Encore - What Happens to Your Body When You Stop Drinking for 30 Day

0:00Dr. Mark Hyman:As we head into September, the seasons are starting to change. And for a lot of us, this time of year naturally feels like an opportunity to reset, to get back into our routines, to refocus on how we want to feel. So for this Encore episode, I'm revisiting what happens when you take a 30-day break from alcohol. I break down what it can change in your sleep, your energy, your mood, your focus, your gut, your liver, your metabolism, and lots more, and just how quickly the body can begin to respond. Now, if you've ever been curious about taking a break from alcohol or simply how it affects your body, this is a great one to revisit.

0:36Dr. Mark Hyman:Enjoy the episode. This episode was brought to you by Function. Get access to over 160 lab tests annually at functionhealth.com slash mark. Alcohol is an immune suppressor basically disguised as a social lubricant. Alcohol consumption is a third lean cause of preventable cancer in the United States after tobacco and obesity. What if just 30 days could completely change how you feel? Your sleep, your focus, your energy, even your skin. Today, I'm breaking down exactly what happens in your body when you give up alcohol for a month and why the benefits go far beyond your liver. We're going to take you through the process week by week and equip you with tools to help you get through the month alcohol-free.

1:18Yeah, it's not as hard as it sounds, don't worry. We all sort of know why we drink, right? To feel good, to feel a little happy, to feel a little loose, social lubricant, blah, blah, blah. But what exactly is the buzz we feel when we drink? Why does alcohol seem to make social situations so much easier and more relaxed? Well, let's first define what alcohol is and why it actually gives you that bugs. The active ingredient in alcohol is something called ethanol. That's the chemical name for alcohol, essentially. Now, if you want to get a little more nerdy, it's a chemical that's created during the fermentation process when yeast feeds on sugars and grains, fruit, or other plant-based materials.

1:49Like yeast is in wine, and that's why you get the grapes fermenting to turn into wine. Ethanol is what gives alcohol that relaxing bus. but it's also the reason that it can be toxic. And that is, it can kill you directly in large amounts. Paracelsus, one of the fathers of modern medicine, said, the dose makes the poison. And that is very true with alcohol. A little bit, it's not going to kill you. But if you drink a lot, it will kill you. And I've personally seen this in my medical career many, many times. Now, what is actually alcohol doing? Well, it's a central nervous system depressant. Now, despite how it feels, it doesn't actually stimulate your brain.

2:23It slows it down. But in the early stages, the buzz phase, That slowdown happens first in the inhibitory centers of the brain, the control centers that keep you reserved or cautious or anxious, right? So the ego essentially, right? When you drink, your inhibition goes down a little bit. You feel more relaxed, more social, more confident. Maybe you feel a little euphoric. That's the quote buzz. The other thing that happens in your brain is it works on different neurotransmitter systems. It works on the GABA system, which is the relaxation system. It also blocks glutamate, which is the excitatory system.

2:52So GABA is calming and inhibitory and glutamate is stimulating and excitatory. So there's different neurotransmitters that have different roles in your body. Wake up, go to sleep, wake up, go to sleep. For example, Valium is a GABA formula. It basically stimulates the GABA receptors. So it's progesterone, makes you relax and calm. Now alcohol acts like GABA turning up this inhibition and it simultaneously blocks glutamate, which is the excitatory neurotransmitter. And it turns down the stimulation. And this double effect slows brain signaling and causes you to relax, but it also does bad stuff, like impairs your judgment, it slows your reflexes, and it also can reduce anxiety, which is why people drink to self-medicate very often.

3:30Now, the buzz hits when the balance shifts, just enough to quiet the brain's noise without making you drowsy, yeah, and that's okay, but you want to just sort of be in the right sweet spot. A little too much, you're going to get into trouble, and you just want to get a little bit so you can have that little sense of buzz and pleasure if you drink, but not too much. And alcohol, by the way, when we look at the literature, I hate to say it folks, it's just not good for us. It affects our sleep adversely. It increases many cancers, increases the risk of metabolic dysfunction, gut microbiome disturbances, mitochondrial toxin.

