Okay, who doesn’t enjoy that tipsy feeling, right? But it also goes without saying that excessive alcohol can give you some severe health issues. So, it’s best to learn the art of moderate drinking or just drop it. Nonetheless, people on Reddit are listing the lesser known downsides of alcohol, and they are worth taking note of.
1. “I quit drinking a couple of years ago and the big thing that I noticed is that it saps your interest in any other activities or hobbies. Once I stopped drinking I suddenly had the time and energy to spend on so many other fulfilling things.”
2. “For me, it really disrupts my ability to regulate my temperature when I’m trying to sleep. Anything more than one or two beers, I’ll either struggle to nod off or I’ll wake up four hours later overheating.”
3. “Didn’t start happening until my late 20s/ early 30s. SEVERE panic attacks and anxiety after a heavy night of drinking.”
4. “It makes your weekend a lot shorter I find. Drinking Friday, waking up at noon, only to slump all day and maybe even repeat it again the next day.”
5. “Everyone broadly knows that alcohol can kill you, the dangers of drunk driving and bad behavior, etc. What people don’t talk about enough is that all of the above can heavily damage your quality of life for years and years long before it ever kills you, and once these things start, even getting and staying sober for the rest of your life might not fix it.”
6. “Inflammation is not talked about too much. With someone with Sjogren’s (an auto-immune disorder) and some blood factors showing signs of rheumatoid arthritis, alcohol makes my joint aches flair.”
7. “I used to have a glass of wine every night which slowly turned into 2 and then sometimes 3. tolerance just built up over time so it felt the same but after a while, I was like damn this is gonna be a problem sooner or later. I ended up getting a peptic ulcer which was triggered by the alcohol. Absolutely horrible experience.”
8. “Calories. Alcohol has a lot of calories and you’re not really avoiding that problem by drinking Michelob Ultra or vodka, though some seem to think they are.”
9. “You will become locked in this cycle of getting wasted, saying or doing things you don’t really mean, waking up and being so embarrassed or guilty that it gives you such a feeling of resentment you can think of nothing else but getting drunk again immediately so you don’t have to feel the shame. Then at some point, you get too drunk and will do the same thing all over again.”
10. “When your liver eventually fails, you have to take powerful laxatives to shit 3-5 times a day or you will be severely confused and/or possibly comatose. You shit like it’s your job, FOREVER.”
11. “If you rely on alcohol for your social life, you may find your drinking buddies aren’t truly your friends when you stop drinking.”
12. “Besides the problems with alcohol itself that others have mentioned, alcohol culture is basically stunting people’s ability to emotionally regulate themselves healthily. People can’t be vulnerable without getting drunk. They can’t celebrate or grieve without being drunk. They don’t know how to actually feel anything or just exist in their own bodies and minds. Any inconvenience is met with “now I need a drink” and any good news is met with “lets cheers/celebrate/drink to that” etc.”
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13. “Alcohol breaks down protein. If you are a lifter or like to workout, I would not drink because it destroys your progress alongside having a lot of calories.”
14. “Constant diarrhea, if you drink yourself to death every day, solid poops will become a rare, almost pleasant sight.”
15. “Headaches are caused by massive dehydration: your brain physically shrinks and pulls away from the lining of your skull. Once you realize that you will always drink more water before you go to bed!”
Read more: 7 Hangover Cures That Sound So Wrong Yet So Right.