My 90 Day Break from Alcohol
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If you’re considering doing Dry January, Sober October, or just in general taking a month off booze, you should! I recently took a 90 day break from alcohol and wanted to let you know some of the things you may expect.
I want to start off by saying that everyone’s specific experience will be different. It also depends on how much you are currently drinking (I wasn’t drinking much to begin with). This is instead intended to give you an idea as to when cravings might subside, some side effects you wouldn’t expect, etc.
Also, this does not address or apply to addiction.
I am not an addiction specialist and have nothing to help there. If you are concerned about yourself or someone else, I highly recommend consulting an anonymous addiction specialist if you don’t want to talk to your doctor.
For those who drink socially, you will likely be surprised at the distinct change you see in yourself, your reactions to things, and how you feel.
Why did I even try this?
This past Lent I decided to give up alcohol. Now I am not a big drinker to begin with, but going almost 50 days without alcohol still seemed hard. I usually have a glass or two of wine on a first date or after a bad day. Sometimes I want one while I’m watching the Housewives. Plus, we all know that as soon as you hear you can’t have something, you want it.
But after Easter I kept going. I had a doctor’s appointment the Tuesday after Easter, so I figured I’d continue abstaining until after I had my bloodwork (I wanted that blood to be spectacular). Then I figured why not try to hit 60 days. A few more days didn’t really feel like anything at this point (spoiler alert for what’s coming – once alcohol is out of your system, the cravings really diminish).
Then I read an article about the benefits of going 3 months without it. So I kept going. (This included a work trip to Vegas where I was sober. And I will say that seeing the sun rise sober there is pretty beautiful, which I think few people have done.)
All in, I went 95 days without a drop of alcohol. And when I did have 2 glasses of wine, it was fine. It wasn’t awesome. I thought “oh, this is what I was thinking would be a fun break?”
What I was initially wanting in the first ten days wasn’t all that great. It was like a firecracker that turns out to be a dud.
My Timeline
Let’s go through my physical and emotional timeline. Again, everyone’s reaction will be different and is highly dependent on how much you’ve been drinking. (This timeline is a pretty good one for the range of things to expect for each new day sober.)
Day 1:
For me (and probably everyone else), the first day was the hardest. I still had alcohol in my system, which naturally gave me anxiety since alcohol messes with your body’s chemical production and balancing. Plus, with it still in your system, you’re susceptible to cravings.
Days 2 and 3:
Lessened versions of day 1 as the effects of alcohol continued to work their way out of my system.
Pro tip: Don’t give up alcohol on the weekend.
When you’re doing social activities that involve alcohol, it’s harder to say no when you don’t already have some momentum built up (plus you may have some cravings). Start on a Monday or early in the week instead. By the time the weekend rolls around, it’ll be easier to stick to mocktails at Saturday’s dinner.
Days 4-9:
Each day had further diminished effects. I was waking up refreshed with great sleep by day 5. That is correct, no more grogginess or thirstiness. My morning workouts were much, much better.
After 4 days, cravings for me really diminished. And I didn’t really notice at that point because I wasn’t thinking about it (that’s an infinite loop of sorts…you don’t notice because you’re not craving because you don’t notice…et cetera).
Day 10:
The infinite loop of cravings/noticing cravings essentially came to an end on the 10th day. At that point allegedly your brain chemicals and such are normalized.
Yes, you know a hangover as the physical symptoms of nausea and a headache, but potentially even worse than the physical is the emotional. Yes, the anxiety.
By the 10th day this brain chemical regulation means the hangxiety is truly gone. YES, ALCOHOL CAN MESS WITH YOUR STRESS LEVELS FOR THAT LONG. (Give yourself a break for 10 days, and you’ll see what I’m saying.)
If you can make it to 10 days, you’ve done the hard work. Days 11-30 (or 90) are a lot easier.
What changes did I notice?
These are all things you’ve likely read before as general blanket benefits. I’ve written about them too. But here I wanted to specifically talk about how I experienced these in 90 days without alcohol.
