10 Reasons For Not Drinking Alcohol

This post may contain affiliate links which means that we get a commission if you choose to make a purchase through the link. This is at no cost to you. Please read our disclosure page for more information.

If you drink regularly you know that drinking alcohol doesn’t always make you feel better in fact generally it makes you feel worse. Yes, it can feel fun at the time you are drinking but the next day the effects tend to catch up with you. So here are 10 reasons for not drinking alcohol that can help you to either decide to quit drinking altogether or at least help you make more intelligent choices and limit the occasions where you choose to drink.

Not Drinking Alcohol Benefits

There are huge benefits when you choose to stop drinking. Our reasons for not drinking alcohol break them down for you so you can see how those glasses of wine or beer soon cause both mental and physical problems that can range from the moderate to the severe.

When you stop drinking or at the very least limit your intake to safe guidelines you are likely to have more energy, feel mentally more uplifted and will be healthier.

We know from working with our clients that alcohol has become a crutch that is used by people to help them switch off from everyday life and stresses. When they are in the alcohol bubble the kids playing up or the bad day at work tends to fade away a little. Yet alcohol doesn’t miraculously make your problems go away. When you wake up the next morning they usually feel worse.

Finding better things to do to manage your real problems is key. When you deal with the underlying problems in a more productive way the alcohol is no longer needed.

Drink Less Download

Living Without Alcohol Benefits

Alcohol-free living doesn’t have to be difficult when you understand all the problems it can cause especially if you are drinking heavily. When you focus on the downsides the reasons for not drinking alcohol soon begin to accumulate.

Here are our top ten reasons to give up the booze or at least severely limit it in the future.

Alcohol and Mood

When you drink it can have a direct impact on your moods. Some of the issues with your moods happen straight away whilst others impact you after a drinking session. The psychological impact of drinking should never be understated and can impact your work, relationships as well as your mental health.

If you are a person who gets emotional whilst you are drinking then you know that an evening that starts off ok can end up with you in tears. Alcohol can make you feel more emotional, stop you thinking rationally and leap to assumptions or take actions that you wouldn’t do when you are sober.

Then the following day you may experience a hangover, feel depressed, anxious and generally unwell from the sheer amount you have drunk. If you do this regularly the impact on your mental health increases and may cause more severe problems.

Choosing to stop drinking therefore can have a profound impact on your happiness.

Drinking and Your Weight

Alcohol has calories and not just a few either. So when our clients talk about drinking a bottle of wine a night we immediately think of the health impact of what they are doing. Those negative calories soon add up and the pounds soon begin to pile on.

The ridiculous thing is that a good proportion of our clients are also on a diet. They seem mystified that the weight is not falling off them until we remind them they have just drunk thousands of calories that month. Remember if you are drinking a bottle of wine a night you will be consuming an extra 18,000 calories a month!

Yes, some drinks have lower amounts of calories but they still don’t help with your weight loss endeavours. Stopping drinking can have a huge impact on your weight. Read the lowdown about alcohol and weight loss in our blog on the subject.

Alcohol and Your Health

One of the major reasons for not drinking alcohol is because of the impact that it can have on your physical health. Yes, most people are aware that hangovers and tiredness can take a toll on the body but what about more severe problems that tend to happen over time?

If you drink regularly then you risk of getting cancer begins to increase. You are also more likely to experience a stroke, have problems with your liver or damage your nervous system. According to the NHS website you are also much more likely to self-harm or commit suicide. Hardly a great advert for drinking.

Stopping drinking too much is vital for your health and wellness. Remember just because you don’t feel the effects right away doesn’t mean that the damage isn’t being stored up for the future.

Alcohol and Hangovers

Clearly more severe health problems are the most important reasons for not drinking alcohol but let’s not forget that a hangover whilst not life-threatening can still be majorly disruptive and problematic.

When you wake up with a hangover your head is pounding because you have a headache. You are usually dehydrated from the alcohol plus you are usually tired because of poor sleep. All of these factors combined make you feel lethargic, irritable and generally fit to do very little.

So if you wanted a productive day following a night of drinking forget it. If your boss is looking for a person to perform at work that is unlikely as well. Plus your family or friends are going to get the worst of you as you struggle throughout the day.

Stopping drinking or limiting your alcohol intake can make a huge difference to what you are able to achieve in your life.

How Alcohol Saps your Time

You might not realise it but every evening you spend sitting on the sofa drinking is a wasted opportunity. There are so many things that you could be doing with your life but when you are drinking they all pass you by as you literally spend hours with a glass in your hand doing nothing.

