How Alcohol Impacts Your Mood, Mental Health and Weight Loss Goals

So now when alcohol's gone, your nervous system almost like comes back harder. And that's why a lot of people struggle with, like, anxiety the day after they drink or irritability or they sleep like shit, because alcohol disrupts this whole system. Hey there and welcome to let's Talk about it with Laurie Streeter. A space to talk honestly and get real about mental health, therapy and all things wellness. I'm Lori, licensed therapist, speaker and your host, here to bring you insights, tools and information you can actually use, whether you're navigating anxiety, healing your relationship with food, or trying to figure out which techniques will work for your life. I'm so glad you're here. Let's dive in and let's talk about it. Hello. Hello and welcome back to another episode of let's Talk About It. I am Laurie Streeter, and today we're going to talk about the not so awesome topic of alcohol. This is actually something that comes up quite a bit in sessions. Sometimes I don't work with alcoholism and addiction and substance use and abuse and dependence, but sometimes it is an issue for my clients or they want to know more about, like, how their social drinking is impacting them, right? How it's impacting their depression or anxiety or their weight loss goals. Because I do work a lot with people who have had bariatric surgery. So alcohol is really something in our lives that it's legal. Right. I'm never gonna demonize something, but this is something that really can have a significant impact on your progress, your mood, your mental health, things like that. So a lot of people think that, like, alcohol is this way to take the edge off, or I, you know, have a glass of wine to wind down every night. And a lot of times that can, like I said, it can make things worse. It can impact the nervous system, it can impact your mood, it impacts your metabolism. So this is, isn't about shaming you for your habits again. I will never demonize something everybody's adults like, you gotta do what's gonna work for you. It's just about understanding what's happening in your body and in your mind and you making a decision that's like, oh, if I did this instead of that, maybe I would feel better or if I, you know, drank less or I chose this instead of that. I wonder if I would reach my goals sooner or whatever. I just, I think information is power and I really don't think a lot of people talk about the impact of alcohol and mental health, so gonna do that when we talk about alcohol, when it comes to, like, your nervous system. It is a depressant. We know this, right? A lot of people know that alcohol is a depressant, but what does it actually do? So it slows down brain activity, and it temporarily boosts gaba. So gaba. When I've explained GABA before in the episode about perimenopause, gab, GABA is like a parent to an unruly toddler. Like, it's a calming agent. We like it. It's actually really, really important. But alcohol slows brain activity and temporarily boosts gaba, so it promotes that feeling of relaxation, right? So like I was saying, you know, oh, I have a glass of wine at night to wind down, or people, you know, want to have a few drinks to relax. It's not good or bad, but that's something that happens. It also, though, reduces glutamate, which is responsible for, like, alertness, and it disrupts your dopamine and serotonin balance. So if you're more relaxed and alcohol is reducing glutamate, which is responsible for alertness. Now, this is why, like, I don't pay attention as much, or something's gonna happen and I'm gonna react slower. When it comes to the dopamine and the serotonin, it can disrupt that balance. So it really has an impact on this whole system and can cause issues because of this stuff. So your brain, over time, if you are a regular drinker, you know, if you are like, oh, I just have a couple drinks every Saturday, or I have one drink every night. Again, if you're an adult, you have to make those decisions. But what's happening chemically and in your brain is that it needs to compensate. Your brain needs to come up with how to solve this problem when alcohol is disrupting this stuff. So now when alcohol's gone, your nervous system almost, like, comes back harder. And that's why a lot of people struggle with, like, anxiety the day after they drink or irritability or they sleep like shit, because alcohol disrupts this whole system. So I actually have a lot of clients who, if they go out drinking the next day, they have a lot of anxiety. And a lot of times they don't make the connection. And now, over the years, it's just something I pay attention to. So I can't tell you how many clients I've had that are talking about, like, gosh, I feel so anxious on Sundays. And as we get to talking, they don't realize that if they have more and everybody's different, but if they have More than like a couple drinks on a Saturday, their tendency to be more anxious on a Sunday significantly increases. Because now again, all that whole system is just disrupted