Office Hours: What Happens When You Stop Drinking for 30 Days?

Mark Hyman, MD

Dr. Mark Hyman is leading a health revolution—one focused on using food as medicine to support longevity, energy, mental clarity, happiness, and so much more. Mark Hyman, MD is a practicing family physician and an internationally recognized leader, speaker, educator, and advocate in the field of Functional Medicine. He is the founder and director of The UltraWellness Center, Founder and Senior Advisor for the Cleveland Clinic Center for Functional Medicine, a fifteen-time New York Times best-selling author, and Board President for Clinical Affairs for The Institute for Functional Medicine. He is the founder and chairman of the Food Fix Campaign, dedicated to transforming our food and agriculture system through policy.

He is a co-founder and the Chief Medical Officer of Function Health. He is the host of one of the leading health podcasts, The Dr. Hyman Show with 150+ million downloads. Dr. Hyman is a regular medical contributor to several television shows and networks, including CBS This Morning, Today, Good Morning America, The View, Fox, and CNN.

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Full Transcript

Automatically generated. Please forgive any typos or errors in the following transcript. It was generated by a third party and has not been subsequently reviewed by our team.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Welcome to Office Hours. This is our dedicated one on one space to go deeper, get clear, and explore what truly moves the needle for your health. I'm doctor Mark Hyman, and each week, we're gonna pull back the curtain and share the insights, the research, the lessons that don't always make it into our conversations with guests. Because at the end of the day, you are the CEO of your own health. And for many of you, your family's health too.

And you might not feel it all the time, but you have far more power and agency than you realize. I'm glad you're here. What if just thirty days could completely change how you feel? Your sleep, your focus, your energy, even your skin. Well, that's what thousands of people discovered during dry January.

Now, today, I'm breaking down exactly what happens in your body when you give up alcohol for a month, and why the benefits go far beyond your liver. We're gonna take you through the process week by week and equip you with tools to help you get through the month alcohol free. Yeah. It's not as hard to sound, don't worry. Now, if you want extra support, this is exactly what we're focusing on inside the Hyman Hive this month, my exclusive membership community.

We're taking on the thirty day dry January challenge together. Whether you're looking to cut back or take a full break from alcohol, we'll meet you where you are and help you build habits that truly last. Now with the support of like minded people and the community, you're gonna make real sustainable change, so you can feel firsthand all the benefits that we're talking about. Now, Dry January has become a global movement, a reset after the holidays, but it's not just a trend. It's a powerful way to see in real time how alcohol affects nearly every system of your body and how quickly those systems can recover.

Perfect way to set the tone for a healthier, happier 2026. Alright. So we all sort of know why we drink, right, to feel good, feel a little happy, to feel a little loose, social lubricant, blah blah blah. But what exactly is the buzz we feel when we drink? Why does alcohol seem to make social situations so much easier and more relaxed?

Well, let's first define what alcohol is and why it actually gives you that bugs. The active ingredient in alcohol is something called ethanol. That's the chemical name for alcohol essentially. Now if you wanna get a little more nerdy, it's a chemical that's created during the fermentation process when yeast feeds on sugars and grains, fruit, or other plant based materials. Like, yeast is in wine, and that's why you get the grapes fermenting to turn into wine.

Ethanol is what gives alcohol that's a relaxing buzz, but it's also the reason that it can be toxic, And that is it can kill you directly in large amounts. Paracelsus, one of the fathers of modern medicine, said the dose makes the poison, and that is very true with alcohol. A little bit is not gonna kill you, but if you drink a lot, it will kill you, and I've personally seen this in my medical career many, many times. Now what is actually alcohol doing? Well, it's a central nervous system depressant.

Now despite how it feels, it doesn't actually stimulate your brain, it slows it down. But in the early stages, the buzz phase, that slowdown happens first in the inhibitory centers of the brain, the control centers that keep you reserved or cautious or anxious. Right? So the the ego essentially. Right?

When you drink, your inhibition goes down a little bit. You feel more relaxed, more social, more confident, maybe you feel little euphoric. That's the quote buzz. The other thing that happens in your brain is it works on different neurotransmitter systems. It works on the GABA system, which is the relaxation system.

