No alcohol for 10 days and no positive changes?

[Konstantine8364]

I had a very boozy December, Christmas and then a week skiing early Jan, so I thought I would have 2 weeks off drinking alcohol. Everyone bangs on about how much better they feel when they don't drink, but honestly at 10 days in I feel exactly the same. Was wondering if this is normal?! Am I being unreasonable and expecting too much after a short period?

I would usually drink on average around 3 bottles of wine a week, spread over 5 days. I don't drink mon and Tues to give my liver a rest.
I do a lot of exercise whether I drink or not and haven't noticed I have more energy. Skin exactly the same. Energy levels the same (although worth saying I am pretty high energy naturally, as is most of my family). I eat pretty healthily most of the time, mostly salads for lunch and mostly home cooked meals eg this week I've had veggie chilli and rice, seabass and stir-fry and cod with rice and asparagus and I don't have any digestives issues. I do eat out once or twice a week and would have whatever I fancy, but I don't eat cheap takeaways or fast food.
I know I should drink less, but I absolutely love wine and when I get no benefit from not drinking it makes it very hard not to!

No they have never sold me anything ever, I have never attended them in 25 years.

I am in my 60's and as you age we lose collagen so I add a teaspoon of collagen and vitamin c powder to my coffee in the morning.
Its good for more than just your skin as you age.

I decided to change my drinking habits from the beginning of January too. But I didn't quit totally, I just now have a drink on a Friday evening.

I was drinking 2 large glasses of wine every night. That was 2/3rds of a bottle. I never felt tiddly with it as it was spread out over the entire evening, but my weight was going up, and as I started eating healthily I thought the wine should go too.

Like you - I haven't noticed a single difference. My weight has barely budged either considering I am eating a calorie deficit diet too ..... but I will persevere and hope to get into my old summer skirts by July.

You’re not understanding what I’m saying. Your body produces less collagen as you age, yes, but drinking collagen will not put it back. The dietary collagen is broken down into amino acids which are then used to make other things… not necessarily more collagen. Your body knows how much collagen it wants to make / have and ingesting collegen will not increase that amount. You’d get the same benefit from eating meat or drinking milk.

I'm like you OP. Similar love of wine and whenever I decide to take a couple weeks or a month off I feel absolutely no change. Never lose an ounce. No improved sleep. No increase in mental clarity. It kind of makes me feel what's the point?

I do try to ensure I have 2-3 dry days a week for health reasons, but all these other benefits people claim from not drinking don't seem to apply to me. Maybe people metabolise alcohol really differently, I don't know.

Harsh

You've done great. And as PP said there is lots of goodness happening inside.

I honestly didn't notice looking or feeling better until about 3 months alcohol free... I'm certain there were subtle improvements along the way, but 3 months was when I clearly looked and felt different (skin, energy, mood, weight).

I also made the mistake of replacing alcohol with junk food (crisps, cake, biscuits). When I cut that out (later in the year) the benefits were 10x.

My life isn't boring without alcohol (or at least that's not what I meant, not sure about @crackofdoom ). I have a hobby that gets me out two nights a week plus during the day on a Saturday or Sunday, 3 working dogs which need 2-3 big walks a day plus a busy job. It's just when it gets to Friday evening that I associate it with opening a bottle of wine and to not have a drink does feel boring if that's what you're used to?

Or maybe it is not as bad for you as a lot of people claim it is.

I know some people cannot metabolise alcohol very well and the effect on them when they drink is profound. It's probably not surprising that we can all deal with it to a greater or lesser degree.

10 days isn’t really enough for your liver to have any meaningful recovery and thus make you feel any better…

I'd review again at 3 weeks. It's Day 20 here. I'm definitely sleeping better, find it easier to get up in the morning and am much more productive.

OP - your expectations are unrealistic. Some of the benefits you won't be able to see, and it will take a while.

3 bottles of wine is too much, whether you see short term benefits or not.

But surely having saved money on wine is a positive benefit ;)

I sympathise, I love red wine and would happily drink 3 bottles a week but sometimes you just have to decide what is better for you overall and in the long term and decide accordingly. And what you decide is completely up to you.

