Is Alcohol Affecting Your Health?

For most of my life, like a lot of people, I used alcohol as a way to unwind and relax, and if I’m being truly honest, to numb myself from things I didn't want to feel. That was, until 3 years ago, when I decided enough is enough. 

Growing up, healthy coping mechanisms were not modeled to me. I watched adults in my life deal with trauma and stress by using drugs, alcohol and cigarettes to cope. Not to mention in the 80’s and 90’s when I grew up these things were advertised everywhere you looked. 

So naturally, this is how I started dealing with my trauma and stress. That's all I knew. Growing up in poverty, and on government assistance, and also being the firstborn in my family gave me a strong sense of determination and motivation to always be striving for more. I was always trying to distance myself from my parents and how I grew up. Looking back now, I'm not sure if I was trying to prove to myself or to the world that I was more than where I came from. 

But I was doing it, working my way through adulthood the way I thought I needed. I worked my way up in the company I worked for, bought a house, got married, had kids. 

And it was all going pretty well until 2009, when my father unexpectedly passed away at the age of 54. At the time I was 6 months postpartum, with a 6 month old baby, a 21 month old toddler, and a 12 year old. My world was flipped upside down and I turned to alcohol to numb the pain. 

Never having actually gone to therapy or working through my pain. Alcohol was helping me get by day by day. And it worked, until it didn’t. In 2014 I started having health issues, first it was thyroid issues, goiters growing on my thyroid, then an abdominal hernia, and torn tissues in my right hip socket, all three leading to a total of four surgeries. Then came the anxiety and high blood pressure, Dupuytren's contracture, and bursitis. My body was screaming at me that it was not okay, but I wasn’t listening. 

I think when the pandemic hit in 2020, it forced us all to take a hard look at our lives and how we were living them. It made us realize how little time we really have here on this earth. And this is when I started looking at my alcohol intake and what it was actually doing to me and I slowly started weaning it out. But still drinking on occasion with friends. 

Then in July of 2021, when I woke up feeling horrible the day after a 4th of July party, I told myself never again. I never wanted to feel how I felt, ever again. And right then and there I removed alcohol from my life for good. And I have to tell you, it may just have been the single best decision I have ever made in my life.    

Here’s what I’ve noticed in my life since I decided to remove alcohol:

• I have gained such a greater sense of self, I know who I am, and what I want, and I make it happen! 

• I have decreased the amount of inflammation in my body and therefore decreased my pain as well. 

• I have lowered my blood pressure back down to a normal range and no longer have to take blood pressure medicine. 

• My anxiety levels have decreased tremendously (though I’m not sure if they will ever fully go away, being a mother of three in this day and age) But I have healthy coping mechanisms and I am so thankful to the herbs that have helped to nourish and soothe my nervous system to a place of regulation I didn't think possible.

• I have an even deeper relationship with my children, who know they can count on me to be fully there for them at any given time. 

• For the first time in my life I learned how to put boundaries in place, stop being a people pleaser and put myself and what I want first. 

• I have plans. So many plans. And goals! And instead of me just longing and dreaming for them, I’m doing the work to achieve them! 

Since giving up alcohol, I have completed years of schooling in multiple programs, became a business owner and started my own clinical practice supporting and empowering women to tackle their own health concerns. 

For me, it was obvious that alcohol wasn’t working for me anymore. It stood in the way of my true self, and it was damaging my health both physically and mentally. 

If you have been on the fence about cutting back on your alcohol intake or removing it altogether, I hope this inspires you to make that next step. If you have already made the choice to remove alcohol from your life, keep up the great work! I see you, it’s not easy, but it is worth it!  

Love, 

Danielle