I quit drinking and have experienced no discernable benefit

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:1-2 glass of wine a night is not heavy drinking.

You must be new here. Most people would say OP needs to get to AA meetings immedately!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I kind of feel the same, OP. I don’t drink much during the work week but probably go to at least one happy hour (2-3 drinks) and have 3-4 drinks on each of Friday and Saturday. I’ve stopped doing that this month and haven’t noticed any discernible benefit either. I will probably go back to my normal pattern next month.

Sounds like us. We quit randomly for 2-3 months at a time and honestly don’t notice any positive differences. Just boredom and lower restaurant tabs I guess. The only time I really crave a drink is a beer after a long run. Other than that, don’t really miss it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I drink 1-2 glasses of wine most evenings. So moderate to heavy. I read things like that I had to pee at night or woke up at night because of the alcohol. I read that alcohol caused weight gain and if you quit drinking, it just falls off. Relationships improve, they say.

None of this has happened for me. Possibly, I may experience less anxiety. But that's hard to tell for sure and hard to pinpoint causation.

I'm not going to reverse course, I'm kind of stuck with not drinking due to a medical reason. But, I do want to say that people are kind of overhyping the immediate benefits. If you're doing dry January, do it for the mental discipline, do it for the hot chocolate. The rest of it is kind of misleading.

Your individual experience is an anecdote. Not a study applicable to the general population. Same goes for someone who stops drinking and says they experience huge positive results; great for them individually, but not a yardstick for measuring whether "people" in general will or won't benefit.

[Anonymous]

OP here. I quit 6 months ago, with occasional drinks here and there for special occasions. I'm not fat (opposite-- skinny runner). Mid-40s.

Yeah, my cancer risk has gone down. The pp who mentioned red meat is right, and I stick to the recommended 1 serving per week of red meat.

I suspect that the benefits people talk about don't really accrue to people who just have wine with dinner. I was particularly interested in not waking up at night and here I am at 2am, having awaken yet again. It's fine if the benefits are all internal, and none it changes things for me since I have other reasons not to drink, but I can see why people are ambivalent about giving up a nightly glass when the benefits are oversold.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:400cal/day is almost 1lb/wk

Exactly! And my weight is exactly the same after 6 months. I wonder if this is because I'm a low weight? I did notice I became more hungry when I stopped drinking, which is ANOTHER thing-- I read that I'd be less hungry. I replaced the wine with a protein hot chocolate and yogurt. Even though this is a net zero calorie change, I had read that you'd lose weight because alcohol slows the metabolism. Nope.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:1-2 glass of wine a night is not heavy drinking. The weight isn't going to fall off because youve only cut out like 400 calories a day. Over time, you'll likely lose weight from cutting out the calories, sugar and carbs from wine.

I'm confused...did you wake up at night to pee? Did your relationship suffer? I have met heavy drinkers due to my job and we are talking a bottle of wine a night and they are the ones whose relationships and overall health and wellness improve drastically when they stop drinking. A glass or two at night probably doesn't cause that much of a disturbance for you.

Yeah, I think if it were going to impact my weight, I'd see that by now (6 months). I tell myself that the nutritional profile of my calories has improved. Which is fine but is not the dramatic life improvement I've been promised.

I felt fine and my relationships were fine before. But I thought I'd feel different based on the articles I read. Better.

I think your final sentence hit the nail on the head. These kinds of benefits just may not accrue to a healthy, normal, not addicted drinker.

[Anonymous]

I also quit 1 to 2 glasses per night 3 months ago and haven't noticed any positive changes. I was promised amazing skin and sleep. If anything, I'm getting less sleep because I'm not as relaxed when I go to bed now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I also quit 1 to 2 glasses per night 3 months ago and haven't noticed any positive changes. I was promised amazing skin and sleep. If anything, I'm getting less sleep because I'm not as relaxed when I go to bed now.

Exactly. There's been a flood of articles about how quitting a nightly glass of wine will positively impact your life. I buy that it positively impacts my life in a kind of cold statistical way. But it doesn't make your skin glow and your sleep improve and any of the other host of benefits described.

A friend of mine qhit for 1.5 months and told me that she felt no different. She seemed relieved when I told her I also do not feel any changes. I'm starting to think that my experience is widespread but that we are all inundated with messages that our lives will become magical and we will achieve spiritual enlightenment that we currently cannot attain due to penchant for a glass of wine at night. Everyone who's chimed in here says their experience was like mine. If you drank at these levels and quit and experienced measurable improvements in sleep, skin, etc please chime in.

[Anonymous]

I was a very similar drinker to OP. I just suddenly lost my taste for alcohol about two years ago, at 45. I still drink, on average, maybe twice a month in social situations. So I’ve gone from probably 40 drinks/month to two or three. I don’t wake up at night anymore to pee and I don’t feel sluggish in the morning anymore. But the main thing is that I started feeling bad while drinking a glass of wine, almost like I was dehydrated! I haven’t lost weight and my skin looks the same.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:1-2 glass of wine a night is not heavy drinking.

You must be new here. Most people would say OP needs to get to AA meetings immedately!

Surgeon general said that 7 or more drinks per week for a woman constitutes "heavy drinking." Your nightly glass of wine and the person who drinks a fifth of vodka daily put you in the same risk category.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:400cal/day is almost 1lb/wk

This assumes OP didn’t replace her calories. Many recent abstainers do. Hence no caloric deficit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:400cal/day is almost 1lb/wk

Exactly! And my weight is exactly the same after 6 months. I wonder if this is because I'm a low weight? I did notice I became more hungry when I stopped drinking, which is ANOTHER thing-- I read that I'd be less hungry. I replaced the wine with a protein hot chocolate and yogurt. Even though this is a net zero calorie change, I had read that you'd lose weight because alcohol slows the metabolism. Nope.

You have your answer on weight - you made up the calories. Of course you are not going to lose weight.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:400cal/day is almost 1lb/wk

This assumes OP didn’t replace her calories. Many recent abstainers do. Hence no caloric deficit.

+1. Many replace it with something sugary, too.

[Anonymous]

Just because you feel bad when you drink doesn’t mean you will feel better when you don’t. It’s life, and it’s relentless and terminal.

[Anonymous]

OP I’m with you. DH does dry January every year and loses 8-10lbs (now in early 50s) every year. He is a beer + bourbon drinker. I do dry January and I definitely do not loose weight. No change in sleep, energy, mental clarity, skin, etc. I do it to support my DH but but for a glass of wine (sometimes two) a day person, I have not seen reality match the hype. Happy for those who have/do, but I’m with you OP.