Vanessa: 0:00

Hey Em

Emily: 0:01

Hey Ness

Vanessa: 0:02

So what do you think about dry January? Are you doing it?

Emily: 0:07

So, no, I'm definitely not going to do it. I'm like fi

Track 1: 0:13

I,

Emily: 0:14

I think that it's a reasonable and maybe even admirable goal for some it's already been a lot this year, so I'm just going to keep doing my casual social drinking with my isolation pod.

Vanessa: 0:28

Yeah, I, I generally don't like labeling how I'm eating or drinking, really. So I'm going to stick with that, whatever I'm feeling. Yeah, that sounds good.

Emily: 0:48

Hi, and welcome to wellness myths. I'm Emily joined by my cohost, Vanessa. We're both registered dieticians. And today we're talking about the very hot topic of sober January. Everyone's making new year's resolutions and we've seen many people taking the pledge to avoid alcohol for the month of January. Let's get into what that truly means. And if we think it's necessary for a healthy diet, We want to preface this with the fact that we're not discussing those afflicted with addiction, and that's a very serious and separate discussion. We know this can be a sensitive topic for those who experienced addiction. So we'll put a little trigger warning here for anyone who feels like they are someone in their life is struggling with alcohol addiction. You can visit www.alcohol.org for more resources. All right, let's get into it then Vanessa

Vanessa: 1:32

So, whatever your personal decision is barring any addiction issues like Emily mentioned, um, we are not here to judge, so both of us do enjoy drinking socially. I love a cold beer after a day of skiing, I enjoy having a cocktail with some friends. But it's really It's important to know that alcohol is one of the only things that our bodies are truly like. This is an empty calorie. Toxic foreign substance. Must clear get this out of me., and we talk about a lot with things that aren't empty calories, like a Snickers bar or something like that, that there is usually something you can use. There's nothing you can use from alcohol. Yeah.

Emily: 2:18

Yeah, it's a net loss. Yeah. So I feel similar with that. We definitely both identify as social drinkers. You know, we're not above overindulging from time to time. Vanessa's husband has definitely carried me up the stairs a time or two for a shared college apartment. Um, it happens, right. So we're trying to give y'all some resources that. will make you feel that you can maybe be a little more mindful about consumption. so I feel like sober January is for some people it's kind of viewed as a detox. Obviously we know we don't need to do that when it comes to food and we don't need to like our liver detoxes for us. So any sign of detox, diet or anything isn't going to work. But when we look at drinking. The more, the toxicity of alcohol tends to be higher when we're binge drinking. So when we're overloading the literate to where we can't clear the toxin efficiently, that's when we're doing the real damage. That's why there's the current recommendation of one drink for women and two drinks for men. So we're trying to keep things, even, and enough to where we can continue to clear the toxin. So sometimes I have like a little bit of a. Pause was sober January because I think, okay. You know, one drink a day, every few days or something isn't going to, you're not getting so many health benefits from avoiding that just once. I don't know. What do you think about that?

Vanessa: 3:42

Yeah, I agree. And I do wonder also, I'm not sure where sober January originated. I'm guessing it's just one of those things, like another new year's resolution kind of thing. Um, but yeah, I mean, and I I know that we mentioned I'll call, you know, it's toxic, our bodies can't use it, but especially with something maybe like red wine, where there are some benefits. Uh, you know, having one glass of red wine might not be a problem. I think kind of like you mentioned, the problem arises is that most people don't just have one glass of red wine.

Emily: 4:20

Totally. And I think then, you know, at that point, maybe it's good to give yourself a break. So for sober January, we're continuing to come back to our why, just like how we make food choices, right? We're thinking, are you doing it to experiment with what it would be like? To be sober all the time. Is this something that, you know, you're kind of sober, curious, and maybe this is the gateway for you. And then really thinking about what's going to happen afterwards, right? Like, are you going to just go back to exactly the same ways that you did before?

Vanessa: 4:48

Right because then what's the point.

Emily: 4:50

Right. Exactly. Like, you know, if you're just someone that has like a glass of red wine with dinner a few nights a week, and you know, you're doing the sober January challenge, it just might not be fully necessary in my eyes anyway.

