4 great things that happen when you stop drinking alcohol

If you’re thinking about quitting drinking or maybe just slightly changing your relationship with alcohol, you might be intimidated by some of the side effects of cutting back on your consumption of booze.

Drawing on scientific evidence, we’ll be laying out eight things that are likely to happen when you stop drinking alcohol — the good and the bad. Here’s a list of them below:

Better skin

Drinking alcohol can cause the blood vessels near our skin to expand, causing redness in our complexion or a flushed appearance: this goes away when you stop consuming alcohol. As a diuretic, alcohol causes dehydration which can make our skin look worse. By drinking plenty of water and stopping drinking alcohol, your skin can restore itself to its natural plumpness and healthy glow, and wrinkles and bad skin will start to diminish.

Sleeping better

Citing a 2015 study about the effects of alcohol on the brain when we sleep, it explained that alcohol has been linked to low wave non-rapid-eye-movement (NREM delta power) sleep, which can mean waking up more often in the night. While you may fall asleep quickly with alcohol, your actual sleep quality is far worse. When you stop drinking, you may find it harder to fall asleep at night, but you’ll feel much more rested and energized.

Mental clarity

Making important decisions becomes a lot easier, and thinking through problems is more straightforward. You’re also able to deal with emotions much easier. It feels less like you’re on an emotional rollercoaster, and you end up feeling quite stable.

You save money.

As addictions go, alcohol is one of the cheapest, but the money you spend on alcohol does add up. You can easily spend thousands of dollars a year on alcohol, more if you drink a lot in clubs, restaurants, and bars. Perhaps even more expensive are the consequences of excessive drinking. When you commit to quitting drinking, you find more money in your pocket almost immediately.