5 Reasons Not to Drink Alcohol
I celebrated 2.5 years sober today on May 9, 2022, so I thought I would go over 5 reasons why you shouldn’t drink alcohol. If you’re trying to quit drinking, then you may get a few days or weeks of sober time before your mind starts trying to tell you that you’re “cured” and that it’ll be different this time. Please refer to this list to remind yourself not to indulge those thoughts.
You have to spend a lot of time thinking about alcohol. When I was drinking I spent nearly every minute of the day recovering from drinking, beating myself up for drinking too much, thinking about how to moderate my drinking, bargaining and rationalizing that I was okay to drink, talking to other people about how much I liked drinking, and drinking. I didn’t have time for much else.
2. Alcohol destroys your self-esteem. Every time you try to moderate and fail, say you won’t drink but then you do, or drink way too much and embarrass yourself, you lose self-esteem. Over time, alcohol destroys our self-confidence and makes us hate ourselves. This impacted all areas of my life and I didn’t believe I could accomplish anything or even just do an okay job at anything. I thought I was a bad person and a loser because I couldn’t keep my word to myself about how much I would drink.
3. Your hobbies include sitting around or standing around. When I was drinking I just sat in different locations and drank. I couldn’t wait to travel the world, so I could sit in different bars and drink wine. That was my only hobby, sitting and doing nothing. Alcohol seems fun and classy, but remove the alcohol from the situation and you will realize you’re just sitting around doing nothing. Parties are simply just standing around in a room with other people who are also standing around in a room.
4. Alcohol turns you into a dry, old looking, red, puff-ball. Studies have found that drinking increases the speed that wrinkles develop on the face, causes redness, and makes us very inflamed and puffy. When I stopped drinking, the mysterious dry patches I had on my face disappeared and I dropped an entire pant size without changing my weight. I didn’t realize how puffy I was until I got some distance from alcohol.
5. Alcohol makes you overly emotional, dramatic, and very reactive. I had very big, often inappropriate emotions when I was drinking. I reacted to things quickly without thinking them through. I was dramatic and easily offended. And when I got really drunk I would end the night by crying or fighting with my husband (or both!). Alcohol has a major impact on the emotional centers of the brain and makes us more emotional and reactive. Plus, it also damages the prefrontal cortex which allows us to use logic and reasoning to think through our decisions. Going through life reacting to everything around us and having extreme emotions is exhausting.
Learn more about why you drink the way you do in my podcast