Vanessa: 5:03

Yeah, I agree. I think that if you're someone who's having multiple drinks every night, You, if you, you know, do sober January, you might realize that you feel a lot better. And then might want to carry that through the rest of the year. But like you said, if you're having one glass of wine every once in a while not doing that, probably isn't going to affect your life or your health very much.

Emily: 5:29

Right. Yeah. It kind of brings me to, thinking about mindful drinking. So it's like, You know, you're noticing how you feel. You're asking yourself why you're drinking and getting to the root of that relationship with alcohol. I think even those who don't have a problem with drinking, it's always good to just kind of take stock of what positives and negatives are you gaining from it. You know, I think that's really helpful to just check in with, because sometimes similar to food, we're just kind of going through the motions and not really thinking like, wait. You know, do I actually want to be doing this or am I just doing this? Cause like all my friends are doing it or something.

Vanessa: 6:04

For sure. And especially in our society, I feel like we're such an alcohol kind of obsessed society. We do it to celebrate, we do it to go to bed. We do it, you know, when we're just meeting up with our girlfriends and. It is interesting to think. Like if I'm meeting up with my friends for a girl's night and having a couple glasses of wine, do I actually want those glasses of wine? Am I just doing it because everyone else is doing it? What I feel better if I just had like a mocktail instead for myself, I feel like sometimes I would, but sometimes I do just want the red wine.

Emily: 6:44

Right. Exactly. And I think it's like, you know, you're having the internal conversation and that's what it's all about. Um, and it's important to note too, that. In our previous episode, especially we talked about how like compensatory behavior aware when we avoid certain foods, we want to like binge them more later. Alcohol doesn't work like that. So it's like, just because you're not, you're avoiding it at a certain point. Doesn't mean like, Oh, it's inevitable. Eventually I'm just going to like drink a bunch because I've been depriving myself. That's not related to like, Whether you like drinking or not. Um, and so another question that I get so often about drinking in general is how do you practice intuitive eating or mindful eating, or even just being semi aware of your choices while eating while impaired by alcohol? And the short answer to that is it's pretty impossible. Like, you know, you're impaired things are not normal. People's struggle just in everyday life to be able to identify their food choices and what they really need in that moment. So when we're impaired, it's really hard to do that. And that's why, you know, I mean, I live in Portland, right? So like a lot of my clients are like, I'm smoking marijuana often. Like remedy my intuitive eating goals with my substance usage and answer to that as like, it's just going to be really hard. So that's just another small note that when you are kind of incapacitated or impaired it's really tough to be mindful once you're past that point.

Vanessa: 8:22

yeah, you have deliberately taken away your introspectiveness at that point. So.

Emily: 8:30

you're not going to be firing on all cylinders. And if it's something that, you know, isn't problematic for you and, you know, you end up indulging a certain food or whatever, and it's just being gentle with yourself too. And realizing that like, that's not the time for you to flex your intuitive eating muscle or flex your like mindful eating muscle.

Vanessa: 8:49

Right. And, you know, give, forgive yourself if you maybe indulge or overindulge while you're drinking, because like you said, you're not going to have those same cues as you would, uh, sober.

Emily: 9:04

And lastly, nothing's wrong with deciding not to drink? It's a really important thing that I noticed is that, and it's another parallel with food and body comments, keeping the comments about drinking to a minimum. You don't need to let everyone know I'm not drinking and maybe you shouldn't too. And do this with me, et cetera. Or like feeling self-conscious that you decided. To drink and then you're like begging others to do it with you. I think everyone's been there where they're like, Oh, get another round with me. You know, you feel like you have to like bring somebody with you. And, I think it's a good path to just kind of avoid that similar to what we do with food comments, where it's just a really personal issue. And so there's no need to discuss or pressure or judge anybody else for their choice.

Vanessa: 9:49

for sure. And it can be really hard to if you're going out with a group of people. And if you're not drinking or you just don't want to drink, uh, getting questioned a lot for it, especially as women in our mid twenties. I know for us, if you don't have a drink and everyone, else's, you're definitely pregnant. Um, or at least among my friends. Uh, you're definitely, I posted a mocktail on Instagram a few weeks ago. And Emily's first question for me after that was, are you pregnant? Um, so it's definitely common.

