To think I should start to see an improvement by now!

[Newstartsame]

I'm having a month off the booze and I'm 15 days in and I've not found any improvement!
I'm exhausted, bone tired, I've picked up a bug and I'm cranky. Plus I've not dropped a single gram let alone a kg!

AIBU to think I should see a little improvement at the half way point.

Not necessarily. Only if feeling tired was due to alcohol which, of you weren't a massive drinker is very unlikely to be the case.

Actually takes about 3 weeks for your sleep to improve even if you weren't drinking a lot - initially it's usually harder to get to sleep but once you've adjusted you'll have much better quality of sleep.
Two weeks is nothing for weight loss though, sorry!

How long have you been drinking, and how much?

The answers to these questions may give an indication of how long it is likely to take to see any improvements.

If, like me, you are/were a heavy/problematic drinker, then, it can take a good 100 days to see any real change, because there is a lot of damage to undo, and a lot of hardwiring/habitual behaviour to unlearn and unpick.

If you've got to the point, for example, where you have been feeling like you can't get to sleep without a drink or several, it's likely you're going to have a degree of anxiety trying to sleep without alcohol making it harder for you to get to sleep, meaning you're still pretty damned tired of a morning! It can take a while for that to translate to a feeling of, 'wahay, so this is what morning without some degree of a hangover looks like!', as opposed to 'WTF do you mean, it's morning? I've just got off to sleep!'

As PPs have said - it will completely depend on how much you were previously drinking.

To be honest, I wouldn't expect most people to see much tangible difference after 15 days. If you were drinking fairly moderately you were unlikely to be seeing huge effects from your alcohol consumption in the first place, and if you were drinking very heavily/addictively then it will take a lot longer than 15 days (or even a month) for your health to recover.

I think you probably just need to persevere, sorry!

I would suspect the feeling tired and cranky is a lot more down to having picked up a bug - which is of course is unconnected to whether you're drinking or not.

Just have another drink then

I gave up for a year and didn’t notice any difference either.

Apart from developing a sweet tooth, which I think was the cause of the 10kg weight increase that year!!

Get up and be active.
Eat better.

It takes a while.

I was drinking way too much and I stopped and I honestly felt like shit for a good few weeks, it was like a prolonged hangover, I had headaches all day long, sleep was shitty, felt tired etc.

My advice is drink plenty of water, get to bed at a reasonable time, less screen time, take some vitamins, and don't replace alcohol with shit food. You will feel better soon.

I'm really active, gym 6 times a week and walk every day. Have a good diet. I was sick of booze undoing all my good work.
I'd easily drink 2-3 bottles of wine over the weekend. The 1-3 glasses some nights in the week, with a maximum of 1-2 days booze free a week. It was a lot!

Your body just needs time to adjust.

If you are going to gym loads, you know consistency is the key, keep going, you will see the results.

I gave up the drink for a year. I didn't really notice a difference but when I started drinking again I could then see how much better I'd felt when not drinking. I run and gym loads and not drinking made no difference to my weight. I've now been off the drink again for 14 months and feel so much better. Tracking my calories is literally the only thing that helps me drop any pounds at all.

I used to drink a bit less than that on the weekend, but the same as you during the week and dry January doesn't do anything much to me. This time I dieted too and lost some weight, but on its own giving up booze doesn't do much.

I never found that giving up alcohol from a similar level to what you were drinking makes any real difference to me.

Thanks everyone - I think I've ready too many sober curious blogs and really bought into feeling magically refreshed and 5kg lighter. I'm glad I'm doing it tho, it's hard and easy in the same breath.
Just needed to reset my habits - so hopefully this will do the trick!