Changes after one month of not drinking alcohol

I stopped drinking in the flow of writing about it

In an article exactly one month ago, I touched upon the fact that I was reducing my alcohol intake.

At that point, I was in a situation where I "didn't drink every day," but today I have clearly reached the point where I can say, "I haven't had a drink in a month." I didn't have any strong intention to "quit drinking!" at all, but since I had gone to the trouble of writing that article,
I wanted to do something like an experiment to see how long I could go without drinking.

So, today I will summarize the changes over the past month.
By the way, as for myself, I am the type who quickly forgets things that have passed, so please be aware that the content is quite vague.

For reference, my drinking habit up until then was a set of "one can of beer (350ml) and two highballs" per day.

1. Regarding the urge to drink

First, this.
Until about the first two weeks, I was driven by the urge to drink about once every three days.
It was a feeling of my body squirming, craving alcohol. Before, I would "drink the moment that happened," but this time, after all, I was in the middle of an experiment. I wanted to see how much I could endure. At that time, "non-alcoholic beer" and "chocolate mint latte" were helpful. Non-alcoholic beer was, of course, a substitute, but for some reason, drinking something sweet suppressed my desire to drink. I don't really know the reason. When I wanted to drink, I had a non-alcoholic drink. Or something sweet. I was able to get through it just fine with this. After two weeks, it was quite easy, and the desire to "want to drink alcohol" stopped arising at all. And, from a little over half a month,

when I remembered the feeling of drinking alcohol, I started to feel sick.

And now that a month has passed, I even have the feeling that "I don't think I need to drink alcohol anymore..." However, I do know that beer tastes good, and because of the season I want to drink something refreshing, so I do want to drink non-alcoholic beer, and I drink it occasionally.

2. Regarding changes in physical condition

Changes in sleep

The first thing I suffered from regarding changes in physical condition was "not being able to fall asleep".
This was especially noticeable during the first week after I stopped drinking entirely; I just couldn't fall asleep. I would crawl into bed and not be able to fall asleep for over an hour, and furthermore, my sleep was shallow, and days of suffering from lack of sleep continued. Perhaps,
my body had become accustomed to the nightcap-like effect of alcohol.However, that also improved once a certain period had passed, and now I can fall asleep easily. I sleep soundly until morning.

Changes in bowel movements

And in the same way... the thing that I suffered from for nearly half a month was changes in bowel movements.
For decades, I had quite loose bowels. Healthy bowel movements were a thing of the past from when I was a child, and I thought, "I'm sure I had plenty of lactic acid bacteria in my intestines when I was a child!" but it seems that was wrong. After completely stopping alcohol for a while,
I actually became somewhat constipated. Or rather, I wondered why I was constipated, and this was the only cause I could think of.
When I looked it up on the internet, it seems that alcohol has the effect of making diarrhea more likely to occur... that was news to me. And it seems my body got used to it over the course of nearly a month, and currently, I am able to have bowel movements close to a healthy state like when I was young. It's as if the loose bowel movements that had become normal were a lie. Even though I thought that having loose bowels would never be cured for the rest of my life... I never thought it would be cured by not consuming alcohol...

Changes in weight

"If you stop drinking alcohol, you will gain weight" is a story I often hear, so when I started this challenge of trying to stop drinking, the first thing that came to mind was "Will I gain weight?"
To conclude, in one month I lost 2kg.
This might depend on the person, but it seems I was the type whose appetite increased by drinking alcohol, and the amount I could eat increased. When I stopped drinking, the amount I could eat naturally decreased, and as a result, my weight dropped. I don't know if this is good because my horsepower decreases when my weight drops, but well, I guess that's how it is. I think I will try hard at muscle training.

3. Other changes

Time increases

It is natural, but I can use the time I spent drinking alcohol and being dazed for other things. In fact, the reason I am writing this note now is because I am not drinking alcohol. When I was drinking every day, I had become too used to it and thought "I can do it even while drinking," but now, looking back objectively, the performance I can put out is completely different. The fact that my night time has become longer is a very big merit.

Vision becomes clearer

Since becoming an adult, the scenery has been somewhat blurry, and the clear sensation I had as a child had disappeared. This is probably not caused only by drinking alcohol, but I have noticed that recently the feeling that things in front of me are solid has been returning, little by little. Since there is no other habit I have changed, I think this is also a factor of cutting out alcohol.

Even though I didn't have a strong intention to "quit drinking!"

I started this "no alcohol" habit somewhat unexpectedly, just because I had written about it, but at this point, I've even reached a state of mind where I think, "I don't really need to drink anymore".

Well, it would be fine if I had been enjoying drinking until now, but I think a major factor in this is that I probably haven't been enjoying it much lately even when I did drink.

I wouldn't go so far as to say I'm determined not to drink at all costs, but unless something major happens, I intend to maintain this state.
After all, there are plenty of delicious non-alcoholic beers available now. This is a big deal. If I can enjoy this benefit in my daily life, I feel that non-alcoholic options are more than enough.

That said, if the time comes to enjoy a Guinness or Yebisu at a bar, I think I would be conflicted.