Right on! I’m throttling back to 3 max. If I drink any more I do get up a few times at night to go to the bathroom.
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Nothing in my story which has not been already mentioned here… But wanted to give my testimony, mainly to increase counter in this thread 
- I used to drink “habitualy”, a beer every day or two days.
- Ocassionally, when stressed at work, preparing a drink was my very first thing after coming back home.
- When started cycling and started on a training plan I realized alcohol was affecting my recovery
- Riding more = more endorphins = felt addicted to the riding. So I replaced one addiction (or habit) by another one.
Now drinking only when I have to (special occassions), never habitually at home. I just lost whole enjoyment…?
One more reason: I work in IT, perhaps my brain is most valuable part I have. I’m mid 40’s, really no reason helping the time in destruction of the brain cells…
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The number one most obvious change I noticed after a month or so was no more bloating especially waking me up middle of the night. Before I stopped drinking I thought it was food related but, now I assume it’s alcohol (sugar) related.
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It is all about habits I think.
I was never a regular drinker, and never drank straight out of work on non weekend days, but in some period I drank much more in the weekends, then I do now.
Gratefully I am not so quick caught in ‘addicts’, but I am glad that I now developed the habit that I only drink at special occasions and then also 1 special beer is enough and I fine with that.
I can fully agree that non alcoholic beer is a positive development also. Great after a work out and to drink when other people around you drink regular beer, and still have the feeling that you have a special drink, but not with all the negative side effects.
My sleep and HRV are never being influenced in a bad way anymore, now that I don’t drink alcohol anymore. And I found out that there are also no real negative side effects when I drink 1 special beer on a special occasion.
And don’t forget we need to give our children the good example. Very important in my opinion.
I am very pleased with the fact that my parents weren’t ‘regular’ drinkers and I think that helps a lot in further life.
Just to share my toughts on the case 
Apologies upfront, I am not a native english speaker (dutch).
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I’ve never drank so i can’t add anything, but my wife and I notice that our bill, when we go out with friends, is 1/3 - 1/2 what everyone else’s is. That’s a nice plus.
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A few years ago I started taking every other month off from drinking then that slowly evolved into just on occasional weekend bevy with dinner. Then this podcast dropped from Huberman and it confirmed everything I had been feeling/reading into digestible format. Listening to it with my girlfriend had her seriously cut back as well. My recently retired mom however called him a “wet blanket” 
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Humans have been consuming drugs since forever. I was in an archeological outpost in the Chilean Atacama desert and they showed us drug paraphernalia that were >5,000 years old and prove there has been trade across the Andes for at least that long. (The artifacts were made of trees that could only be found on the other side of the mountain range.)
Alcohol and other drugs can be good in social context, but that’s assuming you can consume responsibly. Many cannot and knowing that about yourself is super important. Also, when you consume regularly, your tolerance goes up and you need a higher dose. Now one bottle of beer by myself is more than enough. Last weekend my wife and I “splurged” for our 10-year anniversary and had 2 bottles each and we felt content.
You made a very important discovery about yourself: drinking is not good for you and life is better without it. I discovered that my life is the same when drinking much less than when I was at uni, drinking is more like eating cake. I don’t need 5 slices, one is enough. I learnt that there are moods and situations where I should not drink, because alcohol either makes me depressed or aggressive.
Learning this about yourself is important as it helps you become a better person. So if you can’t handle alcohol, know that it makes you and the people around you more miserable, then you stay away from it. I’m not an addiction expert, so I don’t know where you are on the addiction spectrum. But you don’t have to wait until it has become a serious problem to address it. It almost invariably is easier if you don’t wait that long! In my book that doesn’t make you weak, quite the opposite! So if you learn ways to prevent alcohol from having a negative impact on your life, all the power to you. Like you wrote, we don’t need alcohol. Non-alcoholic beers are definitely one way to have a taste of beer without the negatives of alcohol consumption.
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After starting a diet recently, I have reduced my (previously excessive) alcohol consumption to basically once or twice a week.
It’s really amusing to see how much of an effect even a single drink has on RHR, HVR, and sleep quality scores.
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This is what always lead me to think about dropping alcohol. I started regularly wearing a Garmin watch, and knowing I wasn’t hitting my best sleep numbers always made me upset. Now I associate poor recovery with drinking. It’s funny how our brains work and when certain things make an impact on us. I was a gamer growing up, so maybe I accidentally conditioned myself to want the best “score”. Slippery slope to not get too tied up on metrics and remember to enjoy the process, but that’s another issue…
I agree with everyone else here on the NA Beer scene. I have started buying those often. Part of my self-care “treat” routine was running by a local convenience store for some snacks and a beer. There’s a lot of NA variety where I live from beers to mixed drinks. So now I just grab one of those. Big fan! Back in the US I liked the Athletic Brewing a lot. I also always found a simple “fizzy water” to hit a similar spot, something about cracking one open is satisfying.
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Buying a Garmin watch has been life-changing, just like buying my first smart trainer was, though not quite to the same extent.
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Here is my update after ~100 days - not perfect abstinence, since I did some exceptions, but overall close to 0.
I started my preparation for IM NZ 2023 on 2022/08/09. Stopped drinking alcohol on 2022/11/06.
So basically 3 months of preparation with alcohol and 3 without.
Recovery - During the first 3 months, I was regularly tired, not feeling the punch. During the 3 months with 0 alcohol, I felt like I could train twice as much if I had more free time.