4:02I mean, just so many reasons it's not good for you, but it feels good. So I get it. And occasionally I have a tequila. So I understand. How else does it work in the body? It affects the limbic system and the prefrontal cortex. The limbic system is your reptile brain. It's the ancient lizard brain. It's the emotional center. It becomes more active, leading to emotional openness, laughter, which is good. But the prefrontal cortex is the adult in the room. It's responsible for judgment, for planning, restraint. It goes offline early in drinking, which explains why people feel freer or act impulsively when they drink.

4:34Now, that combination is why you might feel just more talkative or affectionate during this buzz phase. That's, you know, good. It feels good, but it's not necessarily good for you. So what are the negative effects of alcohol in the body? I get what we drink, right? To relax, to connect, to take the edge off. But what actually happens inside the body when we drink alcohol? Why does that one or two glasses of wine or tequila hit us the way it does? And why do we pay for it the next day? Well, once your liver can't metabolize ethanol fast enough, then your blood alcohol concentration rises, moving from buzz to drunk, to even worse, sedated, which is blackout drunk.

5:07Now the buzz fades and often is followed by rebounding glutamate and cortisol activity, leading to anxiety and fatigue. That's called anxiety. Now, even moderate drinking can impact nearly every organ system in the body. And the reason is it builds this damage to metabolic stress, to inflammation, to impaired detoxification, to affect on hormones, the microbiome, your mitochondria. Pretty much everything is affected by it. What's the deal with brain function, neurotransmitters, and alcohol? How does it all work? I kind of mentioned a little bit, but it's a central nervous system depressant. It slows brain communication.

5:39And as I said, it increases this calming neurotransmitter called GABA. And it decreases the stimulating neurotransmitter called glutamate, which is why you feel more dull and not so alert. Now, dopamine does spike early on during the buzz phase, which is what makes us focus, pay attention. But it drops very quickly and it leaves you feeling tired or low mood. And I notice this, like when I drink, I feel good for like maybe 15 minutes. And then it's like, yeah, I don't really like it anymore. So I think if you pay attention to how your body's responding, you'll see this also. It also, my aura ring tells me this every night if I have something, it prevents you from falling into REM sleep.

6:18So you're not able to enter into that deep rest recovery period where your immune system and your glymphatic system, that's the immune system of the brain, it basically cleans out all the toxic metabolites from the day. That's when it's most active at night and when you're cleaning out all the metabolic waste from your brain so you don't end up with dementia and worse. And that's why alcohol, by the way, is very powerfully linked to dementia, not just because of certain nutritional deficiencies, but for other reasons too. And so we want to have a healthy, functioning brain at night. And when we drink, we just don't.

6:46When you chronically use alcohol, it rewires the reward pathway. So what does that mean? It means you need more and more to feel, quote, normal. And so whereas, you know, if you're a teetotaler, if you have one glass of wine, you're drunk, whereas if you're drinking a bottle of wine every night, it doesn't affect you. And I think you should pay attention to that because when you use more, even though you're not feeling it, it's having even more harm on your body. And so long-term, what do we see with long-term use of alcohol? We see memory loss, cognitive decline, anxiety, sleep disruption, as I mentioned, dementia.

7:18And basically the idea with alcohol is it sort of numbs you and then it depletes you. Your brain becomes dependent on alcohol just to feel okay. And you see this with alcoholics. They can't feel normal unless they're drinking. What about your liver? Well, the liver's got to metabolize the alcohol before anything else. It's kind of like the worst liver toxin. That's why we have something called alcoholic fatty liver disease, which is caused by alcohol. And this is a poison for the liver. And there's an enzyme in your liver called alcohol dehydrogenase, which converts ethanol, which is alcohol, into a derivative byproduct called acetyl aldehyde.

