Expect THIS When Quitting Alcohol for 28 Days

What does that timeline look like and what's going to happen during the various phases of becoming a non-drinker ? Whether you decide to drink on day 28 or not and you decide to continue , what is going to happen ? Well , we're going to unpack that in this video today , and very quickly . I just want to quickly get this out of the way now .

But if you have any concern about the withdrawal or any bad health things or any severe health consequences that could happen as a result of not drinking , then please seek a medical professional's help . This video is not made as a substitute for working with a health professional if you're worried about things like DTs .

That being said , for the majority of the population , stopping drinking isn't harmful in any way . It's drinking that's harmful . But I wanted to get that out of the way because I don't want anybody to have bad expectations and I don't want this video to harm anybody . I want it to give you massive amounts of value , so you know exactly what to expect .

So day zero this is where you take your final drink . This is where you say from tomorrow onwards , I'm not drinking . Whether you decide to commit to 28 days or longer , it doesn't really matter . But what you do at this point is very important . What you do before actually saying I've had enough , makes a difference .

Now , for some people , they do wake up one morning and just say , all right , I'm not drinking anymore , and I've tried that countless numbers of times , but it never really worked for me . Just waking up with a hangover , waking up feeling a bit crummy and then just saying , right , I'm not going to drink .

I might last three or four days , which is why day zero is really important . So , on day one , what can you expect ? Well , again , it depends on the individual . It depends on how much that person's drank . So , for me , I stopped drinking just under six years ago and I can remember my day one .

I was so ready to not drink , I was so sick of drinking and I was so ready to put it behind of me that I don't even remember any withdrawal . I remember a surge of energy and actually feeling pretty good . Now , I'm sure I didn't feel 100% .

I'm sure I felt a bit cloudy and all of that stuff , but because I was so sick of drinking I could just power through it , I didn't care . However , that's not going to be everybody's experience . It all depends on what you did prior to day one . But for some people they're going to feel a bit of a flu-like symptom .

They'll feel a bit of cold , they will feel some level of withdrawal and the sleep on the first night can be terrible . Also , what you can expect on the first day is heightened anxiety . You can feel a very anxious feeling and for a lot of people that first day especially if they drank heavily the night before can be pretty rough to get through .

I'm not going to sugarcoat it Now . Day two and three you can expect more of the same . Some people their withdrawal will peak around 24 hours after their final drink . For some people it might take three days . But you can expect more of the same . You can expect bad sleep .

You can expect just feeling down , feeling low , feeling lethargic , and my best advice for you during the first three days is to be kind to yourself If it means taking the whole weekend off doing any work just to get through those first three days , that's totally fine . If it means you're getting shook , quite often people will feel a lot of sugar cravings .

And if it means getting a bowl of ice cream and a bag of Haribo , so what ? Be kind to yourself , because you're not putting a poison in your body . I'm not saying that you should start binging on junk food or anything like that . I'm saying be kind to yourself , go easy on yourself , don't put pressure on yourself .

What you don't want to do is plan out I don't know some hardcore work activities for the next three days and then start kicking yourself because you don't feel 100% . Expect to not feel 100% and then you don't feel defeated when you're not feeling your best self . Now , around the day three to five mark , a lot of people will start making a good recovery .

They will start to feel normal . However , again , those sugar cravings could be very high . At this point you might feel the urge to just snack on bad food and you still might have a lot of trouble sleeping At the end of the day . Alcohol reduces sleep onset latency . It makes you fall asleep faster . Sure , the quality of your sleep will be poorer .

But when you first stop drinking , during that first week , that first five days , it can be really difficult to fall asleep . So , whilst you might be having good quality sleep , you still might feel exhausted because you might only be getting two , three , four , five hours of sleep .

Now , when it's coming up to the end of the first week , this is when a lot of people really start to feel better . They start to have this big turn Around , the week mark . That's when some people start saying that I'm having the best sleep I've ever had . I've not felt like this in years . Their energy starts perking back up .

They start waking up and getting out of bed and not dragging themselves out of bed . This is when skin can start to look a little bit more vibrant and healthy and a lot of people they can start to feel a shift in their personality . I know that sounds a little bit strange , but I've seen it .

I've literally had people that want to join the Sober Clear program . I run a coaching company called SoberClearcom . We work with business owners and professionals . We help them stop drinking and I've literally had it where I've spoken to people that are on day zero . They're on the phone . They're like Leon'm so ready to do this . And I've spoken to them .

