How giving up alcohol gave my mental health a massive boost

OK, not giving up alcohol permanently – but I did Dry January this year mainly lose to weight. This worked – I lost 12.5lb in a month. But the greatest benefit was to my mental health.

I’ve given up alcohol for extended periods twice before. Once was Dry January and once was for Lent (even though I’m agnostic – it just seemed like a good idea at the time). I don’t remember too much about either time, apart from the fact that I lost loads of weight.

Over Christmas, I had a break from Slimming World. I decided I was gonna eat and drink whatever I wanted – and then rejoin as a brand new, much fatter, member in January.

So that’s what I did. I drank beer and wine like it was going out fashion, I ate all the Christmas goodies and I became my local takeaway’s best customer.

There was football on New Year’s Day, so I decided to end my gluttony after that, rather than at midnight on New Year’s Eve. Sure enough, pints were downed and I rounded off the night with pizza.

And when I say pizza, I didn’t do things by halves. I ordered a large (12-inch) meat feast but was told that all the 12-inch bases were out of stock. So instead of going for medium, I went extra large – 14 inches.

This pizza could literally have fed a family of four for dinner. I ate the lot, along with a 10-inch garlic bread. With cheese. All of it.

I didn’t feel too great afterwards, but I knew it was my final hurrah – one last blowout feast before getting back on board with Slimming World and beginning Dry January. I’m an all-or-nothing kinda person. Feast or famine.

I weighed in the following night and, sure enough, it was a chunky gain. But the following week I lost 8lb. Then 3lb. Altogether in January, I lost 12.5lb, more than anyone else in the group.

This was partly due to the fact that our old consultant from when I originally joined a few years ago is now back. HOORAH! She inspires the hell out of me. Of course, having zero alcohol kept down my syns, too, and made losing weight a walk in the park.

Dry January has been a real eye-opener in three main ways – one of them completely unexpected.

The first has been weight loss. I’ve been doing Slimming World for almost six years and, a lot of that time, I’ve been playing at it because of the booze.

I’ve been drinking too much at weekends and, for a couple of those years, was trying to mitigate alcohol’s weight-gain effects by doing long-distance cycling – rides of up to 300km. That’s almost 200 miles in old money.

In a way, that worked. I lost more than 4st. But had I not been drinking the amount I was, I’d have been at target (to lose 5st), no problem. I never got there and, when I stopped cycling due to getting a new job, much of the weight crept back on.

The second reason was that I was getting concerned that I may be getting a bit too dependent on alcohol.

Since last summer, my social circle has increased and I was spending more time at the pub. Don’t get me wrong, I was having a brilliant time, but I was overdoing it.

Fridays would generally be movie night, which invariably meant a bottle or two of red wine. Let’s be honest, it was usually two.

Saturdays would involve football – so three pints before the game, maybe one or two during it, three pints after the game, and then into town for more and more.

Once Sunday’s hangover had worn off, I’d be back in the pub for live music, usually sinking another four pints or so.

I wouldn’t usually drink in the week – but I was still getting concerned that I was overdoing things.

And I was seeing the effects of alcohol on some people who were in the pub pretty much every night – one guy shaking uncontrollably, another piling on stones in weight, another drinking until he could barely stand.

One guy confessed to me that he was afraid he was becoming an alcoholic, so I got out my phone and found a local self-help group for him. I remember thinking: I do NOT want to become like this guy.

So Dry January began. On the weekend of January 3/4/5, I was feeling really glum. I wanted a beer, I wanted a glass of wine. I couldn’t have any. I was grumpy.

The next weekend was easier, and the one after that was a walk in the park. Don’t get me wrong, sitting in the pub before the football drinking pints of Diet Coke just ain’t the same – I really missed that buzz that alcohol gives you – that big, warm hug.

It was the same at the gigs. Cans of Diet Coke all the way, no buzz, no hugs. But standing on the scales on a Thursday night and getting what Slimming World calls #thatfeeling made it all worthwhile.

Instead of getting in the weigh queue thinking, “Well, I’ve gone way over my syns with alcohol as usual but my food choices have been good”, I was thinking: “I’ve smashed it this week – how much have I lost this week?”

So my main aims were to:

• Lose weight
• Cut any burgeoning dependency

Tick, tick, boom.

The third good thing to come out of all of this was the effect on my mental health. And that’s been massive.

I was already feeling better – loads more energy, really happy, and loads more motivation to get stuff done. Nothing major but stuff like cleaning at home – this is something I tend to put off (and off and off)! But, lounge aside (that’s basically a store room at the mo while I work on the rest of the house, everything’s spick and span.

Then, a week or so ago, I watched a documentary by Adrian Chiles called Drinkers Like Me. This was all about Adrian, a well-known British journalist with the BBC.

https://youtu.be/RX2opvj7WE8

He was becoming concerned about how much he was drinking, so he decided to get checked out.

