The unexpected benefits of being sober

[GingerLemonLime]

Morning all! In this season awash with booze I thought it might be nice to start a thread of those unexpected benefits you’ve experienced since you’ve stopped drinking. I’ll start!
My hot flushes have improved enormously! It didn’t even occur to me that stopping drinking might help this but it’s such a relief!
My night time heart palpitations have all but disappeared.
My hormonal acne that had morphed into perimenopausal acne seems to have buggered off- hurrah!
I’m so relieved to escape the shame/fear merry go round- I can see now it was exhausting and took up so much of my energy- the fear and shame of what I did, how drunk I looked, how many empty bottles I was putting out. I feel so much more peaceful than I have in a long time.
What unexpected but lovely benefits have you noticed?

I'm not sure it should be unexpected, but before I stopped drinking I always had all sorts of wacky blood results. Obviously, my liver function tests were abnormal, but I had several vitamin deficiencies (I have a GI condition that can explain these, but clearly they weren't helped by alcohol) and my inflammatory markers were always high. Like have been high my entire adult life, even before I drank more than on very rare occasion.

6 months after I stopped drinking, I had lots of blood tests done investigating something else and they all came back normal. My vitamin deficiencies have gone. My liver results are great. All my inflammatory markers are completely normal for the first time in 20 years.

I mean, obviously we would expect better health without alcohol, but I was shocked at how quickly everything sorted itself out. Even this winter, everyone has been ill. Dh and both dc have had horrible coughs for 2 months now. I never even got a cold and I feel great.

That's brilliant @mindutopia ! You must be so relieved! I think that's what shocked me too, how quickly your body can start to right itself- the human body truly is an amazing thing!