A week later and I am not joking , it is like two different people . They went from feeling defeated , they went from feeling hopeless , like they just couldn't do anything , and feeling low self-esteem , low self-confidence . And then a week later I'm calling and I'm like who are you ? You're like a different person and they're like , well I ? It's been a week .

So I've seen it a lot of times that around the week mark , people just start shifting . They start feeling like , okay , I'm getting somewhere . Because you know as well that the first week is often the hardest , right ? Because that is when you do feel some physical withdrawal . You won't feel yourself .

But after a week , once that has disappeared , you're starting to feel like yourself . So now let's get into

week two . What happens in the second week ? Well , you can still have bad sleep . That can happen . But usually the sleep will start to feel better . But what you can find now is energy fluctuations . Right , some days you might feel really good , other days you might feel really bad , and energy can kind of go up and down and it's not predictable .

But again , going back to what I said earlier , be kind to yourself . So , whatever you go through during the first month , you want to see it as a short-term sacrifice . Right , you might feel better when you were drinking , but very soon that's all going to go out the way and you're going to feel completely differently .

But one thing that can happen is that anxiety again can be higher Again . This can all be linked to sleep , it can be linked to nutrition , it can be linked to many things , but a lot of people do report heightened anxiety .

Now , one thing that I recommend is that around week two , around about seven or eight days into things is you really want to start taking care of your health . The end of the day , if you've drank alcohol , you've put a poison into your body again and again and again and your insides have taken a battering .

So getting yourself into a gym , hiring a personal trainer , getting some good quality food into your body , will make a massive difference . And not only that , but when you start exercising and you start working on your fitness and your health , you see changes rapidly .

What can often happen in that second week as well is people can start losing a little bit of weight or , if they're underweight , they can start gaining a bit of good weight . But usually weeks one to two are usually pretty easy to get through . You've got through the hard part , you're feeling good and you're starting to see big changes .

So now let's get into weeks two to three . Now , during weeks two to three , something strange can sometimes happen , because now the individual is feeling clarity , they're feeling positive , they're feeling good about themselves . They can look at their life and start to realize do you know what I'm not really happy with where I'm at ?

Maybe they're not happy with their relationship , their health , their career . They can be things that start to just show up and sometimes that can cause some depression . They can feel like , ah , have I really spent my whole life drinking this drug ? But it certainly was for me . I looked at my life when I stopped drinking and I didn't feel good about it .

I was in my mid-twenties when I stopped drinking and I remember seeing like 16 , 17-year-old kids that were further ahead . They'd already had more business success , they were healthier , they looked better , they had more friends and I was like , whoa , where did I get lost here ? And do you know what ? I didn't feel great .

But honest with yourself and you take responsibility for the results that you've created in your life , because you have created those results . Whether you like it or not , it gives you the power to start changing things Now . In my personal experience , it was around the second week and I can't remember exactly .

It might be week three , it might be week two , it might even have been at the end of week one . But what I did is I started to take control of my life . I quit my job . I started a new business . I started a personal training business when I was living in Oxford and I just started going as hard as I could . I said okay , do you know what ?

I'm not happy with my situation . I do feel depressed with where I'm at . I'm not liking my life and I am making a change right now and this is something that I'd recommend Around the second week into things . If there have been things that you've been putting off , if there are things that you want to do with your life , get busy .

Don't sit around feeling sorry for yourself . Please don't do that . That's not going to get you anywhere . So I ended up working with a mentor around this time of my life , and that is just when things started to skyrocket , and that's what I think is the best thing that you can do is get your health right , build momentum there and start taking action .

If you're not happy with where you're at right now , it's totally fine , because in six months time your life can look completely different . Which leads me to the fourth and final week , to day 21 , to day 28

. Now , by this point , things can actually start to feel a little bit normal . All the bad things that were happening when you were drinking seem to have disappeared . So around this mark , around three to four weeks into things is then you don't have a point of comparison anymore .

Sometimes we can almost forget how bad things were , which is why I would never recommend that somebody should stop drinking for a month . Okay , in very rare circumstances that might be a good idea , but I recommend that now you've got that momentum you're four weeks into things just keep it going . By this point it's almost like a distant memory .

Sure , you might get the odd craving , you might have the odd thought of alcohol here and there , but so what ? Because I promise you one thing if you stick on this path of not drinking alcohol , you will not recognize yourself in a year from now . Hell , you might not even recognize yourself three months from now .

Thanks for checking out the Stop Drinking Podcast by Sober Clear . If you want to learn more about how we work with people to help them stop drinking effortlessly , then make sure to visit wwwsoberclearcom .