A great reason for not drinking alcohol is that you get to make up for lost opportunities. What could you really achieve if you put your mind to it and tried to do something in your spare time rather than looking down the bottom of a glass?

Giving up drinking can free up so much time that you never even knew that you had. Resolve to start making some changes in your life and do that course you’ve always wanted to do or take the opportunity to start a new venture. The possibilities are endless when you have significantly more energy to focus your skills and experience into something new.

Alcohol and Anxiety

Have you ever heard the term “hangxiety”? It is the phrase that is given to people who experience anxiety following a day of drinking.

We have already touched on how alcohol impacts your emotions but in particular, it can have a profound impact on increasing anxiety levels.

Many people use alcohol as a way of managing anxiety or stress. The problem is that whilst they might forget about these feelings in the short term they come back bigger and stronger in the longer term. In fact your anxiety is likely to get worse if you continue to use alcohol as a way of managing your feelings.

Even if you didn’t initially have anxiety when you started to drink the alcohol can also create those feelings. This is because the chemicals in your brain are altered following a drinking session. Add to that the tiredness and feeling dreadful and the combination of issues starts to cause anxiety.

If you suffer from anxiety then a great reason for not drinking alcohol is that those feelings are likely to vanish or at least be significantly lower.

Learn to lower your anxiety and change your mindset around alcohol with our drink less mp3 download.

Drink Less Download

Drinking and Your Money

On working with a recent client we started discussing how they felt that were barely surviving and they didn’t know where all their money had gone at the end of each month. This client worked in a good job but somehow they seemed to always be short of money.

It didn’t take long for us to get to the bottom of their problem. They were spending somewhere between $15 and $25 dollars a day on alcohol. Generally, they would have a drink or two in a bar every day during their lunch hour as well as an expensive lunch plus they would get a bottle of wine to take home in the evening. Their expenditure soon added up to around $500 to $600 dollar a month.

Having a drinking habit is not cheap! Saving for something you really want is a great reason for not drinking alcohol. Our client had been struggling for no reason and actually could have been saving for something special.

Alcohol as a Diversion

The problem with people who drink regularly is that alcohol is being used as a diversionary device or a way of switching off from their real problems. They might:

Have an unhappy marriage.

Be stressed at work.
Have an illness.
Be worried about a family member.

Have a child with behavioural problems.
Feel lonely.

Rather than tackling the underlying reasons for their problem they prefer to brush it underneath the carpet and drink to forget the real upset they are feeling. However, this causes a problem as the more they ignore the problem the bigger it can get or the worse their drinking becomes as a coping mechanism.

When we work with our clients we always try and help them to find the strength to sort out what is really bugging them. No, they might not be able to resolve their marriage or job problems right away but if they start talking about what is wrong and take steps in the right direction their need to drink starts dropping off.

Learn to identify your drinking triggers with our alcohol worksheets which are designed to help you reduce your bad habits.

Get The PDF

Drinking and Your Sleep

People who are drinking regularly often use alcohol as a way of resolving their sleep problems, or so they think. They may have once suffered a period of insomnia and used alcohol as a way of switching off their mind and falling asleep. Once they learned that it worked once they decided to repeat the habit again and before they know it they are drinking every single night.

The problem is that alcohol doesn’t help you to sleep better. In fact, when you drink the quality of your sleep is nowhere near as good as it would normally be. When we are not sleeping well it can impair our physical and mental health. This is one of the main reasons for not drinking alcohol nightly.

The key to resolving this problem is teaching our clients how to relax without alcohol. When we do this our clients are able to get a good nights sleep without resorting to wine or beer. Over a short period of time, they soon find they have significantly more energy and are able to wake up feeling refreshed in the morning which impacts their productivity.

Drinking and Ageing

Finally, the last of our reasons for not drinking alcohol is what it can do to your looks. So many of our clients spend fortunes on expensive haircuts, facials or make-up but undo all that good work by drinking.

Alcohol is known to speed up the ageing process so if you want to look older than you are drinking too much is a great way of going about it. As alcohol dehydrates you expect to see more wrinkles and your skin will be dryer. Plus regular drinking causes problems with redness and puffiness and can make you look bloated at the same time.

Drink from the fountain of youth instead and resolve to drink more water. Water will hydrate you and slow down the ageing process and is a far more sensible option to protect your good looks.