in haywire. So, you know, because it's a depressant, we often don't make the connection between alcohol and anxiety, but that absolutely can happen. So if you're someone who feels anxious on Sundays and, and you have a few drinks on Saturdays, maybe like put it into practice and say, okay, I'm not going to drink for the next couple weeks and see how you feel on a Sunday, see if it benefits you at all. Because, you know, if that nervous system is rebounding even more and trying to compensate, it's, you know, again, your whole system is kind of just like haywire and disrupted and all that stuff. So I think that's, that's a super important piece of it. The other connection between like alcohol and mental health is I've had a stressful week, I have a drink to relax, so I alleviate my anxiety or my stress in the moment, my nervous system overcorrects. And now in the long run, I've not actually addressed my stress. I've not actually quote, unquote, fixed the problem, right? I'm negatively reinforcing the anxiety because the anxiety is just going to come back. And so short term relief, immediate gratification. And we do this with a lot of things, right? Tv, escapism, food, alcohol. We feel anxious or stressed or whatever's going on in our lives, we want that immediate gratification. We want to alleviate anxiety or whatever it is in the moment. So we engage in that thing. And then when that thing is over or when we sober up, those feelings just come back. And so also now we might have like poor sleep quality and more, more anxiety because again, of the things I just said. So we use substances like alcohol to numb or avoid feelings, discomfort, right? Stress, anxiety, the things that stress us out throughout the week. But then we're not actually processing things, we're not actually learning how to cope or deal with things because we're just numbing it in the moment. And then obviously, you know, the alcohol use can turn into like dependence and abuse and alcoholism and stuff like that because the less tolerance you have for discomfort, the more you want to drink. And then that cycle just continues faster and faster and faster. So if you're someone who uses things to avoid or you're noticing like short term gratification, like that immediate alleviation that you're desiring, but the problem is not actually, quote, unquote fixed, you Might want to look at that loop and be like, well, what other things could I do? Like, how else could I manage this thing that's causing me to want to drink or to numb out? And I mentioned before with alcohol and weight loss, because, again, I work a lot with people who struggle with obesity, binge eating. They're going to have or they've had bariatric surgery. Alcohol is recognized in the body as a poison. Okay, again, I will not demonize alcohol, but the body recognizes it as toxic as a poison. So when you drink, whether you've. Whether you struggle with obesity or not, whether you've had bariatric surgery or not, your liver, your system is like, we have to get this toxic substance out, right? And so I'm going to generalize this explanation to make a point here. But basically, your body's like everything else. We have to get this alcohol metabolized and out of our system so it stops doing everything else, which it doesn't actually stop, but it focuses on the alcohol. So it's going to slow down the metabolism of food and the, you know, processing of carbs and fats and stuff like that. It's going to slow the fat burning that you're trying to do with, like, if you're trying to lose weight and stuff like that. And then studies have shown, and this depends on, like, what you're drinking, how much you're drinking, your body, like, makeup, all. You know, there's all kinds of nuances. But studies have shown that it can take, like, up to 72 hours for your, like, systems to return to, quote, unquote, normal. So if you have a drink on a Thursday night, your system probably hasn't returned to normal. Even though, like, you sober up and you feel okay. You have a drink on a Friday, maybe a couple drinks on Saturday, maybe you have a beer or something while you're watching football on a Sunday, and then you're like, cool, I don't drink Monday through Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, or Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. It's possible that not even until Wednesday, your system is like, cool, we're good. We can now prioritize metabolizing all the food now because the alcohol is good and the system has returned to normal. So the impact of alcohol and weight loss is incredible. And there's a lot of reasons why doctors and the bariatric surgeons will say, like, don't drink after you've had surgery. There are a lot of people who do, but a, it makes a lot of people who have had bariatric surgery feel like crap. But it really does have a significant impact on weight loss. And so I gave you kind of that overview. The more micro explanation of this is your body is going to prioritize metabolizing the alcohol over fats and carbs. It is going to focus on getting this toxic