DRY JANUARY? EXPLORING THE PROS AND CONS OF ALCOHOL
It’s a brand new year and we usually head into it with big aspirations and lofty plans for the year ahead. Sometimes our renewed motivation is paired with new challenges, and it seems like Dry January (or a self-commitment to no alcohol for the month of January) is often a common part of that. Personally, I’m a huge fan of Dry January (or any temporary pause in drinking) as it gives us an opportunity to assess if a short period of sobriety has us feeling any different - in mood, appetite, energy, or in any other area of life.
Before we dig deeper into the topic of alcohol, I want to make one thing perfectly clear: The message here is not to give up alcohol; it is to assess our relationship with alcohol and how drinking aligns with our goals.
WHAT HAPPENS WHEN WE DRINK?
The way our bodies process alcohol is a bit different than other macronutrients. There is a dose-response toxicity that alcohol exhibits. In smaller amounts, alcohol can behave more like a food than a toxin, and there aren’t many observable harmful effects. But if we increase intake, alcohol behaves more like the toxin that it is. It damages tissues, suppresses physiological processes, and inhibits the central nervous system.
When alcohol is present in our bodies, it receives metabolic priority meaning the body metabolizes it first because it is a neurotoxin. On the way through our digestive system, some alcohol is absorbed directly by the tongue and mouth, then it’s absorbed directly into the bloodstream through the tissue lining once it makes it to the stomach. This is why having food in our stomachs impacts how we handle a drink.
We don’t need to go into alcohol metabolism, but know that is handled in the liver. All of that alcohol in our bloodstream comes out via sweat, urine, and our breath and it can only do that so quickly; water or a cold shower or coffee won’t actually speed up the process.
An interesting part of this process is that alcohol doesn’t trigger hormones like leptin (the hormone that says “hey I’m full!”) like typical food does.
Essentially, alcohol is a calorically dense substance that, when consumed, doesn’t trigger satiety. Instead of feeling full, we actually feel hungry and then, once we start to eat, we feel even hungrier! When we pair this with impaired decision making and lower inhibitions (the given effects of alcohol) we see a big tendency towards overconsumption that is often paired with little awareness of how much we are consuming.
Now, this is just about one aspect of our nutrition, and excess calories are not the end of the world. I bring this up because it’s a pattern I think gets overlooked very often. It has also been found in cohort studies that most individuals wildly underestimate their alcohol consumption. Similar studies and the amount underestimated varied quite a bit but had participants underestimating 33-60% of their intake. Mix that with the drunchies (drunk munchies?!) and we’re talking about some significant overconsumption at times.
While we’re consuming these excess calories, here’s what else may be happening inside of us:
-Our bodies are releasing stress hormones
-Our immune system is compromised
-We experience disrupted testosterone and sex drive
-We experience an inflammatory response to alcohol intake and may feel that in puffiness or heaviness or in hangover symptoms like headaches and nausea. Long term, this chronic inflammation is a catalyst for increased risk of various health conditions.
-Our sleep is impaired. After drinking, we’re not going to get good REM sleep (that deep, restorative sleep we need for recovery).
Now, this is not an extensive list by any means and doesn’t delve into long term effects. Rather, this is more indicative of what happens in our bodies short term. What is most important to recognize regarding our consumption is that the dose makes the poison.
We dive further into this topic in my podcast episode, “Rethinking Our Drinking: The Science & Our Relationship With Alcohol.” Give it a listen here!
LISTEN TO THE EPISODE
THE BENEFITS OF ALCOHOL
Numerous studies show that moderate alcohol consumption (1 drink per day for women, 2 for men) is associated with lower risk of heart disease, stroke, and diabetes compared to alcohol abstinence. This appears to be due to alcohol's ability to raise HDL (good) cholesterol and higher HDL levels are associated with greater protection against heart disease. However, increasing alcohol intake to more than 4 drinks a day can increase the risk of hypertension, abnormal heart rhythms, stroke, heart attack, and death.
These benefits shift over time. In general, the risks exceed benefits until middle age, when cardiovascular disease begins to account for an increasingly large share of the burden of disease and death. If you are fit, physically active, don’t smoke, eat a healthy diet, and have no family history of heart disease, drinking alcohol won’t add much to decreasing your risk of cardiovascular disease. If you have any family history of alcoholism, benefits pale in comparison to the risk, and the idea of drinking for the benefits alone probably won’t elicit the desired response.