Emily: 10:27

you kept saying like mocktail, like mocktail knocked. And I was like, wow, you're just drinking kombucha and stuff. And it like, Y like it was just so specifically a mocktail, but I

Vanessa: 10:37

fun. It was

Emily: 10:38

it's, it sounds fun. And then after that, I was like, I want that recipe too,

Vanessa: 10:42

Well, and it's funny too, because when you make a mocktail, you're like, wow, this tastes so much better. Am I normally adding poison to it?

Emily: 10:52

Right. Yeah. That's so funny.

Vanessa: 10:55

So we wanted to discuss a little bit to nightcaps. So it's really common for people to have a drink or two to fall asleep because alcohol technically does increase relaxation. It makes you feel kind of drowsy or it takes the edge off. But this can kind of lead to a vicious cycle because drinking makes you feel drowsier, but it suppresses your REM sleep. So. Even though you feel like maybe you fall asleep more quickly or helps you get to sleep. You're not actually sleeping as well. So it's leading to poor sleep and then you're feeling tired during the day. And then at night, you know, you're like awake again and you feel like you need this aid again. So it's this vicious cycle that's causing insomnia causing you to maybe consume more caffeine because you need to stay up during the day and just. Kind of gets out of control really easily.

Emily: 11:56

Yeah. And I think like it's something that we don't really realize since it's so normalized to like, get a drink after work or even like winding down like a little night cop or something. Um, So I think it's important to think about stuff like that. And I think going back to the sober January thing, you know, if you're having a drink every single night, right before you go to sleep, maybe you will notice a big change when you in your quality of sleep, when you limit that.

Vanessa: 12:24

Well for sure. And we know that, you know, sleep affects so much in how important quality sleep is. And so disrupting that pattern and how it can affect a lot of people just drinking more caffeine, which were also kind of a caffeine obsessed society. Um, maybe those go hand in hand but increasing that caffeine and you're just, you're taking yourself into this terrible cycle of poor sleep. And maybe not even realizing it.

Emily: 12:53

Yeah. I think there's so many. We hear all the time about people who are. Confused why they're not sleeping well . And then I'm like, wait, what are you drinking at night? Um, and so many people are.

Vanessa: 13:06

Yeah, for sure. And even for myself, I, a couple months ago cut down on caffeine a lot, and it wasn't necessarily because I was sleeping poorly. It was just because I felt so, even though I was falling asleep at night, I felt so anxious at the end of the day. And. I wasn't even drinking caffeine past, you know, 2:00 PM or into the evening, but still just the amount I was having in the morning was really wiring me. So everybody's a little bit different too. Um, some people can handle more caffeine. Some people can't handle much at all. Personally, I realized I really can't handle that much. So I had to cut back a lot and I have felt so much better since.

Emily: 13:53

Yeah. Yeah. And I feel like that's perfect with sober January, because you had to like limit it to realize what it was affecting, like how deeply it was affecting you. So that was like definitely a plus.

Vanessa: 14:05

Yeah. And along with sleep too, when we look at our hormones and how alcohol affects our hormones. So since your liver is going to be on alert, once the alcohol enters your body, so. Those sirens are going off warning morning, toxic substance. Your liver is like, okay, we need to get this out of us. We need to clear this. So it's putting that on priority. Your liver is in charge of detoxing, your body of a lot of things, including hormones like estrogen. So by, you know, introducing that alcohol, your. Doing that instead of detoxing the estrogen. And so you can have a little bit of buildup, and estrogen access can lead to a whole host of issues like PMs, heavy periods, painful periods. And that's a big problem for a lot of people.

Emily: 15:01

Yeah. I feel like that's something too that we never discussed. I think usually when you talk about alcohol use it's dehydration, or I think people are kind of aware of the sleep issue a little bit. Like, I mean, you wake up after a night out feeling like just awful and like you barely slept,

Vanessa: 15:16

I had recently put something on my Instagram story about sleep and I'll call in someone messaged me and said, we call those the no sleeps. And it made me laugh because, um, anyone who has overindulged knows that feeling of, uh, the no sleeps

Emily: 15:39

right. You're just like really taking yourself down at like every level.

Vanessa: 15:43

for sure.

Emily: 15:44

Interesting.

