11 Good Reasons to Stop Drinking Alcohol

The past few years have seen an incredible increase in the “sober curious” movement—and now, many people are moving beyond curiosity into full-blown avoidance of alcohol. 

But if you’re still somewhere in the middle and unsure if you should stop drinking alcohol or not, this list can provide you with plenty of reasons to consider it for both your physical and mental health. 

While we don’t want to be fearmongering, we want you to have the best information available if you choose to imbibe—no judgment from us if you do! 

A very important disclaimer: If you are dependent on alcohol or think you might have an alcohol use disorder, do not attempt to stop drinking alcohol on your own. It’s dangerous to quit alcohol cold turkey without medical supervision, as severe alcohol withdrawal symptoms can occur and be life-threatening. Please call the SAMHSA National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP (4357) if you need help with mental health services, alcohol abuse, or substance abuse.

1. You’ll Reduce Your Risk of Cancer

One of the most prominent benefits of quitting alcohol is that your risk of several types of cancer will decrease. 

A lot of people don’t know that alcohol is a Group 1 Carcinogen, meaning it’s in the highest risk category for things that can cause cancer. This was established by the IARC (International Agency for Research on Cancer) in the 1980s, putting alcohol in the same risk group as tobacco, asbestos, and radiation.¹ 

Alcohol causes cancer because your body has to metabolize alcohol into acetaldehyde during the elimination process, which is another highly toxic compound that interacts with your cells, damages DNA, and increases the risk of mutations.² 

The IARC has determined that the following types of cancer are causally related to alcohol consumption, meaning alcohol can be a direct cause:¹ 

• Cancer of the oral cavity, pharynx, and larynx
• Esophageal cancer
• Colorectal cancer
• Liver cancer (and cancer of the hepatobiliary tract)
• Breast cancer 

The risks of these cancers increase in a dose-dependent manner—meaning, the more you drink alcohol, the higher your risk of cancer. This also does not necessarily mean that other cancers aren’t related to alcohol, just that the evidence is not conclusive. Fortunately, not all hope is lost, even if you have been a heavy drinker in the past. Quitting alcohol can reduce cancer risks over time—especially for oral, esophageal, and hormone receptor-positive breast cancers—although it may take years.³

2. You’ll Have Better Sleep

Although many people think they sleep better after drinking that nightcap, this couldn’t be further from the truth. Yes, alcohol can make you fall asleep faster, as it’s a sedative, but your sleep quality will be highly disrupted.⁴ 

When you drink alcohol before bed, you are less likely to experience REM sleep, which is essential for our cognitive functioning. Alcohol can also wake you up later in the night (usually in the 2 to 4 a.m. range), causing light sleep with plenty of tossing and turning. 

According to the Sleep Foundation, even small amounts of alcohol (less than one drink for women and two for men) reduce overall sleep quality by 9.3%. Increasing those amounts slightly to more than one drink for women and two drinks for men impairs sleep quality by a whopping 39.2%.⁵ 

If you typically drink heavily or every night, keep in mind that your first night off of the sauce may not be the blissful dreamland you’ve envisioned. It may take a few nights for your body to adjust—but after that, prepare to have deep, restorative, and significantly improved sleep!

3. You’ll Probably Lose Weight

Although this is not true for everybody—and not everybody wants to lose weight—quitting alcohol leads to weight loss in many people. 

This is primarily because alcohol—and its many sugary mixers—is calorie-dense, with one drink clocking in anywhere from 100 to 500 calories. 

There are a few other reasons why drinking alcohol may be keeping you from your weight loss goals. Alcohol is inflammatory, which can contribute to weight gain. It also can cause you to overeat by influencing your hunger and satiety hormones and reducing inhibition (late-night drunchies, anyone?).⁶Lastly, alcohol slows down your metabolism and inhibits fat oxidation, reducing the amount of fat that can be burned for energy. This is because your body cannot store alcohol (it’s a toxin!), so any food that is in your system while you drink alcohol will be put on hold. While your body deals with eliminating the alcohol, all of the food you just ate will likely end up being stored as fat.⁶

4. Your Skin Will Look Better

Anyone who has done a 30-day no-drinking challenge (or longer) can attest that their skin looks better after a couple of sober weeks. 

Alcohol depletes several nutrients that are vital for healthy skin, including vitamins A, C, E, and zinc. These nutrients are crucial for skin elasticity, collagen production, vibrancy, and moisture. Drinking more alcohol also causes a diuretic effect—meaning you pee more—which can leave both you and your skin dehydrated.⁷ 

Dehydrated skin looks drier, of course, but it will also show wrinkles and sagging more easily. This accelerates the natural aging process, which is why heavy lifelong drinkers tend to look several decades older than they are.⁷ 

Heavy short-term alcohol consumption—like a weekend bender—can also drastically change your skin practically overnight, causing dark circles, flushing (from dilated blood vessels), and puffy, dry, or more wrinkled skin.⁷ 

Alcohol consumption is also linked to a worsening of skin conditions, including acne, rosacea, and eczema.⁸ 

Most people who quit drinking start to see some skin-related improvements within one week, including more hydrated or dewy skin, fewer dark circles, and less puffiness. 

5. Your Liver Health Will Improve

It’s well-known that drinking alcohol is bad for our livers. But why is that? Well, when you drink alcohol—a toxin—the liver is the primary site that has to metabolize and excrete it so it doesn’t harm us further.⁹

This process involves enzymes, nutrients, cofactors, and a lot of energy from the liver. The liver also has to place everything else on hold while it deals with the alcohol you drank, including halting fat metabolism.⁹ 

Over time, your liver accumulates excess fat that it can’t metabolize, leading to fatty liver. Fatty liver can accelerate to an inflammatory condition called alcoholic steatohepatitis, causing liver swelling and impaired function. Over time, this can progress to more severe and irreversible forms of liver disease, including fibrosis, cirrhosis, and liver cancer.⁹ 

Fortunately, one of the many amazing things about our liver is that it can repair and regenerate itself. Fatty liver can be reversed in as little as a few weeks. However, while inflammation and mild scarring can also be reversed over time, cirrhosis cannot be reversed. 

