Your First Year of Sobriety: Positive Physical and Mental Health Changes and Challenges

A month-by-month breakdown of what to expect in your first year of sobriety.

Most people who have been through years of alcohol or drug addiction are nervous about their first year of sobriety. But it can be a great time to work on yourself and your health.

Here are some positive physical and mental health changes you may go through in your first year of sobriety.

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What are some of the physical and mental health changes that you can expect to experience when you stop drinking?

In general, here are some of the physical and mental benefits you can expect during your first year of sobriety.

• You will sleep better. Alcohol interferes with your body’s natural sleep cycle by suppressing the hormones that regulate deep, restorative sleep. Without alcohol, you may find that you can fall asleep and stay asleep much more easily at night and wake up feeling rested in the morning.
• You’ll feel more energetic. Drinking alcohol on a regular basis can lead to fatigue and sluggishness because it dehydrates your body, interfering with the production of adenosine triphosphate (ATP), which is essential for energy production and metabolism.
• Your skin will look better than ever before because alcohol causes dryness and dehydration that result in dullness or sallowness — something we don’t have time for during our first year of sobriety! It also acts like a solvent on healthy skin cells; when those cells die off faster than they can be replaced by new ones, lines appear on our faces making us look older than we really are (which probably isn’t something we want either).

Read about all the benefits you can expect (like reduced rates for cancer and an improved social life, plus all the ones mentioned above) on your first day, week, month, and year of sobriety below.

Photo by Nathan McBride on Unsplash

Alcohol Detox Timeline