If you drink three bottles of wine a week, it’s going to take longer than ten days to have an impact.

Same here OP. I don’t sleep better or feel better. I may have lost some weight though so going to try and keep it up.

The main positives I experience from stopping drinking are psychological. I've replaced booze with sugar so no weight loss. I don't do pubs and events anymore, alcohol took the edge off my anxiety.
I miss it but I know I'm much better off without it long term.
You have to look at the bigger picture; as pps said 10 days is nowt

You're not going to see any radical change in ten days. It takes far longer than that and involves a broader reset of your whole outlook to alcohol. The short-term "benefits" of alcohol to your weight, skin, hair and energy are often slightly oversold in my view but over the longer term stopping or reducing dependence on alcohol is a huge gift which is likely to have huge health benefits.

To be honest you sound like someone for whom alcohol takes a slightly too central role and you're trying to find an excuse to going back to it. Question for you is whether you have the beginnings of a dependency or if you just aren't ready to be teetotal. I don't know the answer to this but worth thinking about it.

But expecting an immediate boost to stopping drinking is unrealistic.

This is exactly my experience, too. I looked very different after three months and even better after six.

Recommend reading 'Quit Like a Woman' by Holly Whitaker to get a sense of the multiple ways that alcohol poisons your body and long term impact.

All total nonsense advice. Salt is bad for you, doesn't matter where it is from or what other minerals are in it. Raises blood pressure and increases the risk of heart disease & stroke.

I was at a bottle of wine a night and 2 on a weekend, I know it was making me ill but felt I was on a hamster wheel, lot going on in personal life. Last week I did not drink Mon-Fri, what a difference, I was exhausted the first few days but mental clarity improved. Hoping sticking to the mon - fri alcohol free will make a big difference. Still waiting for sleep to improve.

Do you wear a whoop band/ours ring/other tracking thing?
I’d have sworn that alcohol didn’t impact my sleep but the data tells a different story. Huge impact on quality of sleep/HRV/RHR.

How old are you? Because I was similar until I hit my 40’s and then, my god, the difference I felt, particularly my sleep, after giving it up. I have found that alcohol gives me palpitations and significantly raises my resting heart rate, impacts the quality of my sleep and affects my general mood nowadays. I haven’t drunk since mid-June last year apart from a few glasses of Prosecco over Christmas. I will never go back to my previous drinking habits…similar to yours.

Heavy drinking damages your body, increases your cancer risk, and wrecks your mental health. One of the most positive changes I have seen is the decline in public drunkenness. As a teen in the '90s I saw awful things, all due to alcohol. The fact that British teens drink less is fantastic. Good on them.

That said, I'm not convinced small amounts do you any harm. A glass of wine with dinner, or maybe a couple of glasses at the weekend to unwind, is no big deal. Heaven for me is laying in a hot bath with a glass of wine listening to Stephen Fry read P. G. Wodehouse or Sherlock Holmes.

10 days isn’t long enough to see improvements. I used to do dry jan and never noticed an improvement. I think you need to try and do 100 days to see benefits. I’m nearly 2 years and think I started noticing benefits after a couple of months.

A relative of mine was diagnosed with end stage liver disease last year after many years of drinking to a bit of excess - not an alcoholic, no obvious health problems, but his drinking was silently destroying his liver. It has shocked me profoundly: after his first symptoms came on, he passed away only 4 months later. It was awful. The damage is so hidden. I was doing dry January anyway but it has really made me cut down much more throughout the year.

It's only been 10 days.

Even if you don't feel a difference, I'm sure your organs are!

The best thing for your liver is to reduce or give up alcohol.
It isn't just that your liver has to process alcohol. It's also that alcohol slows down the livers ability to repair itself - compounding liver damage in the longer term.

I have liver issues due to medication I have to take. Stopping drinking (and I was a measly 4-6 units a week max - so barely one bottle of wine, sometimes less) has had a significant impact on my liver blood results.

I don't feel any different otherwise (skin, sleep etc all the same) but that's not the reason I did it.