What I Noticed From Not Drinking Alcohol For Almost A Year

I went on the journey over 9 months ago to quit drinking entirely. The changes I seen and felt in myself was quite impressive. Just by quitting any habit you have, you won’t feel or see a change until you go sometime without performing that habits.

Disclaimer:

I’m not here to knock down alcohol or to tell you to quit. I’m just going to discuss what I noticed from not drinking alcohol in over 9 months. Also I’m not a doctor, so if you are going to quit, consult with a professional before quitting.

Why I Quit Drinking In The First Place

I started drinking when I first went to college, like your typical college student. I was not a heavy drinker but I definitely went hard on the weekends. I never drank during the weekday, it was just during the weekend. After a year or so of being a weekend warrior, my drinking habits slowed down drastically. I went from almost blacking out every weekend to pacing myself and just getting a buzz. Before quitting I became a moderate drinker.

The last straw for me was when I went out with my buddies one weekend. We almost got into a fight and I got stranded in a bad area because my phone wasn’t picking up signal to call an Uber. I wasn’t even drunk, and on top of that my buddy fell out of a window and fractured his back. So I made it a point to quit drinking. I realized when I slowly down my drinking, that nothing good came out of drinking, just some crazy stories. After my buddy fell out of a window, I decided this was the last time I will drink. Alcohol just started to cause more problems for me than anything else.

How Long Does Alcohol Stay In Your System For?

Typically, alcohol will stay in an average person’s body for around 8 days. If you have more weight and fat on you then the alcohol tends to get stored in the fat longer. So if you are drinking Friday and Saturday and then you stop from Sunday to Thursday, alcohol has no left your system. Even between you stopped drinking from Sunday to Thursday. For an average person who drinks every weekend, alcohol probably hasn’t left your system since you started college or since you turned 21.

What I Noticed From Not Consuming Alcohol For Almost A Year(Over 9 Months)

1st thing I noticed from not drinking for almost a year is that I felt mentally clear. I stopped experiencing brain fog. Before I quit drinking, I would experience brain fog for up to 4 days after drinking. I wasn’t able to think clear at all, not just the next day but many days after. Trying to write was nearly impossible. After not drinking, my brain and mind felt like a sunny day with not a cloud in the sky.

2nd thing I noticed from not drinking for almost a year is that I experienced so much more motivation. I used to wake up during the week, struggling to get out of bed. Now after not drinking for so long I feel insane motivation to jump out of my bed and attack the day. Being excited for the day is just a normal thing for me now.

3rd thing I noticed from not drinking for almost a year is that being disciplined was so much easier for me. This is because alcohol is an enabler. It enables you to cheat on yourself and go against things. Most relationship where there is cheating, it is normally done when people are drinking, not when they are sober. For example, if you gave up eating gyros for lent or just because it’s unhealthy you, it’s going to be hard to stay committed when drinking. Having discipline to say no to getting gyros is going to be so hard. You will end up eating gyros when you drink. Just like cheating on your lover. Your morals you have through the whole week is not to cheat because you love that person. Then you get some alcohol in you and you get hit on by someone attractive and you end up cheating because alcohol instantly drained your willpower to say no.

4th thing I noticed from not drinking alcohol for almost a year was I felt physically stronger. What gives you physical strength is your muscles right? Well, alcohol impairs muscle protein synthesis(MPS), the process that repairs the muscle. When you workout in the gym to grow your muscles, this is the process that helps you grow them. So if you impair this process, you will feel weaker for longer because your body hasn’t repair the muscles yet. To gain muscle you want to be in an anabolic state, but drinking alcohol puts your body into a catabolic state. The opposite state of gaining muscle. Alcohol also lowers your testosterone also.

The Story Of Samson

Samson was a biblical figure from the book of Judges in the Bible. He was an Israelite who was one of the strongest man in the Bible. His strength came from two things. First thing was not trimming or shaving his hair. The second thing that gave him the strength was not drinking alcohol. That was the prescription of the Nazarite’s. This was what the Nazarite’s did, they didn’t cut their hair or drink alcohol.

I read the story of Samson half way through this year and it serve as an omen to me that if I wanted to remain strong like Samson, I must not drink. Towards the end of the story, they got him drunk and Samson became weak and the Philistines enslaved him.

5th thing I noticed from not drinking alcohol for almost a year was that my memory got so much better. It felt like I took some memory boosting pills. Actually not drinking worked way better than any memory brain boosting pill, I have ever taken in the past. I was able to remember things effortlessly. I didn’t have to think long and hard like Jimmy Neutron trying to have a brain blast. It was effortless.

Alcohol impairs your memory by slowing down how the nerves talk to each other in the hippocampus. The hippocampus is the region of the brain where all the memory is processed and stored.

The Science Behind Blacking Out From Drinking

The reason why people black out(meaning forgetting the whole night) is because alcohol floods the hippocampus, disrupting the short term and long term memory process. In other words, your brain could not make any new memories. That’s why you wake up forgetting everything. You don’t even remember falling asleep.

6th thing I noticed from not drinking alcohol for almost a year was I felt more in synced with my body, mind, and spirit. This may sound weird but I started to feel magical and at peace with everyone and everything. Alcohol lowers your vibration and your connections between your body, mind, and spirit. That’s why people who drink will feel more anxious, ungrounded, and just simply “off.” Anytime I went outside, I just felt like an inner connection with everything.

“Body Eating Spirit“

Alcohol in other languages mean evil things. Like in Arabic it means “body eating spirit” Your body is eating your spirit. This is a weird hunch I have but I feel like this is how they get you to sell your soul. They make you drink alcohol until your body has eaten the entire soul. In english, alcohol means “ghoul” or ghost. Alcohol is used to extract the soul essence of the entity it is being consumed by. Alcohol is dark alchemy in my opinion. Also besides for the connection part, it lowers your vibration. So when manifesting the things and life you want, it’s going to be so much harder because you have a low vibration. High vibrational people can manifest things they want so much easier.

7th thing I noticed from not drinking alcohol for almost a year was that I became more creative. I don’t fully know if alcohol will hinder the creative process for everyone. I know writers who will drink a little bit of alcohol and be able to tap into their creativity. That wasn’t in my case, when I stopped drinking, I started to be more creative. This could be because of how my thinking was much more clear. I simply was able to tap into my creative side easier. Then when I would drink alcohol and I would try to write, I wasn’t able to. Writing and being creative was like pulling teeth. So when I quit, coming up with original creative ideas were easier.

8th thing I noticed from not drinking alcohol for almost a year was that I became more social and my social skilled improved. Being social seemed effortless because I wanted to be social. There is a difference between wanting to be social and having to be social. One is easy and the other is not. It’s called social “skills”, because it’s muscle you have to train. If you are being social while you are drunk, you aren’t training this muscle. So your social skills decline. Shooting a basketball drunk is not going to improve your jump shot. If it did then LeBron James would be drinking on the court. You need to be fully conscious to train your muscle memory.

That was the 8 things I have noticed from not drinking alcohol in almost a year. Maybe we’ll do another article on what I noticed from not drinking when I reach the two year mark.

Conclusion

Drink Responsibly!

If you are struggling with an alcohol addiction or any type of substance abuse, I teamed up with HELP.org to help guide you to overcome your addiction.

Here is some links that was sent to me from Micala who works for Help.org:

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