To the casual drinker, quitting sugar/sweets and/or glutton will have a much more dramatic benefit than quitting booze. Unless you’re a total alcoholic, the benefits are negligible if any. Sobriety has also become this annoying fad to brag about how disciplined and “clean” your diet is. It’s all so obnoxious and cringe. “I’m a soft girlie, I only drink hot water with lemon hehe.”

Anonymous wrote:The benefits of stone cold sobriety are grossly overstated. I actually think it sets people up to be disappointed when they do a Dry January. I’m not saying sobriety is bad, just that it doesn’t dramatically change your life.

I do drink occasionaly which is fine in my book. I didn't expect dramatic changes from not drinking as much. I was just tired of feeling like crap every time I did drink. The changes that I did notice were enough for me to make a significant reduction.

The benefits of stone cold sobriety are grossly overstated. I actually think it sets people up to be disappointed when they do a Dry January. I’m not saying sobriety is bad, just that it doesn’t dramatically change your life.

Anonymous wrote:Anyone who does a dry January gets a side eye from me for probably having a drinking problem. I think needing to make not drinking for a whole month your personality is a red flag.

Anyone who begrudges people making positive changes at any point in their life for whatever reason gets a huge side eye from me. Would you just rather they die?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m confused. It’s almost like people are saying alcohol isn’t good for you.

No one in the history of time said that alcohol is good for you. People drink because it's fun.

Paul to Timothy: "Drink no longer water, but use a little wine for thy stomach's sake, and thine often infirmities".

Satrie, right?

Anyone who does a dry January gets a side eye from me for probably having a drinking problem. I think needing to make not drinking for a whole month your personality is a red flag.

Anonymous wrote:Alcohol causes inflammation.

Sugar too.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m confused. It’s almost like people are saying alcohol isn’t good for you.

No one in the history of time said that alcohol is good for you. People drink because it's fun.

Paul to Timothy: "Drink no longer water, but use a little wine for thy stomach's sake, and thine often infirmities".

For the past few years I was probably having a martini or two (sometimes 3) 5 nights a week. I stopped drinking a few weeks ago because I was sick I didn’t want wear myself down anymore, it’s been three weeks since I had a drink and I feel so much better. My joints aren’t stiff, zero anxiety spirals, the looping thoughts that I was plagued with daily are gone and I’m able to get seven hours of sleep.
I didn’t notice how bad I felt.

Anonymous wrote:I’m confused. It’s almost like people are saying alcohol isn’t good for you.

+1 Hellooo

Man. I wish I had as positive experiences as people in this thread! I’m not even enjoying better sleep.

Same time period.

Same prior drinking pattern.

Have noticed literally no difference.

I've recently stopped drinking as well. Not because of Dry January, but because I am almost 50 and have noticed that my body just cannot handle alcohol well. At all. Even one beer will cause me to wake up with a headache. So its just not worth it to me. I haven't had a drink since mid-December and I don't miss it all. I was never a big drinker in the past--I would maybe have one drink with dinner twice a week. When I have gone out, I've gotten a mocktail or a soda or a non-alcoholic beer and it's fine.

I will say, I haven't noticed much of a positive benefit though. I haven't lost weight, I sleep worse than I did before, I don't necessarily have more energy. I think that's perimenopause setting in though. But it's cheaper, so there's that!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m confused. It’s almost like people are saying alcohol isn’t good for you.

No one in the history of time said that alcohol is good for you. People drink because it's fun.

There was also that time in human history where most things you drank were fermented because they'd kill you otherwise. See "small beer".

One unexpected thing I've noticed over these two weeks is better skin. I used to have unsoft skin on my upper arms and forehead. It was bumpy. Somehow that all resolved without a facial. I also think that the redness on my face decreased but now it's in specific parts so I'm learning to love my concealer and use it in new ways.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m confused. It’s almost like people are saying alcohol isn’t good for you.

No one in the history of time said that alcohol is good for you. People drink because it's fun.

That's not true at all. As recently as the 1990s, red wine was "good" for you.

People have been drinking alcohol for thousands of years, rarely with serious effects. It's the overindulgence that has become a problem.

I would have to differ with the effect of Europeans introducing alcohol to indigenous populations who haven’t had centuries if not millennia to inure their populations to the worst effects of alcohol. Positive selection, it seems to be called.

Many European populations demonstrate certain adaptations in the form of genes that are associated with increased alcohol tolerance over time. There was definitely a whole cholera epidemic in London in the mid 19th century where mostly women and children who took their water from a certain town pump who were affected vs. men who often drank small beer over the day vs. water.

Asians have known alcohol for similar periods of time but aren’t known to be drunks in general.

Russians, though, for example, somehow consider vodka to be among essential food items.