How Quitting Alcohol Improves Mental Health

While people often use alcohol to improve their mood, it’s a substance that ultimately works against positive mental health. This sedative substance comes with severe health risks when used heavily. Considering how the brain is affected reveals how mental health changes under its influence.

Whether a person uses alcohol recreationally or has developed an addiction, quitting alcohol leads to long-lasting mental health benefits.

What Alcohol Does in the Brain

Innately, humans have brain chemicals that cause us to feel all manner of emotions. GABA neurotransmitters are affected by alcohol use. When drinking, people experience an increased effect of GABA, which manifests as feelings of sedation.

Alcohol also reduces how effective the Glutamate “stimulating” neurotransmitter works, causing lowered alertness. This is why it’s common to feel relaxed and calm after a drink or two.

As well as this, alcohol induces a release of endorphins and dopamine, the happy chemicals that make people feel good. Though in the short term, people feel happy and have more energy when these are released, these feelings don’t last.

The depleted happy chemicals will bounce back, but in the meantime, mood is affected. Often, people are left feeling irritable, anxious, tearful, and low.

At what Point is an Alcohol Detox Needed?

Alcohol is a powerful substance. It’s important that people who drink frequently understand that it has severe effects on the neurological system. When a person wants to stop, it must be done so in a supervised capacity, especially where dependency has occurred.

Dependency is most commonly demonstrated when a lack of alcohol brings the shakes, headaches, and feelings of nausea; people may also experience ongoing gut issues.

In these instances, contacting a medical practitioner is essential. Being weaned off alcohol safely is of prime importance so as to ensure safety and keep distressing symptoms to a minimum.

At its worst, alcohol withdrawal can lead to seizures, which can be fatal. Hence, the a need for clinical supervision. If in doubt as to whether dependency is present, contact a health or addiction specialist for guidance, and you can typically begin an alcohol detox from home.

How Mood is Impacted when Quitting Alcohol

For those who have used alcohol regularly in whatever quantities, there’s an impact on mood when a person first quits. Even for those who might drink small amounts often. People’s brains and bodies become accustomed to a particular level of alcohol, and their internal systems regulate around it in order to function. This is how tolerance and dependency develop.

It’s common for people to experience mood swings. Not only are the brain’s chemicals that support emotional regulation depleted, but alcohol also directly impacts the endocrine glands, altering responses to hormones. This can lead to an increase in cortisol and adrenaline, which leads to stress, and also impacts serotonin and dopamine levels (brain chemicals that lead to happy moods).

With all these chemicals and hormones impacted by alcohol, it’s natural that without the substance that people come to rely on to regulate mood, there’s going to be a negative fallout. It takes time for the brain and body to adjust to the absence of alcohol and time for chemicals and hormones to rebalance. Therefore, at the start of sobriety, mood swings are natural.

How Long Does it Take for Changes in Mental Health to be Seen?

The impact of alcohol is unique to the individual, their body type, genetics, how much they drink, how long they’ve been drinking, and how frequently. However, for many people who have successfully weaned off alcohol, there’s usually a clear difference in mood, emotional regulation, and mental health after about a month.

Some people will feel effects before then. Some may see an improvement after a week, but for heavy drinkers, a month is usual.

It also takes around a month to truly start rewiring the brain with new thoughts and behaviours. It takes work, addiction treatment, which introduces healthy coping mechanisms and tools, and an absence of alcohol to start to alter the alcohol user’s mind and mental health.

Benefits of Quitting Alcohol on Mental Health

There are a huge number of mental health benefits to be gained from quitting alcohol. Though it might feel difficult to notice these at the beginning of the recovery journey, with time, the effects are clear.

1. Cognitive Benefits of Quitting Alcohol

Those who quit alcohol usually experience an improvement in cognitive functioning. This might look like feeling “clearer in the mind” (i.e., less foggy, more organized), being able to focus more easily, having the capacity to get things done (i.e., chores, admin, etc.), memory will improve, and for some, it might mean balance and coordination return, and speech improves.

2. How Sleep Changes without Drink

Drinking alcohol impacts how people sleep. It causes sleep disruption as well as altering how people go through the sleep cycles (which impacts how well people recover from daily exertion at night). As well as this, drinking before bed means the body has to metabolise sugar content during the night, which can cause spikes in temperature, leading to wakefulness.

When people cut out alcohol, it might feel harder to get to sleep during the initial adjustment period, but the quality of sleep is much better. Thereafter, the associated health benefits (i.e. ability of sleep to support the healing process when unwell) increase.

Due to improved sleep, people also experience higher energy levels and don’t wake to a hangover. All of these effects lead to improved mood.

3. Quitting Alcohol Improves Health Outcomes

Alcohol use reduces the body’s ability to absorb essential vitamins and nutrients such as thiamine, B12, and magnesium. This impacts people mentally as well as physically. It may be clear that a reduction in nutrients causes weakness in the body, fatigue, and bad skin, but it also causes mental health symptoms such as anxiety and depression.

When quitting, with a little time, and in necessary cases, clinically supervised nutrient supplementation, both physical and mental health improve.

4. Increase in Healthy Lifestyle Activities

People often cite boredom as one of the main reasons they drink. As people cut out alcohol, they tend to fill their lives with healthier activities as a coping mechanism to focus on sobriety and bring meaning and purpose to life.

Taking part in exercise, arty activities, self-care hobbies, etc, that make people feel good, helps to improve mental health in a sustainable way. It’s this part of a sober life that makes it sustainable. People learn how to experience pleasure in wholesome things that cause a natural high.

5. The Importance of Human Connection, Mental Health, and Recovery

One of the most valuable tools in addressing alcoholism is human connection. When a person’s able to open up honestly in a non-judgemental relationship where they’re held accountable, great progress can be made.

Through connection to sober members of family, friends, peer groups, and within communities, people find value and a drive to develop healthier lifestyles. Human connection reduces the isolation and despair often linked to uncontrolled drinking habits.

As people deepen meaningful relationships, mental health feels easier to navigate, and there are more coping tools to use connected to social networks.

Shining a Light on the Positives

It’s important to shine a light on the positive aspects of reducing alcohol use. Through open dialogue with others, focusing on the healthy aspects of recovery helps to forge optimistic paths for mental health and addiction outcomes in the future.