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What Happens When You Stop Drinking?

A big part of alcohol recovery is taking steps to improve your lifestyle through changes like diet and exercise. If you’ve been trying to get to and maintain a weight that supports your health, quitting alcohol can help you https://ecosoberhouse.com/article/teenage-alcoholism-dangers-of-underage-drinking/ meet that goal. While you’re unlikely to notice, unless it is excessively high, your blood pressure will decrease. For example, patients of all ages who come to us drinking heavily have exceedingly high blood pressure.

• You might notice this effect more if you were drinking to manage your mood, such as drinking to temporarily relieve negative emotions or boost positive ones.
• Tools on the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism website can help calculate how many calories you drink each week and how much money you spend on alcohol over the course of a week, month, or year.

If you are thinking about quitting drinking, talk to your healthcare provider. Medical supervision, behavioral health treatment, and mutual-aid groups can help you through alcohol withdrawal and stay stopped. The alcohol withdrawal timeline varies, but the worst of the symptoms typically wear off after 72 hours.

Between 12 and 24 Hours

In my opinion, abnormal liver function is a sign to stop drinking completely, immediately. For example, damaging your liver is like scratching the back of your hand with your nail constantly until you break the skin. You can drink for years and years until eventually your liver starts to become inflamed, without any pain, which silently proceeds to fatty liver disease and then to cirrhosis. So, while we can metabolize around a unit of alcohol an hour, if you drink a lot, everyday, your body has to rid your system of those toxins. If you overload the liver, you have more of those toxins inside your body, which can damage the liver itself, your brain, your stomach, your heart and your pancreas.

In addition to healthier activities, at this point, you’ll likely enjoy a more normal appetite. It’s common to maintain a more steady diet in sobriety, instead of skipping breakfast the morning after drinking, for example. It’s likely the past few days have been challenging as your body is healing from the effects of alcohol. There may be some thoughts like “do I really have to do this for 25 more days!? ” Remember that it will get easier, and you only have to get through one day at a time.

Your Relationships May Improve

So, if you’re going out every weekend and overdoing it, your heart may be taking a hit. If you’ve committed to stop drinking alcohol, you’ll likely notice some positive changes. By this time, it’s likely you’ve seen a few of the people closest to you (friends, family, coworkers). Without the influence of alcohol, you what happens when you stop drinking alcohol might notice that you’re arguing less, and can have more authentic conversations. If you’re still feeling irritable, or if you’re not on the same page as your loved ones, that’s okay too! By the start of three weeks without alcohol, it’s likely you’ll have developed new ways to fill the time you once spent drinking.