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What Happens When You Stop Drinking For 30 Days – Drink too much? It may be time to talk to a prior professional. Contact us today for an addiction assessment.
Clinically reviewed blog by Sarina Whitman (Emotional Freedom Technique Master Practitioner (EFT), Federation of Drug and Alcohol Professionals (FDAP) NCAC)
What Happens When You Stop Drinking For 30 Days
If you’re giving up alcohol for a month and wondering what the benefits will be, Priory outlines the positive changes you can expect in a week.
My Diary Of Quitting Drinking
The alcohol withdrawal timeline below gives the possible symptoms and experiences that someone who is dependent on alcohol may go through when they stop drinking alcohol.
It’s important to remember that everyone’s body will respond differently to giving up alcohol, and our timeline should only be used as a guide to establish what may happen to your body when you stop drinking.
Withdrawal symptoms are likely to start within the first 24 hours of stopping drinking. Depending on the person and how often alcohol is consumed, they can start as little as two hours after their last drink. If you drink alcohol every night, withdrawal symptoms may be more severe than someone who only drinks on the weekends.
Initial symptoms will be mild. These may include anxiety, hand tremors and tremors, sweating, and headaches. As time goes by, cravings for alcohol will increase and feelings of fatigue and depression may begin.
Before And After Alcohol — Sobertown Podcast
For some, more severe withdrawal symptoms will begin 12-24 hours later. In rare, more severe cases, you may develop delirium tremens (DTs). Symptoms may include seizures, hallucinations, and significant increases in heart rate and blood pressure. This is a dangerous period for anyone who has stopped drinking and is experiencing withdrawal.
For most people, withdrawal symptoms will begin to subside at this point, allowing you to function more normally and manage your symptoms. Symptoms of DTs may persist for some, with other severe withdrawal symptoms such as heavy sweating and high blood pressure, along with feelings of disorientation and delusion.
After a few days of quitting drinking, most people can expect their symptoms to stop. For more severely affected people, DT and severe withdrawal symptoms may persist. For these people, medical supervision is recommended while quitting alcohol.
After a week away from alcohol, you will notice that you are sleeping better. When you drink, you usually fall straight into deep sleep, missing out on important rapid eye movement (REM) sleep. While you’re supposed to have six to seven cycles of REM sleep a night, you usually only have one or two when you’re drinking.
Signs Your Body Is Telling You You’re Drinking Too Much
Good sleep has many benefits. You will be more productive, where you will learn and solve problems better. Your ability to control your emotions and behavior will also improve.
You will also have more opportunity to manage your food and drink intake. Sleep helps balance the hormones that make you feel hungry or full. After drinking, your levels of ghrelin (the hormone that makes you hungry) go up and leptin (the hormone that makes you feel full) goes down.
Dehydration can cause headaches, as your organs take water from the brain due to their own water loss. Also reduces salt and potassium levels, which can affect proper nerve and muscle function while also causing headaches, fatigue and nausea.
Therefore, giving up alcohol can help keep you well hydrated, which in turn is beneficial for your brain. Your mood and concentration will be more stable, and the frequency of headaches is likely to decrease. You will also not suffer from the effects of dehydration such as lack of motivation and increased fatigue, so will have more energy throughout the day.
Things That Help Ease Alcohol Detox Symptoms
If you give up six 175ml glasses of wine a week, you’ll save around 960 calories, the equivalent of three burgers or five and a half bags of crisps.
And if you stopped consuming six pints of average strength lager a week, you would save 1080 calories, the equivalent of six bags of crisps or five chocolate bars.
As alcohol is an irritant to the lining of the stomach, after a fortnight you will also notice a reduction in symptoms such as reflux where stomach acid burns your throat.
After a fortnight, you can start losing weight as a result of giving up the empty calories of alcohol. If you stopped drinking six 175ml glasses of wine per week, you would have saved 1920 calories over this time, and if you had stopped drinking about six pints of lager you would have saved 2160 calories.
Tips For How To Stop Drinking Alcohol
Drinking too much alcohol can raise your blood pressure over time. After 3-4 weeks of not drinking, your blood pressure will start to decrease. Lowering your blood pressure can be crucial because it can help reduce the risk of health problems in the future.
Just as the calories in alcohol can cause you to gain weight, giving up alcohol can also help lower your blood pressure as a result of the weight you could potentially lose. At this point, if you previously drank six 175ml glasses of wine a week, you would have lost 2880 calories in three weeks. And if you drank six pints of lager a week, you would lose 3240 calories.
Giving up alcohol will have a positive effect on your skin because you have a better level of hydration. Because more water will have been absorbed rather than lost, you’ll likely have more hydrated-looking skin, as well as less dandruff and eczema.
Eliminating alcohol from your diet for four weeks can also help improve your liver function as your liver begins to shed excess fat. If your liver function is not too badly affected by alcohol, it can recover in 4-8 weeks.
The Benefits Of Giving Up Alcohol For A Month
As the liver plays a part in more than 500 vital processes, you also give your body a better chance to eliminate contaminants, convert nutrients from food, and store minerals and vitamins.
Quitting alcohol has many benefits for our physical and mental health, some of which have been named above. Here is a comprehensive list of long-term abstinence benefits:
Throughout the month, your body has likely benefited greatly from giving up alcohol. Better hydration and better sleep will increase your productivity and daily well-being. Your liver, stomach and skin will also benefit from not dealing with alcohol. If you drink six 175ml glasses of wine a week, or 4320 calories a month if you drink six pints of lager a week, you will have reduced your calorie intake by 3840 for the month.
If you are struggling with alcohol and find it difficult to quit, you may want to consider getting support. We understand that starting recovery from alcohol addiction can be an emotionally difficult time.
What Happens After Not Drinking For 30 Days?
For details of how The Priory can support you with addiction treatment and rehabilitation, please call 0330 056 6023 or click here to book a free addiction assessment. For professionals looking to make a referral, please click here Write? I am here to help. ~ Waylon Thieeeeinking about writing a book but stuck? Join Waylon’s self-published discounted author bundle >>
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In moderation, it can make us feel good. It is a part of our culture. We enjoy sharing a few drinks with friends.
But what happens physically and mentally when you quit alcohol for 30 days? I tried this simple experiment in 2010.
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Seemed easy enough. I wanted to test my self-discipline. Little did I know then that 30 days would turn into six months, which would turn into a year. Five years later, it is now part of my lifestyle. Life is better without alcohol.
I was a journalist for 20 years, and alcohol was part of the culture. I’ll enjoy a few quiet beers during the week and go a little harder most weekends. It all seemed like good fun.
But on March 12, 2010, I woke up with a shocking hangover after a particularly fun night at the South by Southwest festival in Austin, Texas.
I went to the International House of Pancakes for a “hangover breakfast”. The menu had photos of the food on offer – big, bright, bold colors. The sight of those scrambled eggs, bacon and pancakes made me sick. I said to myself: “James, what are you doing? You are a 34-year-old man who is getting fatter and more tired.”
Here’s What Happened When I Stopped Drinking For 30 Days And Started Ice Creaming Instead
I was sick and tired and exhausted. With emotions running high, I decided to go alcohol-free for 30 days on the spot.
The first two weeks were tough. When socializing, my heavy drinking friends gave me a hard time. “You’re not Australian!” they will say. To make life easier, I changed my social environment. Although I didn’t ditch my friends, I started spending more time with those who drank moderately or not at all. We are often the result of the people we spend the most time with, so I’ve engineered this to support