7:52Now, this acetyl aldehyde is a highly toxic compound that damages your DNA. It damages proteins, and it's really rough on your body. Then the acetyl aldehyde is then broken down by an enzyme called aldehyde dehydrogenase, don't worry about that, into something called acetate. Now, if you drink too much too fast, this acetyl aldehyde builds up and it causes hangovers, nausea, flushing, all kinds of inflammation. And when you're chronically overloaded with this, you get fatty liver and you get cirrhosis eventually. But even within a few weeks of drinking a lot, you start getting fatty liver. And then over the years, you'll get scarring and that leads to fibrosis, cirrhosis, and ultimately liver failure and death.

8:31Dr. Mark Hyman:Listen, if you want to protect your brain, start with your heart. I've been saying that for years and the science continues to prove it because every thought, memory, and moment of focus depends on healthy blood flow. And the challenge is that changes in cardiovascular health can begin years before symptoms appear, long before a heart attack, long before memory problems, long before anyone realizes something is wrong. And that's why I pay attention to markers like ApoB, lipoprotein, middle A, homocysteine, and inflammation. These markers can provide valuable insight into your long-term cardiovascular health and ultimately your brain.

9:02Dr. Mark Hyman:That's exactly why we built Function. Function gives you access to 160 plus lab tests annually that measure signals in your blood, including nutrients, liver health, inflammation, and hormones. You can also complete your health baseline with an annual MRI that helps you see organs, tissues, and other changes. Check your health at functionhealth.com slash mark. And if you're one of the first 1 ,000 people this week, use the code mark2026 for a$50 credit under$365 a year membership. And what else happens when you drink alcohol if that wasn't enough, right? It's more you get an impaired metabolism of fats and sugars and hormones.

9:36So your whole metabolic system is hijacked and it hijacks your liver's capacity for detoxification, like even estrogen clearance. For example, if you are taking estrogen, you are going to get much higher levels when you take alcohol. And even if you're not taking estrogen, when you drink alcohol, you increase your estrogen levels because your body can't detoxify it and you end up with more breast cancer. In fact, one drink a day for seven days a week for a woman is linked to a 40 % increased risk of breast cancer. That's a big deal. Women out there, you pay attention because you can get really messed up with estrogen and alcohol.

10:11Also, when your liver's not working, you're not going to be able to remove environmental toxins. You're not going to be able to burn fat. And then you're going to do all kinds of bad things like gain weight. You're going to get blood sugar swings and cortisol swings and adrenaline up and down. And that means you become more insulin resistant. And that means you become more likely to gain fat, particularly belly fat or visceral fat. Now for women, as I mentioned, you know, when you drink alcohol and it messes up your estrogen metabolism, that causes a high risk of breast cancer and uterine cancer.

10:38So really a problem. Now for men, that's the kind of opposite. It lowers testosterone, lowers sperm quality and function. And it leads to men growing, you know, beer bellies and also So gynecomastia, which is large breasts, just like women, because testosterone gets converted to estrogen. And that's why testosterone ends up lower. So that's what happens with alcohol. It's not a good deal. It also screws up thyroid signaling. And that makes you feel tired, sluggish, and the slower metabolism. Alcohol turns off your body's metabolic repair mode, and it throws your hormones out of balance. And you want to not drink for that reason too much.

11:12Occasionally drink, I probably just, to be fair, I probably drink maybe one or two drinks a month, literally. It's fine if I go out or I'm with friends or I want to just have something, a nice dinner, I'll do it. But otherwise, I just stay away because I know how it affects me. What else does it do? Well, if that ain't enough, there's more. It affects the gut. It affects your microbiome. What does it do in your gut? Your gut is a very delicate system. And there's only one cell between you and a sewer. Your entire lining of your intestinal tract is just one cell thick. And when that lining gets damaged, you get leaky gut, which means the proteins from food and food reactions happen, like food sensitivities and bacterial toxins get into your system.