It also blocks glutamate, which is the excitatory system. So GABA is calming and inhibitory, and glutamate is stimulating and excitatory. So there's different neurotransmitters that have different roles in your body. Wake up, go to sleep, wake up, go to sleep. For example, Valium is a GABA formula.

It basically stimulates the GABA receptors, so it's progesterone, makes you relax and calm. Now alcohol acts like GABA, turning up this inhibition, and it simultaneously blocks glutamate, which is the excitatory neurotransmitter, and it turns down the stimulation. And this double effect slows brain signaling and causes you to relax, but it also does bad stuff. Like, impairs your judgment. It slows your reflexes, and it also can reduce anxiety, which is why people drink to self medicate very often.

And the buzz hits when the balance shifts. Just enough to quiet the brain's noise without making you drowsy. Yet, and that's okay, but you wanna just sort of be in the right sweet spot. A little too much, you're gonna get in trouble, and you you you just wanna get a little bit so you can have that little sense of buzz and pleasure if you drink, but not too much. And alcohol, by the way, when we look at the literature, I hate to say it, folks, it's just not good for us.

It affects our sleep adversely. It increases many cancers, increases risk of metabolic dysfunction, gut microbiome disturbances, mitochondrial toxin. Mean, just so many reasons it's not good for you, but it feels good. So I get it. Right?

In case you have a tequila, so I understand. How else does it work in the body? It affects the limbic system and the prefrontal cortex. The limbic system is your reptile brain. It's your ancient lizard brain.

It's the emotional center. It becomes more active leading to emotional openness, laughter, which is good. But the prefrontal cortex is the adult in the room. It's responsible for judgment, for planning, restraint. It goes offline early in drinking, which explains why people feel freer or act impulsively when they drink.

Now that combination is why you might feel just more talkative or affection during this buzz phase. That's, you know, good. It feels good, but it's not necessarily good for you. Alright. So what are the negative effects of alcohol in the body?

I get what we drink, right, to relax, to connect, to take the edge off, but what actually happens inside the body when we drink alcohol? Why does that one or two glass of wine or tequila hit us the way it does, and why do we pay for it the next day? Well, once your liver can't metabolize ethanol fast enough, then your blood alcohol concentration rises moving from buzz to drunk to even worse sedated, which is blackout drunk. Then the buzz fades and often is followed by rebounding glutamate and cortisol activity leading to anxiety and fatigue, that's called hangxiety. Now even moderate drinking can impact nearly every organ system in the body.

And the reason is it it builds this damage to metabolic stress, to inflammation, to impaired detox ification, to effect on hormones, the microbiome, your mitochondria. Pretty much everything is affected by it. Now what's the deal with brain function, neurotransmitters, and alcohol? How does it all work? I kind of mentioned a little bit, but it's a it's a central nervous system depressant.

It slows brain communication. And as I said, it increases this calming neurotransmitter called GABA, and it decreases the stimulating neurotransmitter called glutamate, which is why you feel more dull and not so alert. Now dopamine does spike early on during the buzz phase, which is what makes us focus, pay attention, but it drops very quickly, and it leaves you feeling tired or low mood. And I noticed this, like when I drink, I feel good for like maybe fifteen minutes, and then it's like, I don't really like it anymore. So I think if you pay attention how your body responding, you'll see this also.

It also my aura ring tells me this every night if I have something. It prevents you from falling into REM sleep, so you're not able to enter into that deep rest recovery period where your immune system and your lymphatic system, that's the immune system of the brain, it basically cleans out all the toxic metabolites from the day. That's when it's most active at night, and when you're cleaning out all the the metabolic waste from your brain so you don't end up with dementia and worse. And that's why alcohol, by the way, is very powerfully linked to dementia, not just because of certain nutritional deficiencies, but for other reasons too. And so we wanna have a healthy functioning brain at night, and when we drink, we just don't.

When you chronically use alcohol, it rewires the reward pathway. So what does that mean? It means you need more and more to feel, quote, normal. And so whereas, you know, if you're a teetotaler, if you have one glass of wine, you're drunk, whereas if you're drinking a bottle of wine every night, it doesn't affect you. And I think you should pay attention to that because when you use more, even though you're not feeling it, it's it's having even more harm on your body.

And so long term, what do we see with long term use of alcohol? We see memory loss, cognitive decline, anxiety, sleep disruption, as I mentioned, dementia. And basically, idea with alcohol is it sort of numbs you, and then it depletes you. Your brain becomes dependent on alcohol just to feel okay. And you see this with alcoholics.

They can't feel normal unless they're drinking. What about your liver? Well, the liver's got to metabolize the alcohol before anything else. It's kinda like the worst liver toxin. That's why we have something called alcoholic fatty liver disease, which is caused by alcohol.

And this is a poison for the liver, and there's an enzyme in your liver called alcohol dehydrogenase, which converts ethanol, which is alcohol, into a derivative byproduct called acetaldehyde. Now this acetaldehyde is a highly toxic compound that damages your DNA, it damages proteins, and it's really rough on your body. Then the acetaldehyde is then broken down by an enzyme called aldehyde dehydrogenase, not to worry about that, into something called acetate. Now if you drink too much too fast, this acetaldehyde builds up, and it causes hangovers, nausea, flushing, all kinds of inflammation. And when you're chronically overloaded with this, you get fatty liver, and you get cirrhosis eventually.

But even within a few weeks of drinking a lot, you start getting fatty liver. And then over the years, you'll get scarring, and that leads to fibrosis, cirrhosis, and ultimately liver failure, and death. What else happens when you drink alcohol if that wasn't enough? Right? There's more you get an impaired metabolism of fats and sugars and hormones.

So your whole metabolic system is hijacked, and it hijacks your liver's capacity for detoxification, like even estrogen clearance. For example, if you are taking estrogen, you are going to get much higher levels when you take alcohol. And even if you're not taking estrogen, when you drink alcohol, you increase your estrogen levels because your body can't detoxify it, and you end up with more breast cancer. In fact, one drink a day or seven days a week for a woman is linked to a forty percent increased risk of breast cancer. That's a big deal.

So just women out there, you pay attention because you can get really messed up with estrogen and alcohol. Also, when you when your liver's not working, you're not going be able to remove environmental toxins. You're not going to able to burn fat, and then you're gonna have to do all kinds of bad things like gain weight. You're gonna get blood sugar swings and cortisol swings and adrenaline up and down. And that means you become more insulin resistant, and that means you become more likely to gain fat, particularly belly fat or visceral fat.

Now for women, as I mentioned, you know, when you drink alcohol, it messes up your estrogen metabolism, that causes a high risk of breast cancer and uterine cancer. So really a problem. Now for men, does the kind of opposite. It lowers testosterone, lowers sperm quality and function, and it leads to men growing, you know, beer bellies and also gynecomastia, which is large breasts just like women because testosterone gets converted to estrogen, and that's why testosterone ends up lower. So that's what happens with alcohol.

It's not a good deal. It also screws up thyroid signaling. That makes you feel tired, sluggish, and the slower metabolism. Alcohol turns off your body's metabolic repair mode, and it throws your hormones out of balance. You wanna not drink for that reason too much.

Occasional drink, I probably just to be fair, I probably drink maybe one or two drinks a month, literally. It's fun if I go out or home with friends or I wanna just have something when I'm a nice dinner, I'll do it. But otherwise, I I just stay away because I know how it affects me. What else does it do? Well, if that ain't enough, there's more.

It affects the gut. It affects your microbiome. What does it do in your gut? Your gut is a very delicate system, and there's only one cell between you and a sewer. Your entire lining of your intestinal tract is just one cell thick.

And when that lining gets damaged, you get leaky gut, which means the proteins from food and food reactions happen, like food sensitivities and bacterial toxins get into your system. And by the way, your immune system 60% of your immune system is right underneath your gut lining, and that creates inflammation throughout your whole body. So it's another way that alcohol causes inflammation. It also messes up your bacteria. So if you have a healthy microbiome, great, but if you drink a lot, you won't.

