’s This Naked Mind. She’s such an eloquent writer. I felt like every word in that book made perfect sense. I felt so many “aha” moments!
Alcohol = Low Quality Sleep
Most people believe that alcohol helps them fall asleep faster and have a good night’s sleep. The reason that alcohol helps people fall asleep is because it’s a sedative. So, what it’s really doing is making you feel less like you want to be awake. It’s not leading to a natural falling into sleep. As for the good sleep you think you got all night…that’s untrue as well. Alcohol leads to interrupted sleep all throughout the night which leads to sleep NOT being restorative. These interruptions go unnoticed by the sleeping person, so they think they got good sleep.
Aclohol Interrupts REM Sleep
REM sleep is the most restorative part of our sleep cycles. One critical process REM sleep completes involves memory integration and association. It has also been proven to help us process feelings of trauma! In other words, REM sleep is pretty darn important! After we consume even moderate amounts of alcohol our body must metabolize alcohol using two different chemicals and one of them blocks REM sleep.
If you want to learn more about sleep overall, I highly recommend Why we sleep by Dr. Matthew Walker.
Some of the research-based results he shares in the book have stuck with me! Others were just so interesting and good to know! I’m a little obsessed with sleep as I see it as a cure-all.
Alcohol Can Lead to Weight Gain
I can share this sad fact with some experience.
Exercise has been a big part of my life for a long time. For over a decade I thought that my “best” was working out 3 times a week. Even that was tough for me. Even though I was exercising consistently and trying to eat cleanly I still had this bloat, weight, and lagging energy that I couldn’t shake off. One day I got sick of feeling this way (among other things) and chose to cut the alcohol out for a little over a month.
In that one month I had lost 5ish pounds, looked and felt significantly less bloated, and bumped my exercise routine days up to 5 days a week because I had the energy to do so! I’ve never felt more amazing. Now I drink only occasionally. Want to read more about my story on becoming sober curious? Check out my post on that here.
How it Can Lead to Weight Gain
Now that I’ve shared my story on the change in my weight and health as it relates to alcohol, I’m going to share a list with you on how alcohol can lead to weight gain:
- Alcohol has kilojoules in it and when your body has enough of these it stores the rest as fat
- It leads to greater hunger and less satiety
- It can lead to craving salty and fatty foods
- It decreases motivation to be active because it affects the brain’s neural pathways and is a sedative (have you ever blown off your gym date after a Sunday brunch mimosa?)
- Alcohol leads to less restorative sleep which leads to less energy for exercise
Let’s get to the Advice!
Here are some steps I took to get some distance from alcohol…
- I demonized it
- I devoured all materials that told me all of the facts about how alcohol affects us and, needless to say, none of those facts was that alcohol is in anyway good for you
- I read about it
- I’ve read as many sobriety books as I can AND I’m still going. I’m open to autobiographies, books on sober curiosity, books with advice from former addicts and books on how to be a mindful drinker. For my full list of sobriety reads & Wishlist read Part 1 and Part 2 of my blog series! More sobriety book series to come!
- I figured out WHY I was drinking
I’m a behavior analyst and I live by behaviorism. According to behaviorism we do things for four different reasons. Read more on that here.
- I realized I was drinking to “enhance” my experiences (I was bored)
- I drank at parties/gatherings to loosen up and because everyone else was drinking
- I found replacement behaviors based on WHY I was drinking
I decided to enhance my experiences in different ways…blare music so I could dance when the urge to drink came over me
- I did something different to change things up (a good distraction from being “bored”)
- I did a short exercise session instead to distract myself
- I also started to drink tea or sparkling water when the urge to drink happened at home
- I drank a fancy hippie-dippy bubbly drink (check out Sprouts or Whole foods) while at parties just so I could have something in my hand while I chatted with people
- I planned when I would drink
I would choose a Saturday (typically an occasion) out of a month for when I have a drink or TWO (maximum). It helped with boundaries
- I set strict boundaries
- I ONLY drank during an outing when I had to pay for the drink, wait on the drink or choose from a menu that didn’t have my favorite drinks
- I tried to ONLY drink when I had PLANNED to drink (during an occasion or lunch with my friends)
In Conclusion
I hope this information and advice helps someone out there! A life with alcohol either sprinkled in or not consumed at all is a life with a full range of enjoyment, mindfulness and quality experiences and memories. I can attest to this, and I hope you, the reader, can begin to experience this too if you choose to make changes in relation to alcohol.
Do you feel like any of this info resonates with you? Have you ever felt like alcohol is keeping you stuck for some mysterious reason? Might you use some of the advice from this post?
Feel free to comment! I love to hear about what my readers think and what they want to see more of!
Until next time,
Kristi
Written by Kristi, August 15th, 2023