Drinking alcohol impacts your mental and physical health. Even in small quantities, alcohol can influence your mood for days.
There are many reasons why people drink alcohol, and many reasons why our society accepts or encourages drinking. However, that doesn’t mean alcohol is good for us.
Alcohol is bad for your body
One justification we’ve heard from patients again and again is that their cardiologist wants them to have alcohol for cardiovascular protection.
This idea comes from old studies, which measured the cardiovascular benefit of drinking a small amount of tanin-rich wine – roughly a quarter cup of red dark wine once a day. They reported a limited possible cardiovascular benefit for men, but otherwise did not show any meaningful benefit for women, nor any benefit from dinking more than that minimal amount.
Any benefit from tannin-rich food and drink, could likely also be found by eating 8 dark red grapes for instance – without facing alcohol’s negative effect on mood and other aspects of health.
Alcohol can cause damage to your liver, which can develop cirrhosis or fibrosis. Alcohol is not good for your pancreas, as alcohol is high glycemic and contains a large amount of sugar, heightening your risk of developing diabetes. Alcohol is not good for your heart, as people can develop alcoholic cardiomyopathy, meaning that the heart fails due to alcohol consumption. Alcohol ages your skin. Alcohol can cause early dementia. Alcohol is a major cause of car accidents.
Whether you’re drinking once a week with friends or drinking every night, there are simply no positive health benefits to alcohol.
How alcohol works
Alcohols is considered a GABA agonist, similar to benzodiazepines such as Xanax, Valium, or Ativan.
As a GABA agonist, alcohol promotes the GABA receptor’s activity in the brain. When this GABA receptor is pushed on, patients can develop tolerance and rebound very quickly. This means that after the alcohol has metabolized, and the pressure on the GABA receptor diminishes, patients can develop rebound anxiety. This lasts until the GABA receptors reset, which can be two to three days after a single drink.
Alcohol is Particularly bad for mood & motivation
For many patients at our clinic, a concerted effort to improving symptoms of depression anxiety includes not only interventions like ketamine or TMS, but also making lifestyle changes including giving up alcohol.
It can be difficult to truly believe the evidence behind studies demonstrating the harm of alcohol, and think that you may be an exception to the rule. Wearables – such as the Oura Ring, WHOOP Band, Fitbit, or Apple Watch – allow you to see the data for yourself. You can see the difference in heart rate variation over the course of three days, and the difference in the amount of deep and REM sleep following alcohol consumption. You may even receive notifications that your body is under stress, to avoid exercise, and to take an extra day of recovery following drinking.
The negative effects can occur even with as little as one or two drinks.
We encourage patients to try using a wearable to see the evidence for themselves, and to pay attention to how alcohol affects their sleep, flexibility of thought, motivation, and simple lack of desire to do things over the next two to three days.
A lack of motivation is very common in depression. However, it is also very common with drinking. If you’re drinking multiple times a week, you may encounter an alcohol-related lack of motivation nearly all of the time. In these cases you may not get a chance to see what your baseline for motivation, pleasure, or sleep is without alcohol. You may be surprised at how much better you feel without drinking – even occasional drinking.
We highly encourage patients to try to stay away from alcohol for six to eight weeks to see what their baseline is like without it. The majority of our patients who try this see such a huge difference in their mood that they then limit their alcohol consumption to very rare occasions.
Choosing to stop
When patients decide they are willing to try taking a break from alcohol, one of the biggest concerns we’ll often hear is, “But what will everyone think of me?” Patients don’t want their friends to know they’ve stopped drinking, or they’d be too embarrassed to order a non-alcoholic drink.
It’s important to remember that other people, such as bartenders, and waitstaff, don’t care that you’re not drinking or why. They’re not interested in knowing that you aren’t drinking because you’re Muslim or Mormon, or whether you were previously an alcoholic, or have had bad experiences with alcoholics in your family, of if you are pregnant, or sympathizing with someone who is not drinking, or whether you want to close that business deal, or whether you are the designated driver. There are a myriad of reasons for why you may be choosing not to drink, and most other people won’t look twice or care to know why.
If you want to blend into the crowd, there are many non-alcoholic drinks to try. You can get a tonic water with a slice of lime, or fruit juice with a maraschino cherry on top. Once your friends have had a drink or two, they are unlikely to remember or care that yours is non-alcoholic, and may even be grateful to have you as a designated driver.
We dissuade against limiting yourself to ‘just one drink,’ rather than abstaining from drinking at all — as it can be easy to forget with alcohol that you’ve decided to just have one, or that you’ve already had one, and to have another.
Resources for stopping
For patients struggling with drinking, there are some amazing apps and programs available.
The VA, or Veteran Affairs, has a free healthy changes app which focuses on healthy drinking, not abstinence.
Alcoholics Anonymous is a free program that has good accountability, support structures, and includes elements of cognitive behavioral therapy. This program may be polarizing for some patients due to its religious overtones.
There are programs that can be found online to help you assess if you have unhealthy drinking habits – such as online quizzes or questionnaires (from reputable sources). It can also be helpful to speak with friends and family to see if they’ve noticed any unhealthy patterns with alcohol.
The first step – and one of the most challenging – is to seek the resources or help to stop. Whether you drink a lot or little, we strongly encourage you to look at the research and the data from your own body, and we strongly encourage you to stop for the benefit of your health.
About Us
Wells Medicine is a Houston-based practice designed to provide meaningful care for mental health. Providing targeted interventional treatments for Depression, Anxiety, OCD, PTSD and other conditions, with Ketamine Treatments, Stellate Ganglion Blocks, TMS, and Nitrous-Oxide Treatments. Focused on comprehensive care and integration with Psychiatry, Psychology, and Support Services. We are evidence-based, patient-focused and mission-driven.
The content here is for informational purposes and should not be relied upon for medical decisions. For the details of your specific medical conditions and treatments consult your doctors or other qualified healthcare professionals.