11:52And by the way, your immune system, 60 % of your immune system is right underneath your gut lining. And that creates inflammation throughout your whole body. So it's another way that alcohol causes inflammation. It also messes up your bacteria. So if you have a healthy microbiome, great, but if you drink a lot, you won't. And so people who are alcoholics have really unhealthy microbiomes and they increase the growth of bad bugs in your gut. And that can also cause gut symptoms like bloating, nutrient absorption, to inflammation. A lot of nutritional deficiencies happen with alcohol. Like it just depletes all your B vitamins.

12:20You get vitamin B1 or thiamine deficiency. You can cause B12 deficiency, folate deficiency. So you see a lot of nutritional deficiencies in alcoholics. But even if you're not, it's still using up a lot of these nutrients to just get rid of it. So bottom line, this whole gut brain axis disruption, it just also causes other issues like anxiety, mood changes. So alcohol basically turns the gut from this healing system into a inflammatory trigger. Really bad news. Next one is the cardiovascular and immune system. What does alcohol do if consumed regularly on a long-term basis? It raises your blood pressure and it raises your triglycerides and it increases your risk of heart attacks.

12:53And ultimately, there's something called alcoholic cardiomyopathy. But what it means is you get heart failure from drinking alcohol. It's a well-known condition. I've seen it many times in practice. It also suppresses immune function. So even one night of heavy drinking reduces your immune cell activity for up to a whole day. So alcohol is an immune suppressor. basically disguised as a social lubricant. And what about cancer? I mentioned that, but alcohol consumption is a third lean cause, third lean cause of preventable cancer in the United States after tobacco and obesity. Well, actually obesity is the first.

13:26Only 45 % of Americans are aware of the link between alcohol and cancer. So most people don't even know about it. And the risk of cancer goes up for a lot of reasons, right? DNA damage from the acetyl aldide production, increased free radicals and oxidative stress, changes in hormones like estrogen I mentioned, increasing the absorption of carcinogens like cigarettes. So when your body's processing alcohol, it creates a toxin that damages your DNA. It makes it easier for cancer to get going. You don't want that. So that's another reason to not drink so much. Okay, what about hangovers? Hangovers your body's emergency cleanup after a chemical storm.

13:58And what's going on here? Well, acetylaldehyde toxicity is the reason. Now, this is the byproduct of ethanol, as I mentioned before. The liver can't keep up metabolizing it, so it basically builds up and the toxic byproducts build up and that causes it. Also dehydration. It's a dehydrating compound. Alcohol blocks this hormone in your brain called ADH or antidiuretic hormone. Why is that a problem? Well, when you are not preventing yourself from peeing, you're going to pee more and you're going to lose more water, it becomes more electrolytes and become more dehydrated. So alcohol basically makes you pee more and lose water and electrolytes.

14:28Also, you get blood sugar fluctuations. After this insulin surge, your glucose crashes and you can get shaky and fatigued. You know, a lot more systemic inflammation. Alcohol irritates the gut and the liver, releases something called cytokines. Now, these are the body's chemicals that are used for infection. That's why, you know, basically when you have the hangover, you feel like you have the flu, you have that cytokine storm during COVID. When you have the flu, you feel achy. That's because of these immune messenger molecules we call cytokines. So sleep disruption is another big problem with alcohol.

14:57Alcohol blocks REM sleep, which is your dream sleep. And then it causes this rebound overactivity when you stop it. So when you get this rebound chemistry, as alcohol fades, the stress chemicals spike, you get anxiety, restlessness, anxiety, and that is a huge problem. So bottom line, alcohol taxes every major system in your body, especially your liver, your brain, your gut, your hormones. Now, hangovers are the body's emergency cleanup after a neurochemical and metabolic storm. But the good news is after 24 to 72 hours of abstaining, your body starts to repair itself. So what happens when you stop drinking?

