Dry January Recap

This is my first year trying out Dry January and I am going to do my recap! I also thought it would be beneficial to talk about why I decided to do Dry January and how alcohol can affect hormones. I initially wasn’t going to officially say I was participating in Dry January because I was just trying it out. I didn’t know if I was actually going to go through with it. Then a couple of weeks into it I decided to stick with it for the health of my hormones. I’m proud of myself for doing it for the whole month! I personally love that Dry January is a thing and I’m not sure why I’ve never done it before. I think it’s a great way to end the holiday season of lots of eating and drinking and start the new year by giving your liver a detox.

Why I Decided to do Dry January:

Let’s face it, we all KNOW alcohol is not good for you, but we all seem to indulge it it anyways. I think a lot of us may have been personally victimized by Andrew Huberman’s podcast on alcohol 😂. I drank so much when I was younger in college and probably didn’t have the best relationship with alcohol. It was what everyone was doing, and I was surrounded by it. I think most people reading this can agree they’ve had their “teenage dirtbag” years of way too much alcohol. I absolutely don’t judge myself or anyone for that. I’ve been able to learn a lot from it.

I personally decided to ditch alcohol for the month because I’ve really been into hormone health recently and alcohol interferes with that. Hormone health includes balancing blood sugars & adrenals, and detoxing the liver. I felt like I needed to give my liver a break and let it flush out all of the toxins it needed to flush out. I wanted to take this month to focus on detoxing my liver so it can process my hormones and move them through my body efficiently.

 Although I can drink alcohol with Type 1 Diabetes, I’ve definitely become a lot more mindful of how much and how often I drink because it affects my blood sugar management. Lowering my A1C is top of mind for me this year because I know just how important it is for overall health and hormone health. Most of the time when I’m drinking I’m not making the healthiest food choices, and then this drags into the next day. This can lead to the blood sugar rollercoaster and sometimes it’s just not worth it. Alcohol also affects your adrenals because it is a depressant and drains your adrenals. Adrenal health is important for healthy hormones and I wanted to use this month of no alcohol to give my adrenals a break. 

Now we know the liver is the main star of the show here. When we drink, the liver has to use the body’s own store of vitamins and minerals. This leaves our body deficient. Most of us are probably deficient in important vitamins and minerals because our food and soil sources are depleted of them. I know I am already deficient in a few vitamins and minerals. Estrogen levels are also raised when drinking alcohol. Estrogen dominance is the cause of a lot of PMS issues that I deal with, so it’s important for me to flush out any excess estrogen. This is done by the liver, so I need it to be healthy to be able to flush out excess hormones and toxins.

My Final Thoughts:

I found it easier to say to no alcohol this month because Dry January is a thing. People immediately understood rather than asking questions. It also helped that other people were also participating it in (or damp January). Alcohol and drinking are very social things to do. When you tell someone you’re not drinking they’re usually asking you why. For some people it can be very uncomfortable to say no. I also think ditching alcohol for a month can be a great way to assess your relationship with alcohol.

After doing a month of no alcohol, I realized what a great relationship I have with alcohol. I had a lot of typical drinking events this month from birthday and engagement parties, dinners, going out with friends while they were drinking, and still had such a fun time. It’s easier to participate in Dry January when you know you don’t have much going on for the month and plan on hibernating. I’m so proud of myself for sticking with it even when I really wanted a glass of prosecco at dinner. I knew I needed to give my liver a break for my own benefit.

Overall I do not think I am going to give up alcohol forever. I love having wine or prosecco, or a spicy skinny marg with my favorite Mexican food. I actually am very much looking forward to the drink I will have this weekend 😅. I love going out with my friends and having a good time. When I want to drink, I drink. When I don’t want to drink, I don’t feel weird or uncomfortable not drinking.

I have learned that I absolutely hate waking up hungover. I think a lot of you can totally relate on this one. It’s just not fun at all. To me, the hangover is not worth the extra drinks. I’ve learned that I love waking up on the weekends feeling so refreshed. I love my morning routine of meditating and journaling, and not feeling like complete crap for the whole day. After learning more about my hormone health, I realized the liver does A LOT for us, and it’s important to take care of it, especially if we’re dealing with health conditions.

I hope you all loved my Dry January recap and my personal experience with it. I hope you all were able to understand a little bit more about hormonal health and how alcohol can affect hormones.

Sending so much love & light!!!! ❤️

xoxo

Gab