Boost Your NAD
April is Alcohol Awareness Month. which means it’s a good time to simply reflect on our habits, our choices, have honest conversations with ourselves and others we care about, and think about how to approach our alcohol use so that we can explore healthy choices.
Whether we believe it or not, alcohol is a drug. It actually slows down the brain activity and our body functions. Since alcohol is socially accepted and in many cases even encouraged, it can be difficult to determine what is healthy and what is not. The first thing we can do, is better understand it’s affects on us physically. It alters our mood, our judgment, coordination and reaction time. This is why no matter what you do, it is important to not drink and drive. How else does it affect us? It can be addictive, which many of us understand on some level- with emergence of rehab centers and alcohol anonymous support groups over the years. Over time, it can have a negative impact on our liver, our heart, our brain and studies have recently shown that it increases our risk of cancer as well. When there’s a high level of dependence on alcohol, suddenly stopping can cause withdrawal symptoms like tremors and anxiety.
Socially, many of us celebrate with alcohol. We also take the edge off with alcohol. You’ve heard, or experienced yourself, coming home from a long day, and wanting to sit down with a glass of wine or beer, or other alcohol beverage of choice. This can make wanting to make healthier choices for ourselves more difficult, because it can seem so easy and even fun to grab that drink. Sometimes we’ve been doing something for so long, we’ve forgotten why we started in the first place and don’t even think twice about it because it just becomes part of our daily life.
What can we do?
- Try an alcohol-free challenge. Can you go for a week without a drink? Maybe you can try an entire month. These days there are options for alcohol free beverages. Many restaurants have a mocktails menu. It didn’t used to be the norm, but more and more companies are coming out with alcohol-free wine and beer.
- Journal your social experiences. If you didn’t start your alcohol-free challenge yet, did you have any drinks at a social event or in the comfort of your own home with someone you live with or a friend whose visited? What did you have? How did you feel? How did you feel the next morning? Then start to track your experiences for when you didn’t include alcoholic beverages into your outing.
- After taking time to not drink, think about why you drink? When you crave it the most? Does it affect your sleep, your hormones, your focus, your hydration?
- After you go through your week or month without alcohol, consider how you wish to move forward? Do you want to spend more time alcohol-free? If you wish to go back to drinking, could you limit the number of drinks you have or the number of times you have a drink during the week? Could you incorporate alcohol-free drinks into your routine?
As we age, our goals change. How we see ourselves in the world and how we wish to interact in it change as well. Maybe you realize it does slow you down or you’re too dependent on it. Making healthier choices in our life can empower us to do better and open up more opportunities for us as well. Maybe you’ll get up earlier, now that you don’t have any fog from drinking anything the night before. You might feel more productive and do more that you love throughout your day. We all have choices. The point is to be more self-aware, acknowledge where we are at, and decide how we wish to move forward for our health. If you know someone else is struggling, the best we can do is be there for them, be honest about what we observe and help them navigate their next steps if possible. Whatever you do, we encourage responsible drinking.
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