15:31Well, I want you to understand what happens week by week when you stop drinking. Week one is when your body starts to detoxify and you start to have a reset. Your sleep initially may be a little disrupted at first. Your blood sugar and your cortisol stress hormones start to recalibrate. Your liver starts processing this whole backlog of toxins. You stop being dehydrated. You have more energy, fewer headaches. So that's week one. Week two, your gut and your brain start to rebalance. Your serotonin and dopamine start to stabilize. The gut inflammation drops. Microbiome starts healing. Leaky gut starts healing.

16:02Hopefully, if you're not drinking, you're craving for sugar and alcohol. Obviously, you go down. You get more mental clarity, less brain fog. Week three, inflammation drops. You get liver fat going down and systemic inflammation going down a lot. Blood pressure tends to get more normal. Your skin looks clear. A lot of alcohol causes puffiness. You've seen those red, puffy faces. That's alcohol. It causes inflammation. You see it in people's faces. It causes rosacea, skin issues. You also get more stable mood, less anxiety swings. And then finally, week four, you get a lot of additional metabolic and immune benefits, more insulin sensitivity.

16:33So your body's able to lose weight, your stronger immune response, you're not getting sick as much, you have better deep sleep, balanced hormones, especially cortisol and testosterone. And you see a big change in energy, confidence, and focus. So one of the takeaways, one of the benefits, here's a quick recap of the key benefits we just covered with the body. Improve liver detoxification and function, lower inflammation and blood pressure, better metabolism and digestion. With your brain, you get better mood, better focus, better sleep quality, less anxiety and depression. And long-term, you're going to have a recalibrated relationship with alcohol, which is great.

17:08So you don't have to be stuck with it. You can make a choice. So the question is, how do you make more mindful choices? How do you set yourself up for success when cutting out alcohol? Well, there's some real challenges, both physical and the mental. Well, social pressure, obviously. Just have one drink. Come on, what's the big deal? I call those navigate those challenges? Well, social pressure, maybe just say, hey, I'm taking a reset this month. Just kind of normalize the choice. For cravings, you can modify that by eating protein, hydration, and certain adaptogens and herbs, and even nutrients like theanine, which is a relaxing molecule from green tea, or magnesium glycinate, which also helps you detoxify.

17:48Sleep disruption can initially be a problem, but it'll improve with things like magnesium, epsom salt baths, or meditation. Mindset, focus on curiosity, not deprivation. So it's not all or nothing, right? Just kind of learn what's going on in your body. Listen to how you feel. Pay attention to the change in your life when you stop drinking. Really important. So your body has an incredible ability to heal. And often it just needs you to take your foot off the gas and give yourself a break from the things that are making it not feel well. Try it for 30 days. You're going to be amazed at how different you feel.

18:18Dr. Mark Hyman:If you love this podcast, please share it with someone else you think would also enjoy it. You can find me on all social media channels at Dr. Mark Hyman. Please reach out. I'd love to hear your comments and questions. Don't forget to rate, review, and subscribe to The Dr. Hyman Show wherever you get your podcasts. And don't forget to check out my YouTube channel at Dr. Mark Hyman for video versions of this podcast and more. Thank you so much again for tuning in. We'll see you next time on The Dr. Hyman Show. This podcast is separate from my clinical practice at the Ultra Wellness Center, my work at Cleveland Clinic, and Function Health, where I am chief medical officer.

18:49Dr. Mark Hyman:This podcast represents my opinions and my guests' opinions. Neither myself nor the podcast endorses the views or statements of my guests. This podcast is for educational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional care by a doctor or other qualified medical professional. This podcast is provided with the understanding that it does not constitute medical or other professional advice or services. If you're looking for help in your journey, please seek out a qualified medical practitioner. And if you're looking for a functional medicine practitioner, visit my clinic, the Ultra Wellness Center at ultrawellnesscenter.com and request to become a patient.

19:22Dr. Mark Hyman:It's important to have someone in your corner who is a trained, licensed healthcare practitioner and can help you make changes, especially when it comes to your health. This podcast is free as part of my mission to bring practical ways of improving health to the public. So I'd like to express gratitude to sponsors that made today's podcast possible. Thanks so much again for listening.