FTP - during the first 3 months, it moved from 300 to 306. For context, I was already at 300 3 years ago. I feel like I underperformed on the test a bit though. During the following 3 months (without alcohol) - I hit 334 (AI FTP detection) at the end.
Weight - 82kg at the beginning, 81.5kg after 3 months, 75.5kg now.
Anyway, everybody is different and the effects are certainly different (obviously depending on the level of consumption). But at least for me, the difference is massive.
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Nice job @PawelKozela!
Today is day 51 for me and I’m curious why I feel so tired all the time. Not a drop and no issues quitting. I’m sleeping at least 2 hours more each night (from 6 hours to 8 hours); same training/racing as the previous decades; same work schedule…I don’t get it. I thought I would have the energy of a six year old but, I feel pretty damn sluggish especially just after I wake. Coffee and tea are a must.
The only thing I can think of is calorie deficit. I’ve lost 10 pounds in the last 8 weeks and am visible leaner. While doing yard work when going from bending over/squatting to standing I get that low blood pressure/low blood sugar pre fainting (vision narrows, light headed for a moment) feeling. I’ve been here before. Just writing this as I don’t believe there is another medical issue going on. Also, the sluggishness has been coincidental with stopping alcohol…
Anywho, the good is I am leaner; on the bike performance is better. No absolute numbers but, out of ten races I’ve podiumed six and won three with a really killer GC win in a three day stage race I stole from a really accomplished bike racer named Norm Alvis. Really trying not to be pretentious but, the way I won it surprised even me (long solo bridge then a 2 man break for 40 miles…). Also, climbing with guys I’ve not been able to climb with for a number of years.
All that said, I still feel sluggish. TBC My head is clear. Just not super full of energy I thought I would have. Anyone?
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You changed two variables and are trying to determine which is causing your low energy levels
To clearly lay this out - you stopped drinking and you started running a significant calorie deficit. Losing over 1 lb/week is a huge energy gap.
If you want to figure out the impact of removing alcohol from your diet on your energy levels you should try to change only one thing at a time (removal of alcohol). Go to a calorie neutral diet for a few weeks (maintain the same weight) and see what your energy levels are like after that
That said - kudos on the major life changes!
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Agree. My wife and I just figured between wine and chips in the evening I was consuming an extra 1500-2000 calories each day. When the wine stopped so did eating chips (I love salty snacks). While I’m not going to go back and eat a bag of chips there are approximately 1200-1500 calories/day worth of snacks that have disappeared. Maybe I’ll eat part of that back with veggies/healthy options throughout the day.
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I’ve noticed something similar with both dramatically reducing alcohol intake (to 3-4 a month) and cutting out a lot of unhealthy snacks (chips for me, as well!). The thing I found that really helped me was to eat a ton more protein.
I’ve always been a great lover of carbs, and I think I got enough incidental protein in my snacking that it kept me at decent levels. But cutting out my old snacking habits reduced my protein levels, too, and I was super low energy until I started really focusing on eating much more protein. I now eat a lot more fat free Greek yogurt and other protein-heavy snacks and my energy levels are much better.
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Yeah you should try to up the calorie intake a bit fi you are running that high a deficit, to check if the energy levels are getting better. I would try to eat as much of it with healthy stuff as possible, Nuts are pretty effective if you need to up Calories and don’t want to eat a lot of volume. I fell of the wagon with eating a bit ovfer the last 2-3 Monsths and when I ate a lot of junk food it made me feel pretty bad on the next day… Last year I lost a lot of weight and during the time i ran hefty deficit energy was low and i also got those low blood pressure / low blood sugar symptoms when getting up quickly.
I’m now nearly a year without alcohol and overall it does me really well not only physically but also for my mental health.
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@FergusYL had not thought of extra protein. Funny as I’m sitting down with some greek yogurt and a dash of honey now…
@Morzak yes the mental confidence side of this has been a thing for sure. Not that I was lacking before…just different. Maybe it’s more a sense of accomplishment I’m feeling.
Same for me !
I was more 500-1000 calories of snacks, but still very significant intake. And those snacks are not as tempting without the beer or wine going with it.
You definitely need to replace that with something, preferably healthy.
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I’ve struggled a bit with this too because of not drinking alcohol and deciding not to eat sugar or any processed foods over the past two months. I’ve lost about 5 or 6 pounds of actual fat (obviously estimated), and am trying to find the best balance of eating enough and the right macros. It’s actually quite difficult to eat enough while training when not eating silly calories. I’ve had bouts of low energy and some bad workouts because of it - but slowing getting less of these bouts by eating more protein and fueling the workouts much more than I used to.
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Don’t want to veer too off topic, but seeing some people mentioning weight loss. In a similar vein to this thread - except I’ve been sort of trying to do the opposite - maintain weight.
I think in cutting out alcohol, snacks, etc. it might be worth using an app to track food to make sure you’re eating enough. I recently started using one again. The first time I used it was to try and lose weight. But as I have been averaging 11-13,000 kj a week and no longer drinking or snacking nearly as much, I started to worry I’m running too extreme of a deficit.
It might be worth it as an experiment for a week or two to track if you don’t? I discovered I was often undereating, and I have found the process fun (and hard) to try and hit my daily goal. The alcohol wasn’t beneficial, but maybe those calories were.
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