Better sleep.
Perhaps the biggest reason I have a FitBit is for sleep tracking.
I like to see how much time I spend in the different sleep cycles and how often I wake at night. Because we all have nights where we wake up feeling exhausted even though we went to bed early.
During this period, I could tangibly see how much better my sleep was. My resting heart rate was lower overall. And my heart rate was regularly lower during sleep as compared to that resting heart rate.
I also spent a lot more time in deep and REM cycles. And slept longer. So no surprises that both the quality and quantity of my sleep was better after around the two week point. Looking at my sleep history, I could see literal progress.
With no alcohol in my system, I didn’t have to take melatonin to try to knock myself out or get into a deep sleep.
Lower anxiety.
This should be an entire post on its own. The change in my anxiety after day 10 was undeniable.
The women in my family have such bad anxiety that we named our little crises. We call them Dellana moments. But I noticed that having absolutely no alcohol in my system lowered even my anxiety. Things just weren’t as worrisome.
I’ll address this again in the next benefit, but I didn’t automatically panic when something bad happened – I learned to accept that I was in a mess, acknowledge the panic, then move past it logically.
This was truly a gift! I guess without even noticing it, I tended to turn to a glass of wine to calm myself. Which leads me to…
Lack of a crutch/better habits.
I didn’t realize it became second nature to reach for a drink after a bad day.
I wasn’t having an entire bottle, but it was a knee-jerk reaction to pour a glass after a stressful day. I never noticed that it was automatic until I had to stop myself one evening during this period.
After maybe two weeks without alcohol, I didn’t even think about it. I just acknowledged the stress and moved onto something else. When you break this habit as a response to something, you don’t drink as often.
Bonus: you better learn to manage stress and your emotions instead of deadening them with alcohol (and ultimately making it worse when you sober up because of that pesky anxiety we already discussed).
Reduced cravings.
There were times when I just really wanted a glass of wine because I was bored or because I was at a work dinner and wanted to pep myself up (alcohol is weird in that it can knock you out or wake you up). But these are momentary “oh that would be nice to have” thoughts rather than considerations of actually having some.
As I mentioned, by day 5 my cravings had diminished, and by day 10 they’d all but disappeared.
It's easier to distract yourself until the craving passes after those first 10 days.
Dewy skin.
I never really understood dull skin before this experiment. You don’t look like a different person, but after a couple of weeks without alcohol, in comparison your skin looks so better. You look fresh and dewy and younger.
To futher capitalize on your healthy skin, explore how the 10-Step Korean skin care routine can help you!
Easy to say no…because you don’t even think about it.
Also, remember my comment about watching the sun rise sober in Vegas on a work trip? Well it’s second nature to me now not to drink at functions, whether personal or professional.
It’s like I took the question out of it, so I don’t even think about whether to say yes or no.
What did I drink instead?
Fortunately these days there are lots of alcohol-free alternatives that not only taste good but also come in pretty packaging. That means if you go to a friend’s party, the bottle of rose looks like actual alcohol.
I wrote about my favorite alcohol-free alternatives here.
And I posted my favorites on my Amazon storefront.
(YES, Amazon has lots of my favorites – and I’ve tested a LOT of them – that have free delivery if you have a Prime account).
In addition to these, I discovered Apothekary’s Take the Edge Off about a month in. (I wish I’d discovered it during the first 10 days.) This stuff seems a little pricey, but it’s absolutely worth it. It does literally what it says – it takes the edge off.
I always have a bottle of this on hand (and throw it in my liquids bag when I travel) because I love it that much.
You aren’t going to feel full-on drunk, but I’m always noticeably calmer when I have a glass or two.
I hope this gives you some motivation to try a break from alcohol and give you an idea as to what to expect! Let me know how it goes for you (or if you need a cheerleader/motivation to keep going)!
If you’re looking to give your liver extra love, cutting out alcohol is a great start! For an extra boost, sign up for my free 3 day liver reset, which includes some of recipes I used while recovering from a combination of liver viruses that almost killed me:
