The Benefits of Quitting Alcohol

What happens to your body and mind when you stop drinking

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At a Glance

Alcohol has many negative effects on your physical and mental health. The benefits of quitting drinking are often apparent soon after you stop, and will only continue to improve the longer you abstain from drinking. 

Even if you know that there are benefits to quitting alcohol, it does not mean that it’s easy to stop drinking—especially if you’ve been misusing alcohol for a long time.

Research shows that some damage to your brain, liver, heart, and gut done by alcohol will slowly heal when you stop drinking. While it’s true that alcohol withdrawal symptoms can be severe, they will not last forever. Once you get through that part of the process, you’ll start to feel better physically and mentally. 

In this article, we’ll talk about the health risks that come with drinking and the benefits of quitting alcohol.

What Alcohol Does to Your Body

Joseph Volpicelli, MD, PhD, founder and medical director of the Volpicelli Center and executive director of the Institute of Addiction Medicine, says that alcohol can have a negative effect on your mental, emotional, and physical health.

Unhealthy drinking is a continuum. Cognitive, emotional, and sleep disturbances can occur at even moderate levels of drinking. As one drinks more over time, these disturbances get worse and become more difficult to reverse.

JOSEPH VOLPICELLI, MD, PHD, FOUNDER AND MEDICAL DIRECTOR OF THE VOLPICELLI CENTER

One of the most profound ways that alcohol affects you is through what it does to your body. After you drink alcohol, Volpicelli explains that the small molecules inside it get absorbed by your gut. From there, they travel to other parts of your body and affect organ systems, including the cardiovascular, immune, and nervous systems, along the way.

As alcohol is broken down and metabolized by your body, toxins get released. Some will eventually get broken down into less harmful compounds, but your body's ability to process these substances is limited. 

Excessive drinking can lead to the build-up of toxic, highly cancer-causing (carcinogenic) compounds that contribute to inflammation in your body, especially in your liver.

Alcohol also affects your mind. There are certain brain chemicals called excitatory neurotransmitters that will stop doing their job when you drink, which can make you feel sleepy and sedated.

Alcohol can also trigger the release of chemicals called endorphins and raise levels of the “feel good” hormone dopamine. This can make you feel energetic and even extremely happy (euphoric) shortly after you drink alcohol, but the effects don’t last.

Neurotransmitters can rebound beyond their usual activity levels, which can leave you feeling anxious and irritable. Volpicelli explains that this volleying can also lead to low motivation or anxiety and depression.

According to Volpicelli, the cognitive changes people can have from drinking—like memory trouble, slowed reaction time, difficulty controlling behavior, and poor concentration—get worse over time. 

"Over time, the toxic effects of alcohol can cause damage to the protective coating surrounding nerve cells and ultimately to the nerves themselves,” says Volpicelli. “The ability to learn, remember, plan, and focus all becomes compromised.” 

Health Risks of Alcohol Use

Heavy drinking can take a major toll on numerous aspects of your health, elevating your risk of: 

  • Alcoholic hepatitis
  • Anxiety
  • Arrhythmia (irregular heartbeat)
  • Cancer
  • Cirrhosis
  • Dementia
  • Depression
  • Digestive symptoms
  • Fibrosis
  • Hearing loss
  • High blood pressure
  • Pancreatitis
  • Sexually transmitted infections
  • Stroke

Physical Benefits of Quitting Alcohol

Quitting alcohol has a number of important mental health benefits. In addition to improving your mental well-being, it may lower your risk for some mental illness and contribute to better sleep.

Better-Looking Skin

One outer body place where you’ll notice the negative effects of alcohol on your body is your skin. For example, drinking alcohol can cause:

  • Broken capillaries on the face and nose
  • Dry skin due to dehydration
  • Inflammation
  • Jaundice (with chronic, long-term use)
  • Reduced collagen levels, resulting in loose, saggy skin

When you stop drinking, your skin gets more elastic and the redness and discoloration on your face will slowly fade.

Weight Management

Alcohol robs your body of nutrients and derails your metabolism. Alcoholic beverages are a source of added sugar and empty calories. Binge drinking can lead to consuming an extra 600 calories or more in a day. 

The National Institute on Alcoholism and Alcohol Abuse defines binge drinking as a pattern of alcohol consumption that brings blood alcohol concentration (BAC) levels to 0.08 g/dLi in a short period of time (about 2 hours). This typically occurs after five or more drinks for men and four or more drinks for women.

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 meet that goal. 

Better Nutrition

Drinking alcohol can make it harder to stay nourished. Sometimes, people with alcohol use disorder “drink” meals instead of having nutritious meals. So, they’re not getting the carbohydrates, protein, fat, vitamins, and minerals their body needs to function. 

Alcohol can also affect digestion, storage, utilization, and excretion of nutrients. That’s why it’s common for people who use alcohol to be malnourished.

When you stop drinking and start focusing on your health, you’ll likely start to feel better once your body is properly nourished. 

Improved Immunity

Alcohol makes it harder for your body’s immune system to make enough white blood cells to fight off germs and bacteria. People who have been drinking a lot of alcohol for a long time tend to get frequent infections like pneumonia and tuberculosis because their immune system has been worn down. 

When you quit drinking, you’ll probably notice that the colds, flu, and other illnesses you always seem to catch happen less often. When you do get sick, you’ll probably feel like you recover more easily when you’re sober.