substance out of your body and not try to figure out what to do with whatever food you're eating. So it's going to slow fat burning. Okay. It's also going to increase cortisol, which we kind of talked about earlier, which is going to lead to high stress cravings. And we know that high levels of cortisol are disruptive to weight loss. Like when you have high stress, high levels of cortisol, that can also slow weight loss. So now we have that working against us. And then alcohol, again, like we said earlier, disrupts sleep, and that reduces recovery and metabolism. So this is so, so interconnected. If you are someone who struggles with your weight obesity, if you had bariatric surgery, you're going to have bariatric surgery. You really want to think about the alcohol that you're ingesting, how much you're drinking, what that could look like. And hopefully that really gives you a solid understanding of the reason it has such an impact, a negative impact on weight loss. There's a huge connection between my clients who stop drinking, and I don't recommend them to stop drinking. A lot of them do it on their own. They're like, well, I haven't drank, so I'm just gonna stop. And then they're like, I feel better. My skin looks better, I feel better in life. And weight loss also is positively impacted when they're not drinking. So again, you have to make that decision for you. But there are very, very solid reasons why people drink less or stop drinking or are very careful when they drink, because it just has such a impact on weight loss. If that's something that you are struggling with, One last thing to think about is, you know, we have relationships with people, and if you're struggling with alcohol, think about your relationship with it. This is how I kind of describe it to my clients. Alcohol's not a problem, just like food's not a problem. The problem comes in if you're struggling with your relationship with that thing. So sugar is not a problem for someone who has, like, a salty tooth. Right. Instead of a sweet tooth. Alcohol is not a problem for someone who's not an alcoholic. Right. Or who doesn't care about drinking. I can't tell you the last time I had a drink. I don't say that for any other reason other than like, it's really just not a huge part of my life. And someone who goes out socially, their relationship with alcohol is going to be different. Someone who's an alcoholic, their relationship with alcohol is going to be different than mine and the person who just drinks socially. So it's not about good, bad, right or wrong. It's about you thinking about, what does my relationship with alcohol look like? Is it non existent? Great. Conversation stops there. Is it something you want to work on? On? Okay, then that's maybe something to like, put a little attention to. What do I use it for relaxation? Do I use it to connect with other people? Do I use it to escape? Do I use it to loosen up and, you know, be social? Things like that. So there's, there's nothing inherently wrong with it. You just have to decide if it is any kind of issue for you. If you're anxious on Sundays because you go out on Saturdays, if it's impairing your ability to lose weight or slowing down progress or really impacting your mental health, whatever it might be. I just want you to kind of keep in mind how much it does dysregulate your nervous system. It can impact mental health. It can slow your goals, like weight loss. It's all about, is this thing creating any kind of issue for me? And if it is, let me be honest about that. And do I want to make a change? Am I willing to make a change? Am I willing to try something different with this thing, alcohol, in this scenario, that could possibly help me feel better, that could improve my mental health, that could help me with my weight loss goals, whatever it might be. So I invite you to reflect on your own experience. You are more than welcome to send me a message on Instagram, Tag me on Instagram if this is something you've thought about. I love to hear people's experiences. I just know that alcohol can have such an impact on our lives and it's such a social thing that we don't even even realize the impact it can have. But hopefully that really kind of gave you like the big overview of the different ways it can impact mental health and physical goals and your nervous system and all that stuff. So I do invite you to think about if this has any impact on you whatsoever and how it plays a role in your life and reflect on it and see if you want to make a change if that's the case. And I hope that that helps. And I will talk to you next time. Take care. Thanks for hanging out with me today on let's Talk about it with Laurie Streeter. If this episode resonated with you, it would mean so much if you'd leave a five star review, share it with a friend, or come say hi on Instagram. Lori Streeter, your support will help this podcast grow and I so appreciate you being here today. I want to help people just like you feel like they're not alone and gain the tools they need to grow. Until next time, take care.