What Happens To Your Body When You Stop Drinking Alcohol

Immediately after we stop drinking is rarely when we feel our best. But how long is it before we can expect to see benefits, instead of just suffering?

Timeline

After stopping drinking alcohol for…

• Seconds: the liver starts making progress filtering out toxins and sugars; ethanol starts to leave the system
• 1 hour: fatigue sets in as the body uses a lot of energy to metabolize and eliminate alcohol. However, sleep quality (if one goes to sleep now) is low because alcohol disrupts the brain patterns required for restful sleep
• 6–12 hours: the immune system starts recovering from the suppression caused by alcohol
• 24 hours: immune system is back to normal; withdrawal symptoms may occur in the case of heavy drinkers
• 3–5 days: resting blood pressure begins to drop, as stress levels decrease (alcohol may seem anxiolytic, but it is actually anxiogenic; it just masks its own effect in this regard). Also, because of insulin responses improving, appetite reduces. The liver, once it has finished dealing your last drinking session (if you used to drink all the time, it probably had a backlog to clear), can now begin to make repairs on itself.
• 1 week: skin will start looking better, as antidiuretic hormone levels neutralize, leading to a healthier maintenance of hydration
• 2 weeks: cognitive abilities improve as the brain begins to make progress in repairing itself. At the same time, kidneys start to heal.
• 3–4 weeks: the liver begins to regenerate in earnest. You may wonder what took it so long given the liver’s famous regenerative abilities, but in this case, the liver was also the organ that took the most damage from drinking, so its regeneration gets off to a slow start (in contrast, if the liver had “merely” suffered physical trauma, such as being shot, stabbed, or eaten by eagles, it’d start regenerating vigorously as soon as the immediate wound-response had been tended to). Once it is able to pick up the pace though, overall health improves, as the liver can focus on breaking down other toxins.
• 1–2 months: the heart is able to repair itself, and start to become stronger again (dependent on other lifestyle factors, of course).
• 3 months and more: bodily repairs continue (for example, the damage to the liver is often so severe that it can take quite a bit longer to recover completely, and repairs in the brain are always slow, for reasons beyond the scope of this article). Looking at the big picture, at this point we also see other benefits, such as reduced cancer risks.

In short… It’s never too soon to stop, but it’s also never too late, unless you are going to die in the next few days. So long as you’ll be in the land of the living for a few days yet, there’s time to enjoy the benefits of stopping.

Most importantly: the timeline for the most important repairs is not as long as many people might think, and that itself can be very motivating.

For more detail on much of the above, enjoy:

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Want to learn more?

You might also like to read:

• Can We Drink To Good Health?
• How To Reduce Or Quit Alcohol
• Addiction Myths That Are Hard To Quit
• How To Unfatty A Fatty Liver

Take care!