And so people like alcoholics have really unhealthy microbiomes, and they increase the growth of bad bugs in your gut. And that can also cause gut symptoms like bloating, nutrient absorption, gel inflammation. A lot of nutritional deficiencies happen with alcohol. Like, it just depletes all your b vitamins. You get vitamin b one or thiamine deficiency.

You can cause b twelve deficiency, folate deficiency. So you see a lot of nutritional deficiencies in alcoholics. But even if you're not, it's still using up a lot of these nutrients to just get rid of it. So bottom line, this whole gut brain axis disruption, it just also causes other issues like anxiety, mood changes. So alcohol basically turns the gut from this healing system into a trigger.

Really bad news. Any other systems affected by alcohol? Well, yeah, pretty much everyone. Next one is the cardiovascular and immune system. What does alcohol do if consumed regularly on a long term basis?

It raises your blood pressure, and it raises your triglycerides, and it increases your risk of heart attacks. And ultimately, there's something called alcoholic cardiomyopathy. It's a big mouthful. But what it means is you get heart failure from drinking alcohol. It's a well known condition.

I've seen it many times in practice. It also suppresses immune function. So even one night of heavy drinking reduces your immune cell activity for up to a whole day. So alcohol is an immune suppressor, basically disguised as a social lubricant. And what about cancer?

I mentioned that, but alcohol consumption is a third leading cause third leading cause of preventable cancer in The United States after tobacco and obesity. Well, actually, obesity is the first. Only forty five percent of Americans are aware of the link between alcohol and cancer. So most people don't even know about it. And the risk of cancer goes up for a lot of reasons.

Right? DNA damage from the acetaldehyde production, increased free radicals and oxy of stress, change in hormones like estrogen I mentioned, increasing the absorption of carcinogens like cigarettes. So when your body's processing alcohol, it creates a toxin that damages your DNA. It makes it easier for cancer to get going. You don't want that.

So that's another reason to not drink so much. Okay. What about hangovers? What is a hangover? A hangover is your body's emergency cleanup after a chemical storm.

And what's going on here? Well, acetyl aldehyde toxicity is the reason. Now this is the byproduct of ethanol, as I mentioned before. The liver can't keep up metabolizing it, so it basically builds up, and the toxic byproducts build up, and that causes it. Also, dehydration.

It's a dehydrating compound. Alcohol blocks this hormone in your brain called ADH or antidiuretic hormone. Why is that a problem? Well, when you are not preventing yourself from peeing, you're gonna pee more, and you're gonna lose more water and lose more electrolytes and become more dehydrated. So alcohol basically makes you pee more and lose water and electrolytes.

Also, you get blood sugar fluctuations. After this insulin surge, your glucose crashes, and you can get shaky and fatigue. You know, I'm more in systemic inflammation. Alcohol irritates the gut and the liver, releases something called cytokines. Now these are the body's chemicals that are used for infection.

That's why, you know, basically, when you have the hangover, you feel like you have the flu, you have the cytokine storm during COVID. When you have the flu, you feel achy. That's because of these immune messenger molecules we call cytokines. So sleep disruption is another big problem with alcohol. Alcohol blocks REM sleep, which is your dream sleep.

And then it causes this rebound overactivity when you stop it. So when you get this rebound chemistry, as alcohol fades, the stress chemical spike, you get anxiety, restlessness, anxiety, and and that is a huge problem. So bottom line, alcohol taxes every major system in your body, especially your liver, your brain, your gut, your hormones. Now hangovers are the body's emergency cleanup after a neurochemical and metabolic storm. But the good news is after twenty four to seventy two hours of abstaining, your body starts to repair itself.

So what happens when you stop drinking? Well, I want you to understand what happens week by week when you stop drinking. So week one, and this is where we're gonna do a thirty day challenge together. Week one is when your body starts to detoxify and you start to have a reset. Your sleep initially may be a little disrupted at first.

Your blood sugar and your cortisol stress hormones start to recalibrate. Your liver starts processing this whole backlog of toxins. You stop being dehydrated, have more energy, fewer headaches. So that's week one. Week two, your gut and your brain start to rebalance.