Vanessa: 15:45

So do we want to talk a little bit about how you can drink in a healthy way?

Emily: 15:52

Yeah. So I think that. You know, it's the tips that maybe you've heard before, making sure that you have an adequate meal that day before you start drinking. I know for some people it's like, Oh, I just want to save up my calories for alcohol. Well, as we mentioned, they're empty calories. So you still need all of your needs to be met before you start drinking. So definitely avoiding any restriction before you. Start to drink and plus the alcohol won't hit you so quickly if you've got food in your stomach. And then you can have a little more awareness as to how far you want to indulge, um, maintaining adequate hydration. There's always the one drink of water per drink of alcohol kind of trick that a lot of people use. And it's important to just continue to make sure that you're very fueled and in a good space for it, because like we said, your body's going to be very busy clearing alcohol from the body. So if you're like, Oh, I haven't even had enough protein that day and not enough water. It's just all going to spiral and make your alcohol drinking experience. A little bit. worse

Vanessa: 16:57

for sure. And in addition to that, you want to do some things to support your liver. So things like leafy greens and cruciferous veggies are going to be really good. You can take vitamin C as well, and I'm not saying this is like here's some quick tips, so you can go out and binge drink. Um, this is just things. If you're going to have a couple of drinks, Things that are going to help your liver detox that alcohol from your body. So. Another thing is taking vitamin C. So the reason for that is vitamin C can increase glutathione, which helps your body against a seedle aldehyde is, which is what your liver metabolizes the alcohol into. So by taking vitamin C you help with your glutathione, you help your liver a little bit. And then like Em said, of course, you know, the hydration, all of those things as well. Do you know, for the vitamin C, is it like a daily thing? Like if you take the vitamin C in the morning that you're going to like, say like a wedding to go to or something and you take vitamin C in the morning, will that help in the moment or is it consistent? Vitamin C and. so it would be in the moment. So you would want to take about a thousand milligrams of vitamin C in the morning.

Emily: 18:11

Okay. Interesting. There's a lot of like random supplements out there that are for hangovers. I think most of them are pretty much like verbal supplements. But I'm curious. I bet a lot of them have vitamin C.

Vanessa: 18:24

probably. Um, another thing that I did not know about, and I found this in a recent study is that they actually found that social drinkers had a higher, dietary intake of niacin, which is vitamin B3 and sink had less severe hangovers.

Emily: 18:41

Oh, wow.

Vanessa: 18:42

Yeah, that was interesting they study a lot of different nutrients in this particular study that I was looking at. And those were the only ones that made any significant difference. And we can include that study in our notes as well.

Emily: 18:56

So I think we're just about wrapped up on all our information we have for you about alcohol and its effects. So after we kind of discussed all that, Vanessa, what do you think about sober January? Should people do it?

Vanessa: 19:10

so I definitely think it could be a good idea if you're just curious about what it could be like. Too. Not drink, but you're not really interested in committing to being sober forever. It's a good excuse. Maybe you can do it with some friends. And that way, you know, if you go out, maybe have a couple mocktails together.

Emily: 19:31

You know all about the mocktails?

Vanessa: 19:32

Oh, I

Emily: 19:33

Um, yeah, I, I feel pretty similarly. I think also too, that I would just be mindful for the rigidity of like the month, you know, I mean, being an anti diet dietician, it always gives me pause any sort of like monthly challenge about your intake. Um, but sober January is a little bit different than that. And I think that. You know, maybe it won't take a whole month for you to understand, like drinking makes me feel this way or not the other. But I think it can be used as a great tool to gain a little bit more insight into what's going on with your drinking habits.

Vanessa: 20:10

I definitely agree.

Emily: 20:12

Well, thank you for joining us today. As we continue to dispel wellness myths and dismantle the systems that contribute to them, you can find any resource we discussed linked in our show notes, and we'll see you next Wednesday morning for an inside look into cupping therapy with Danielle Ragy. She is a. Key figure in the cupping world in Portland, Oregon. If you don't know what cupping is, you'll have to listen to find out. it's my favorite thing personally. You can find us at wellness.myths on Instagram and Facebook and separately at emilyraewellness and nutritionforgals Bye Ness

Vanessa: 20:50

Bye.