Important note here: talking about moderate alcohol intake refers to ~1 drink per day. 7 drinks on Saturday is not the same because that elicits a very different burden on our bodies!
We could spend a lot of time going back and forth on the purported benefits of drinking vs. the risks, but it seems pretty clear that the risks outweigh those benefits the vast majority of the time.
As far as our health goes, the benefits are out. However, drinking is very much a social activity, and we know that being social, spending time with friends, and having a community is really important to our overall well being!
A RISK ASSESSMENT APPROACH TO DRINKING
With the basic knowledge we now have about how alcohol impacts our bodies, we can now take into account how much nuance is in this topic (we haven’t even talked about the role tradition, religion, and socioeconomic status play into drinking habits!) and take a risk assessment approach:
We can take into account the small health benefits (lower risk of heart diseases, polyphenols in red wine) and recognize that these benefits are not exclusive to alcohol; a healthful diet and exercise have a far greater impact on HD and antioxidants are in fruits and veggies.
With that in mind, can we take this risk assessment approach with the social aspect and enjoyment in mind? We think about the benefits of enjoying an event or dinner or time with friends vs. the impact a few drinks may have on our sleep, stress, and energy for the next day.
SO WHAT ABOUT DRY JANUARY?
Let’s talk about the term “sober curious.” This is from Ruby Warrington, who wrote a book called "Sober Curious: The Blissful Sleep, Greater Focus, Limitless Presence, and Deep Connection Awaiting Us All on the Other Side of Alcohol:”
"[Being sober curious] means, literally, to choose to question, or get curious about, every impulse, invitation, and expectation to drink, versus mindlessly going along with the dominant drinking culture.”
Sober curious is a term that means questioning your relationship with alcohol and thinking about trying sobriety, even if you are not ready to commit to it. And one of the goals of this movement is to push back on normalizing that heavy drinking has to be present in social situations and those who don’t drink are less social or less enjoyable.
I find that interesting because we seem to approach this topic as so black and white: you drink or you don’t. If not, there has to be an ominous reason. The first step of “sober curiosity” is paying attention to your alcohol consumption, and Dry January could be a great opportunity to try that out!
As we talk about this risk analysis approach of the benefits vs negatives of drinking, I think there is space for the answer to be yes, have a drink! If the goal is enjoyment and celebration and socializing, then alcohol may play a role in that! And maybe, along the way, we can also pay attention to the other motives we hold: Am I drinking to cope with stress? Or to fit in?
This added awareness that could come from Dry January or could come from just bringing more intention to your drinking habits can help us recognize the role alcohol plays in our lives and weigh the positives and negatives with context.
SUMMING IT ALL UP
Consumption of alcohol does have some really tough impacts on our health, and those negative impacts are all about dose-response toxicity. Intake of this toxic in large amounts like with any long-term heavy drinking has negative impacts on the liver, heart, pancreas, and brain. It increases risk of cirrhosis and neurological damage, it impairs our immune system, it disrupts sleep cycles.
As far as our nutrition and fitness goes, drinking can really impact our caloric consumption and alcohol impedes our ability to perform and recover.
In a convoluted world of online information where there is a LOT of talk about detoxing with this tea or that oil, or fear mongering around toxins found in cereal or candy. And, while there is so much that could be said about that, we do know that alcohol is a known toxin. It is a Group 1 carcinogen, which is “carcinogenic to humans.”
We know the concerns around alcohol consumption, and we know the benefits around socializing and enjoyment. With these facts, we can hopefully become educated around what and how we consume and hold our consumption in a way that aligns with what we want out of life.
RESOURCES FROM THE PODCAST EPISODE
- https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/alcohol
- https://www.britannica.com/topic/alcohol-consumption/Alcohol-and-society
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6527027/
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10073822/
- https://www.bgsu.edu/recwell/wellness-connection/alcohol-education/alcohol-metabolism.html
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7020057/
- https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/jul/01/sober-curious-alcohol-abuse
Need more no-nonsense nutrition information in your life? Sign up for my weekly email each Friday. Get nutritional nuggets, recipes, troubleshooting, and more reasons to ditch restrictive diets and find a flexible (and enjoyable) approach to your nutrition.
We are committed coaches who work with committed clients and love nothing more than helping our clients find a sustainable approach to nutrition that allows them to work towards their goals without white-knuckling their way through yo-yo diets. Learn more about our KLN team here!