"Hangovers destroyed my mental health, so I went alcohol-free"
Over the last couple of years, the conversation around going sober – or re-evaluating how much alcohol you drink – has grown and grown for the better (thank God!). There are obviously a multitude of reasons why people might choose to stop or scale back on drinking, from pregnancy to finances to wanting to lose weight, the list goes on and on. But for me, it was the soul-destroying anxiety that I would experience with every hangover that made drinking alcohol no longer seem worth it.
After being fully indoctrinated into British drinking culture as a teenager (wherein getting as trashed as you can as quickly as you can is celebrated), it took until my twenties to realise quite how badly alcohol interacted with my system – and how much it impacted on my mental health.
I realised, one horrid 'morning after the night before' that once again I'd made decisions while drunk that I never would while sober – some of which left me shaken and physically bruised when the booze wore off. The memory loss I experienced after night outs was another big factor too; trying to fill in the blanks with what I might have said or done, even if my friends insisted I was fine, only further fuelled the panicked brain-fire I experienced most Sunday mornings.
The fact that I could never quite pinpoint which drink had tipped me into memory loss territory either (was it the third tequila, or the fourth?) also became cause for concern. It was that feeling of not being in total control of myself, the cloying regret that I might have majorly overshared, or offended someone, without even being able to remember it the next day, that left me physically clawing at my skin while battling hangxiety. Sometimes I'd cry and just recite over and over that I was a "bad person", immune to any comforting words telling me otherwise.
Whilst I admittedly do have a history of diagnosed anxiety and depression, and it was abundantly clear that alcohol exacerbated those pre-existing tendencies within me – after speaking to friends about how bleak my mental health was the day after drinking alcohol, many (who otherwise don't have any mental health issues) said they could relate to my intense 'beer fear' too.
So, what actually causes that hideous feeling of toe-curling emotional nausea (that accompanies the physical symptoms of a hangover), and is there anything we can do to avoid it? Is it possible to still drink and not see your mental health nosedive as a result? I asked the experts and I've also documented my own journey of going sober for 15 months, before becoming a mindful drinker (I now like the odd glass of wine or a cocktail with dinner sometimes but that's... pretty much it these days).
What is hangxiety?
According to Nick Davies, a psychotherapist and hypnotherapist, "When we drink, our prefrontal cortex [the part of our brain responsible for executive decision-making] becomes suppressed and the child part of our character comes out to play, sadly without the guidance it needs."
In a nutshell, alcohol encourages people to engage in more childlike behaviour: "Fun, silliness, laughter, tears, anger... it really is like being a toddler," Davies explains. "The next day, our prefrontal cortex begins to assimilate the bits it can remember, and instils anxiety, often by exaggerating what actually happened so we’re less likely to inhibit that part of our brain with alcohol again."
He says it’s important to challenge the negative self-talk with positive affirmations if you can, such as, "It probably wasn’t as bad as I think" and "I can always make amends by apologising".
Sleep also comes into play when talking about hangxiety too, says Dr Ari Roxborough from Arrow Health, a rehabilitation centre for addiction. "Alcohol disrupts sleep and while someone who was drunk the night before might claim to have had enough sleep, the quality of that sleep is significantly impaired," he explains. "Alcohol is one of the strongest disruptors of REM sleep (when dreams occur) that we know of." And as we all know, fractured or improper sleep can seriously impact on mental health and increase levels of anxiety.
Add into this, says Laura Jarvis, a senior development manager at The Alcohol & Drug Service (ADS), dopamine (known as 'the happy hormone') is also at play when we drink and our mood dips the next day. "Alcohol is a psychoactive substance, so it radically changes how we think and feel," she explains. "Drinking it releases dopamine, which, in turn, can make us want to continue drinking to maintain that feeling."
However, Jarvis adds, that the dopamine high will eventually be pushed aside by alcohol’s less pleasant effects: confusion, nausea, misery and clumsiness – all of which can lead to higher levels of anxiety and depression. This, sadly, is an inescapable fact. If you’re concerned about alcohol's impact on your mental health, she advises taking a break and using that time to examine how it makes you feel and to look for patterns, or reaching out to a service like ADS or your GP. For some people, permanently going sober is the right and necessary choice.
Just pressing pause on booze for a couple of months was personally my initial plan, only the 'three-month break' went on to last for over a year – for fifteen months, in fact. Meaning, my lockdowns were very much devoid of quarantinis come Friday night and white wines during Zoom quizzes with friends. When my first novel was published during the depths of one lockdown, I celebrated with... a Diet Coke.
That's not to say though, that whenever my boyfriend sat out on our balcony with a gin and tonic, a part of me didn't want to snatch it out of his hand and down the entire thing. But then another voice chimed in saying "You know it's not worth it!" – and it kept winning out. Now, after that massively enlightening booze break, I've scaled right back on what I drink and I'm finally the one in control. Happily, I haven't had a hangover – or hangxiety – in years. (But, of course, this is just my personal journey, right now I'm comfortable having the odd glass of Bailey's at Christmastime or a a couple of cocktails over dinner and leaving it there, I fully appreciate that for others that won't work and being entirely sober is the only way to go).
How else can alcohol impact your mental health?
As well as crippling hangovers that impacted on my mental health (far beyond the initial 24 hours post-party), blackouts were another reason I stopped drinking too: I couldn't even tell you the amount of times I've woken up with memory loss. Frustratingly, it seemed to happen to me more than it would my friends, even if we were consuming equal amounts of alcohol, something I've always been curious about (and whether or not it's related to my already shaky psychological history).
"Researchers have now pinpointed the neurological structure involved in alcohol-induced blackouts; the hippocampus," says Dr Roxborough. "Alcohol disrupts the transfer of short-term memories into long-term memories within the hippocampus, which is involved in the formation of long-term memories. Scientists still don't fully understand what makes someone more vulnerable to blackouts." Darn.
As for the long-term consequences of alcohol-induced blackouts, they're difficult to study as you cannot ethically induce alcohol blackouts in participants, Dr Roxborough adds, but the research that does exist also has links to ill mental health. "Research suggests blackouts are related to higher suicidal ideation, alcohol-related injuries and mental disorders such as depression," he says. "We also know that alcohol use in general is associated with damage to the brain too, which shows up as reduced grey matter in brain scans."
Whilst my initial decision to give up the booze was only meant to be temporary, the wonders it did for my mental health made it feel like the obvious right choice for me. I always thought if I were to ever start drinking again, it would have to be done in a space where I feel completely safe (so not in a busy club) and only around people I trust – and that's where I'm at today when it comes to my drinking.
But despite feeling in control of how much I drink, I still often choose to forgo it (especially on days when I'm already not in a good head space). I'm very happy and comfortable with a non-alcoholic Prosecco in hand. After a while, you become adept at brushing off any nosy questions ("Nope, still not pregnant, just don't want to be full of self-loathing in the morning!") and owning asking for a Becks Blue when someone's doing a round and points in your direction.
If anything, I'm probably much better company now too (and I definitely have more stamina – last summer, I went to a rave and solely drank non-alcoholic beer and tinned lattes and danced until 6am... whereas usually I'd have passed out face down on a slice of pizza at 3am from too much chardonnay).
My booze-free year taught me it's never worth sacrificing your peace of mind for anything – and that includes a bottle of house red. I'm so happy I've reached a place in my life where hangxiety feels like a distant memory, and I no longer drink enough to ever experience it.
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If you're struggling with your alcohol consumption or your mental health, there are lots of places you can find extra support and information – from your GP to mental health charity Mind, or Club Soda, whose 'mindful drinking course' I found really helpful during my early days of living an alcohol-free life.
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