Your serotonin and dopamine start to stabilize, the gut inflammation drops, microbiome starts healing, leaky gut starts healing, hopefully, if you're not drinking. You're craving for sugar and alcohol, obviously go down. You get more mental clarity, less brain fog. Week three, inflammation drops, you get liver fat going down, and systemic inflammation going down a lot. Blood pressure tends to get more normal, your skin looks clear, a lot of alcohol causes puffiness.

You've seen those red puffy faces, that's alcohol. It causes inflammation. You see it in people's faces, it causes rosacea, skin issues. You also get more stable mood, less anxiety swings. And then finally week four, you get a lot of additional metabolic and immune benefits, more insulin sensitivity, so your body's able to lose weight.

You have stronger immune response. You're not getting sick as much. You have better deep sleep, balanced hormones, especially cortisol and testosterone. And you see a big change in energy, confidence, and focus. So what are the takeaways?

What are the benefits? Here's a quick recap of the key benefits we just covered with the body. Improve liver detoxification and function, lower inflammation and blood pressure, better metabolism and digestion. With your brain, get better mood, better focus, better sleep quality, less anxiety and depression. And long term, you're gonna have a recalibrated relation with alcohol, which is great.

So you don't have to be stuck with it, you can make a choice. So the question is how do you make more mindful choices? How do you set yourself up for success when cutting out alcohol? Well, there's some real challenges, both physical and mental. Well, pressure, obviously.

Just have one drink. Come on, what's the big deal? I call those drug pushers. Cravings happen and willpower. So what's the best way to navigate those challenges?

Well, pressure, maybe just say, hey. I'm taking a reset this month. Just set it normalized a choice. For cravings, you can modify that by eating protein, hydration, and certain adaptogens, and herbs, and even nutrients like theanine, which is a relaxing molecule from green tea, or magnesium glycinate, which is also helps you detoxify. Sleep disruption can initially be a problem, but it'll improve with things like magnesium, Epsom salt baths, or meditation.

Mindset, focus on curiosity, not deprivation. So it's not all or nothing. Right? Just kinda learn what's going on in your body. Listen to how you feel.

Pay attention to the change in your life when you stop drinking. Really important. Okay. So why does it make such a difference to do these kinds of challenges with a community rather than on your own? Well, you wanna see what happens when you give your body this thirty day break, just join the HIVE January challenge.

We'll guide you, we'll track your process and your progress. We'll share stories. Everything is better together. Community is medicines. And it's super easy to sign up.

Just go to doctorhymen.com and sign up for the hymen hive. So your body has an incredible ability to heal. And often it just needs you to take your foot off the gas and give yourself a break from the things that are making it not feel well. Try it for thirty days. You're gonna be amazed at how different you feel.

Thanks for joining me for office hours. I love diving into these topics with you. Remember, you are the CEO of your own health, and every choice you make can move you closer to healing and vitality. I wanna keep these episodes as relevant and useful as possible. So tell me, what do you wanna explore next?

What questions are you wrestling with? What breakthroughs are you chasing? Share your ideas in the comments on social media or through the link in the show notes. I'm listening. Until next time, keep taking charge, keep asking questions, and keep showing up for your health.

Dr. Mark Hyman
If you love this podcast, please share it with someone else you think would also enjoy it. You can find me on all social media channels at Doctor Mark Hyman. Please reach out. I'd love to hear your comments and questions. Don't forget to rate, review, and subscribe to the doctor Hyman show wherever you get your podcasts.

And don't forget to check out my YouTube channel at Doctor Mark Hyman for video versions of this podcast and more. Thank you so much again for tuning in. We'll see you next time on The Doctor Hyman Show. This podcast is separate from my clinical practice at the Ultra Wellness Center, my work at Cleveland Clinic, and Function Health where I am chief medical officer. This podcast represents my opinions and my guests' opinions.

Neither myself nor the podcast endorses the views or statements of my guests. This podcast is for educational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional care by a doctor or other qualified medical professional. This podcast is provided with the understanding that it does not constitute medical or other professional advice or services. If you're looking for help in your journey, please seek out a qualified medical practitioner. And if you're looking for a functional medicine practitioner, visit my clinic, the Ultra Wellness Center at ultrawellnesscenter.com, and request to become a patient.

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