One of the easiest ways to monitor liver health is to get your liver enzymes (ALT and AST) checked at your annual checkup with your healthcare provider.

6. You’ll Reduce Your Risk of Heart Disease

Although the liver is the organ most commonly associated with alcohol consumption, your heart and cardiovascular system are also significantly affected.  

Alcohol can increase your blood pressure, which is one of the leading causes of heart disease, heart attacks, and stroke. High blood pressure occurs because alcohol disrupts your sympathetic nervous system—the one controlling the constriction and dilation of blood vessels—causing your blood vessels to narrow and increasing the pressure of the blood inside them.¹⁰

It also weakens the heart muscles—a condition called cardiomyopathy—which reduces the heart’s ability to pump blood effectively throughout the body. Over time, this can lead to heart failure. Alcohol can also cause palpitations and arrhythmia (an uneven and irregular heartbeat), which can increase the risk of heart attacks and strokes.¹¹ 

All of these conditions raise the risk of coronary artery disease, the most common form of heart disease and the leading cause of death in the United States.¹² 

Some of these symptoms, including palpitations, arrhythmias, and elevated blood pressure, can begin to normalize within days of quitting drinking.

7. Your Memory and Productivity Will Be Better

Just about everyone who has consumed alcohol knows that it certainly doesn’t make you smarter while you’re intoxicated. But it also has long-term consequences for your cognitive health, fundamentally changing how your brain operates. 

Alcohol alters neurotransmitter levels and activity by either increasing or decreasing GABA, glutamate, dopamine, and serotonin.¹³

Over time, your brain tries its best to adapt and restore balance to these disrupted neurotransmitters. Still, the equilibrium is ultimately never back to normal while you continue drinking, and neurological changes can occur. Cognitive functions like memory, alertness, and learning are all controlled by multiple neurotransmitter systems acting in equilibrium. 

Therefore, both your short- and long-term memory and cognition can be affected by alcohol consumption, including an increased risk of dementia from heavy alcohol drinking.¹⁴ Once you stop drinking alcohol, you’ll likely notice the “brain fog” has lifted, and you’ll have better productivity, focus, memory, and more energy. 

8. You’ll Get Sick Less Often

Chronic or excessive alcohol consumption can suppress the function and production of several white blood cells, including lymphocytes, macrophages, neutrophils, and T cells. These cells are vital for fighting infections, pathogens, and even cancer.¹⁵

According to the Alcohol and Drug Foundation, just one night of heavy drinking—drinking 5 to 6 drinks in a single session—can suppress the immune system for up to 24 hours.¹⁶

Over time, alcohol can suppress your immune system further, leading to more frequent illnesses and a lesser ability to recover from them. Illnesses involving the lungs and respiratory tract are particularly affected, as alcohol damages cells in the airways and lung tissue, weakening lung function and increasing the susceptibility to illness.¹⁷

9. Your Mood and Mental Health Will Improve

Although you may think that alcohol puts you in a good mood, the positive effects are extremely short-lasting—but the negative impact on mood and mental health can last days. 

Alcohol is a central nervous system depressant, meaning it dulls the effects of stress, anxiety, or other not-so-great feelings. While this can temporarily make you feel relief from these emotions, it can swing sharply in the other direction once the alcohol wears off.¹⁸

This loss of neurotransmitter equilibrium can lead to depression, anxiety (“hangxiety” is a term for a reason), restlessness, and agitation. 

Chronic alcohol use also depletes serotonin and dopamine over time, which are vital for happiness and mental health.¹⁹  

Once you stop drinking alcohol, you may feel the negative mood-related effects for 24 to 72 hours, depending on how heavy your last drinking session was. But after those first few days, prepare for your mood to elevate significantly. Many people say that the mental health benefits are one of the best things about quitting drinking.

10. Your Digestion and Gut Health Will Improve

Alcohol is harsh on your digestive tract, all the way from your mouth to your colon. As you consume alcohol, it can irritate your gut’s mucus membranes, trigger excess acid production in your stomach, and interfere with nutrient absorption.

This elevated acidic state can cause reflux and acute stomach pain (like a bad stomachache the day after a night out), as well as chronic conditions such as peptic ulcers and gastritis. 

Alcohol kills beneficial bacteria in your gut (it is an antiseptic, after all), leading to gut dysbiosis that affects just about every other system in the body.²⁰

It also increases gut inflammation and intestinal hyperpermeability—aka leaky gut—which is a condition where the intestinal lining has “leaks” that allow harmful bacteria and toxins into the bloodstream.²¹ 

Many gut-related symptoms, like acid reflux, indigestion, and stomachaches, may start to improve within a few days to two weeks of stopping drinking. Others take a little longer, but you might start seeing improvements in gastritis and ulcers within three weeks. 

11. You Will Never Be Hungover

Last but not least, never having a hangover again—even a mild dehydration headache!—is certainly cause for a celebration (sans champagne, of course). As hangovers are our body’s way of telling us that alcohol is toxic to us, it’s about time we listened! 

When you stop drinking, you’ll never again have a day ruined by tequila-induced fatigue, headaches, nausea, vertigo, light sensitivity, vomiting, sweating, elevated heart rate, anxiety, irritability, and the list could go on. Cheers to that!

Reasons to Stop Drinking FAQs