Lower Cancer Risk

Alcohol is a cancer-causing substance (carcinogen). According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the more alcohol you drink, the higher your risk of developing certain types of cancer, including:

  • Breast cancer
  • Colon and rectal cancer
  • Esophageal cancer
  • Laryngeal cancer
  • Liver cancer
  • Oral cancer
  • Throat cancer

The American Society of Clinical Oncology adds that limiting or quitting alcohol while you’re having cancer treatment may help you avoid complications. This includes cancer recurrence or the development of secondary primary tumors (SPTs).

Reduced Heart Disease Risk

People who drink heavily are about twice as likely to have a cardiovascular event within 24 hours than people who do not drink at all. If you look out a longer time, people who drink are six times more likely to have a cardiovascular event within a week compared to people who don’t drink.

A 2021 study of 371,463 people found that alcohol use contributes to an increased risk of cardiovascular disease regardless of how much alcohol is consumed. However, alcohol misuse specifically is associated with an increased risk of heart problems like:

  • Atrial fibrillation (“AFib” and irregular heart rhythm)
  • Congestive heart failure
  • Heart attack

Studies have also connected alcohol use to an increased risk of stroke, especially for people under the age of 45 years old.

Mental Health Benefits of Quitting Alcohol

Quitting alcohol won’t just protect your physical health—it can also improve your mental well-being.

Many people with alcohol use disorder also have other mental health conditions like depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, or schizophrenia.

According to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, 9.2 million U.S. adults had both mental health disorders and a substance use disorder in 2018, yet nearly 60% did not get treatment.

While scientists don’t totally understand the link, they do know that many people use alcohol and other substances to self-medicate when they have symptoms of mental health conditions—even though doing so can actually make mental health symptoms worse.

Volpicelli says that some of the negative effects of alcohol on mental health can be reversed if you stop drinking. 

For example, research shows that people will see their stress levels, relationships, work performance, and self-confidence get better when they get sober.

"These improvements can be observed not only in people who abstain from alcohol but in people who reduce heavy drinking," Volpicelli says.

Improved Sleep

Alcohol use and poor sleep are closely linked because alcohol messes with your sleep-wake cycle. For one, drinking alcohol makes falling and staying asleep much harder.Alcohol also relaxes the muscles in your throat, so you’re more likely to have problems like snoring or disorders like sleep apnea. 

Volpicelli notes that the relationship between sleep and drinking is complex. Alcohol gets in the way of quality sleep, but people may also use alcohol when they’re having trouble sleeping. So, it’s like a “chicken or the egg” dilemma—what came first, the sleep problems or the alcohol use? 

One study found that around 70% of participants had sleep problems when they were admitted for alcohol treatment. That number dropped to 50% when the participants went home, and many reported that their sleep quality got better after treatment. 

"Quitting drinking can improve a person’s sleep, but there may still be a significant number of people who continue to have sleep problems even with continuous abstinence," Volpicelli says. 

If you’ve stopped drinking and still can’t sleep, talk to your provider. There are many things that can affect your sleep—physically and mentally. But there are also things you can do to cope and improve your sleep. 

Trouble sleeping is common after you stop drinking, especially early in recovery. But the longer you abstain from alcohol and work on your sleep hygiene, the more improvements in your sleep you’ll see over time. 

Cognitive Benefits of Quitting Alcohol

Your brain is sort of between your body and mind, so you'll see a lot of benefits of quitting alcohol here as well. You may notice that you have better memory and can think more clearly after you stop drinking alcohol. 

Heavy drinking can actually cause the part of the brain that’s critical to memory and learning (hippocampus), to shrink.

Quitting alcohol and abstaining for several months to a year gives your brain a chance to try to recover.

"While for some people these structural changes are not reversible, most people are able to show less shrinkage in one to three months with alcohol abstinence," says Volpicelli.

When you stop drinking, it can also reverse the negative effects alcohol has had on your cognitive functions like problem-solvingmemory, and attention.

Research suggests that you may start seeing cognitive improvements two to four weeks after you stop drinking.As your cognition improves, you may find that you can remember information and concentrate better, and planning and organizing tasks get a lot easier.

How to Get Help Quitting Alcohol

If you want to reduce your alcohol use and stop drinking, there is help and support for you. Behavioral interventions, medications, and social support can all play a role in your alcohol recovery.

Start by talking to your doctor about how much alcohol you’ve been using and your plan to quit. It’s important that you work with your doctor when you’re ready to stop drinking rather than trying to do it alone. 

Chronic, heavy alcohol use is associated with worse alcohol withdrawal symptoms when you try to stop, and can even be dangerous. There’s also a severe form of alcohol withdrawal called delirium tremens (DT) that causes confusion, hallucinations, nausea, rapid heart rate, and seizures. 

DT can be life-threatening, so you should get immediate medical attention if you have these symptoms after you quit drinking.

Other medicines, counseling, and psychosocial support can also help to abstain or reduce unhealthy drinking. The important point is that one must be aware of the bad consequences of drinking and take steps to stop or reduce excessive drinking.

JOSEPH VOLPICELLI, MD, PHD, FOUNDER AND MEDICAL DIRECTOR OF THE VOLPICELLI CENTER

Your doctor can recommend medications that can help with alcohol withdrawal symptoms and cravings during your recovery. Naltrexone is one type of medication that can help reduce alcohol cravings, making it easier for some people to stop drinking.

If you or a loved one are struggling with substance use or addiction, contact the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) National Helpline at 1-800-662-4357 for information on support and treatment facilities in your area.

For more mental health resources, see our National Helpline Database.

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By Buddy T
Buddy T is a writer and founding member of the Online Al-Anon Outreach Committee with decades of experience writing about alcoholism. Because he is a member of a support group that stresses the importance of anonymity at the public level, he does not use his photograph or his real name on this website.