He didn’t consider himself an alcoholic – ie he didn’t wake up in the mornings and reach for a bottle of vodka. But he thought he was probably overdoing it.

He was having two or three pints down the pub most nights and maybe overdoing it at weekends. Binge drinking – sound familiar?

So he sets off on a journey of discovery which is a real eye-opener. I won’t spoil it for you. Click on the link above and watch for yourself. Then watch the follow-up he did for Panorama, Britain’s Drink Problem.

One of the things I didn’t know is that the recommended MAXIMUM weekly limit for both men and women (and non-binary people!) is 14 units.

The figure used to be higher (as high as 36 at one point, then 28, then 21). But it’s now just 14. So what does that equate to? Here’s your handy guide:

• 14 single measures of spirits (ABV 37.5%)
• Seven pints of average-strength (4%) lager
• Nine and one-third 125ml glasses of average-strength (12%) wine
• Seven 175ml glasses of average-strength (12%) wine
• Four and two-thirds 250ml glasses of average-strength (12%) wine

That might sound like a fair bit – but over an entire week? I could easily drink seven pints of average strength beer on a Saturday – and that’s ignoring the stronger beers I prefer (5% plus).

It’s also ignoring the wine on a Friday and the pints on a Sunday. I was waaaaaay over my weekly limit.

Also, seven pints of 4% beer (I can’t drink lager, sorry!) would equate to 63 syns. Over a week, that’s nine syns per day. Women are only allowed ten to 15 MAX on Slimming World.

The third reason, as I say (I’m getting there!) relates to mental health. In his original documentary, Adrian talks about how alcohol effects mental health. Like me, he has suffered from years of depression and anxiety. At one point, he poses the question: has this got anything to do with the amount of alcohol I’m drinking?

For me, this was a major “penny drops” moment. I’ve suffered with depression and anxiety since my early 20s (I’m now 46).

Although everything’s under control now thanks to antidepressants, things are always at their worse on Sunday nights. I always used to think this was a throwback to childhood and being bullied at school – that dread of returning to the classroom and playground just to get bullied by little twats for another week. Indeed, this was the conclusion reached by a counsellor I went to see many moons ago.

Back in my 20s, I’d suffer the most debilitating depression, and Mondays at work would generally feature serious panic attacks. The antidepressants have all but stopped that now. Though I still get the blues and I still get the odd minor panic attack.

What if all this wasn’t to do with bullies at all? What if it was to do with having a skinful at weekends? Going clubbing and boozing on a Friday and Saturday night – then paying for it on Sunday and Monday?

As I say, this was a major “penny drops” moment for me. I looked back on my January. How had my mental health been? Well, really, really good actually.

One of my main issues is that anxiety causes my abdomen to bloat up – this pushes my up diaphragm, which makes me breathless sometimes. That’s not such an issue in the daytime as I can force myself to take a deep breath but, at night, my body likes to wake me up with a big scream, saying: “YOU’RE NOT GETTING ENOUGH OXYGEN!!! WAKE UP NOW!!!”

This is always worse on Sunday nights and then eases throughout the week. Friday and Saturday I usually sleep well – because alcohol knocks me out and I’m relaxed.

So I asked myself: how often has the Sleep Monster come to visit this January? And I can’t remember the last time it happened. Maybe a little at the start of the month, but certainly nothing in the past three weeks or so.

Adrian Chiles, I owe you the most enormous debt of gratitude. This Sleep Monster has been the bane of my life for decades, probably starting in my early 20s, which just so happens to coincide with the period when I had enough money to be able to afford to drink too much!

It’s also the main thing putting me off going for surgery “down there” – and making me fear any other kind of surgery – as I’m so scared of what would happen if the Sleep Monster comes to visit while I’m under anaesthetic and literally can’t wake up.

It’s February 3rd and I’ve still not had an alcoholic drink since January 1st. When the clock struck midnight on Friday night and the new month began, I didn’t really fancy a drink.

At that point, I was really depressed about about the country’s suicidal departure from the EU just an hour earlier. Normally, that would have driven me to drink.

But the last bottle of beer and the last bottle of wine from Christmas, downstairs, remained unopened.

I don’t plan to stop drinking permanently – I just love that buzz you get, especially during a gig or before the football. They’re special buzzes. I will have the occasional binge, like at a party I’m going to this weekend.

But the binges won’t be every weekend. I’ll no longer drink at home and, as well as counting my syns, I’ll also be counting my alcohol units going forward and trying to keep them below 14.

The last time I did Dry January (and Lent), I was “back on it like a bonnet” as soon as the clock chimed midnight and February began. This time it’s different.

At the start of Dry January, I was joking about how much I was looking forward to Soaking Wet February. Now I’m just looking forward to the rest of my life as a physically and mentally stronger person.

Andie xxx

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