My Favorite Benefit of Going AF for 100 Days

Ahh, glorious sleep. For years it eluded me. I would spend hours every night lying awake praying to fall into the darkness of rest, yet unable to do anything but mentally run like a hamster on a wheel, looping through the most horrific times of my life, past and future. You know, the memories that happened just not quite as traumatically as my mind believes at midnight. My mind recanting the somewhat real, the overly imagined…only some of it true. All of it magnified. Every. Night.

I hesitate to say it but, as much as I didn’t want to usher in an untimely death by wishing it so, part of me longed for the peace that I believed would only come once I exited this world. Finally, a good night’s sleep. There, I said it.

My inability to sleep is not new with Menopause. Sure, waking every hour in a pool of my own sweat, which by the way does not count like exercise sweat - this sweat does NOT help prevent weight gain – that part is new. Not cool! But I’ve been waking for hours at night for as long as I can remember. I had just accepted it as my fate.

I know, it begs one to ask; Why didn’t I take something for that? For God sake, isn’t Ambien better than wishing for death to release you from insomnia? And I’ll answer by saying…reasons. That’s all. I have my reasons. I did however try melatonin, sleepy-time teas, and well, that’s one thing that led me to drop alcohol for 100 days.

Ok, here is one of those reasons I said I wasn’t going to say…

I’ve read books, listened to podcasts, and even learned about ways to get better sleep when I was a student at Integrative Nutrition. Just off the top of my head here is a list of the things almost every professional recommends to help you get a better night sleep:

·      Exercise

·      Limit caffeine in the afternoon. (Best to not have any after about noon).

·      Limit screen time in the evening. Preferably about 2 hours before bedtime and especially limit blue light from your computer and phone.

·      Get in a regular rhythm. Go to bed and wake up at the same time each day.

·      Sleep in the darkest room possible.

·      Sleep in a cool room. Your body needs to drop its core temperature about two degrees to fall asleep.

·      And here’s the one thing that was on every list ever made for getting better sleep without exception: Don’t drink alcohol. If you really want the best sleep, they usually said to eliminate it altogether, but if you’re not going to eliminate it then you need to limit it near bedtime. Umm, when else am I going to have my wine, with my cheerios?

Alcohol, (aka sugar) deprives our bodies of its ability to achieve REM sleep. REM sleep is responsible for allowing deep rest that provides the body with rejuvenation and repair. In addition, alcohol is dehydrating, which hijacks your brain, disrupts your sleep, disturbs your ability to think clearly in the morning, and ultimately tanks your mood the next day. It’s also why you wake in the middle of the night with your mouth feeling like you’ve crossed the desert and forgot your Stanley cup at home.

Many believe they need wine to help them fall asleep, and yes that works. A couple glasses of wine and you’re nodding off before the end of the first episode of your nightly Netflix binge. But it’s that same glass of wine that you falsely trusted to lull to sleep that wakes you with a slap in the face in the middle of the night so it can go knock on the door to your brain and tell it to rise and shine it’s time to torture this unassuming bitch. Then you lay there, heart pounding, boobs sweating, and monkey mind running the whole zoo.

At this point in the story, I think it’s fair to tell you I have some good news, and I have some bad news.

The good news:  Ditching alcohol has allowed me a level of sleep I haven’t known in years. And for a 51-year-old woman with ADHD (I was diagnosed at 27…a story for another time), this sleep is lifechanging.

The bad news: It doesn’t happen right away. Talking to other women who have ditched the nightly glass of vino in hopes of stringing together a few hours of blissful sleep, the time it takes to get there is different for everyone.

I can tell you this for certain: Your sleep gets better with every day you’re AF. How much better is personal and depends on your body.

It takes at least 3-4 days for alcohol to clear the body. Some professionals say up to 10 days. That’s why just drinking on the weekends won’t remedy this for you. If you’re limiting your drinking to the weekends that’s better than a daily habit. However, your body is still constantly in a detox cycle. You never allow it time truly alcohol free. Alcohol doesn’t leave your body after you pee it out. It’s not gone the next day, or even the next. For several days the organs and systems within your amazing, self-repairing body are hard at work getting you back to normal. Every weekend you give your body a chore for the week and then reward it by giving it the chore again.

If we want the benefits of a clean body, we must clean our bodies.

I thought about this a couple ways when I was contemplating my 100AF.

1.     How long had I been drinking…really? I had my first drink at a friend’s house in middle school. In high school I was already drinking every weekend. Where I grew up, that was our normal. Seriously, if you’re a legit 80’s kid you’ve been to some serious house parties, the likes of which are only legend to the kids today that have their every move tracked. Life 360 would have really harshed my high school vibe.

My twenties…college, waiting tables, beach, drink, repeat. (Not always that order)

At 29 I had my first child and miraculously (with the help of NA Beer) gave up alcohol for my pregnancy. I did that again a few years later when I had my second and then went right back to my regular programming.

And here we are. Except for taking 70 days AF while Rob trained for his Ironman in 2019, I’ve had alcohol in my life nearly all my life.

If you measure the time I’ve been AF and the time I haven’t, those scales are seriously tipped in favor of alcohol. Is that ok? I think we know the answer to that.

Also…this is a topic for another post, but I think that during COVID my wine usage accelerated like a rocket into space. Between the world tilting on its axis, to wondering when and if I was going to be able to open the doors to my business again, while pivoting daily to keep revenue flowing, all the while stuck at home and board, wine was my break from the insanity that was life during a pandemic. (Run-on sentence. I’m aware. Life was a run-on sentence during COVID). I don’t believe I’m alone in saying; I believe my alcohol intake increased in that time and up until my 100AF I hadn’t returned to my pre-lockdown consumption level.  

So, how long had I been drinking? A long damn time. Did my body even remember not drinking? Doubtful. Does my body deserve better? Yes.

2.     If all this above is true, and it is, then I seem to be able to quite easily, let go of alcohol for 9 months (actually, a bit longer) to birth my children.

Which had me asking myself…

What if giving up alcohol for an extended period birthed something new in myself?

And then, all of the what ifs stepped forward like questions from a future self that was gently guiding me home.

What if instead of focusing on all I’d miss out on, all I’d be giving up, what if I focused on all that could be birthed within me?

What if I focused on what could go right, what could surprise me, what joy may be found?

What if there was something special within that has been all along but has been numbed into non-existence?

What if, as the Gospel of Thomas says, I brought forth that thing within me and it saved me?

What if, like the quote that I read the day I decided I would quit drinking for 100 days, I created a new possibility?

So many what ifs. So much potential.

Sidenote: This is why I journal. If you remember this post started about sleep, and here we are at birthing a new creation within ourselves. Get a journal today and just start writing. You’re welcome.

Maybe this post wasn’t about sleep at all. Or maybe it was, somewhat. Maybe it’s just another way I want to encourage you to gift yourself freedom from alcohol, not forever that’s way too long of a commitment. I haven’t made that commitment.

But I want you to know; weekdays are not enough to allow your body rest. Two weeks is better. A month is amazing. And somewhere along the way you’ll find that you don’t miss it like you thought you would or like you did in the beginning. You’ll find your mind belongs back to you. And you’ll sleep. You’ll sleep like a baby, or better yet, your husband. And you won’t have to fight back the urge to punch him in the face when he asks you how you slept.

Onward. 💙 Jen