Vanity Saved Me?

Okay, I'm just going to say it, being hungover makes you look like shit. You cannot escape that puffy face, red splotches, dull eyes, and balmy skin.

I attempted it for a long time though, I had all the tricks, all the research, all the tools, and knew how to stay looking fresh. I used to literally prime myself before I had a big weekend of drinking with the girls. Water, avocados, extra electrolytes leading up to the big night, recovery drinks, under-eye patches, rehydrating face masks after drinking a lethal dose of wine and mojitos. This was a sport for me, look good, get drunk!

Get drunk, workout hard the next day to sweat it all out! I knew what time I would start to feel better in the day, I had my hangover crushing breakfast ready in the morning. It was like I was pumping all the healthiest micronutrients in my body just to piss them all away with alcohol later that evening.

Anyone else out there feel me on this?

Why is it that so many of us are health freaks, exercise-aholics, yet we binge drink and poison ourselves on a regular basis? Feels a little counterproductive...

I remember when something in my body just let go, it was like alright girl, we held together for a long time through all your bullshit, here's my letter of resignation, we quit. The bags under my eyes had been somewhat of a daily battle but I was always able to overcome them until they just up and quit bouncing back. The puffiness was becoming permanent, the dull eye glare was lasting well into the afternoon until it transcended into a glistening glaze in the evenings after I consumed a few glasses of wine. My skin was parched, it didn't matter how much water I guzzled during the workday, something was broken.

This was right around the time I started to gain more weight than normal. This little hard mass in my upper abdomen started to form, was this a beer gut? My blood pressure was borderline high, things were getting out of wack. I had always had great blood pressure.

It wasn't that I was bigger that bothered me, honestly, this was the first time I had anything above an A cup and I was kind of loving the new curves. It was the fact that I was consuming about an extra day's worth of calories a night because I was massively depressed and drinking to cope, how long was this going to last?

Get this, when I had my bloodwork checked for my yearly checkup there was no sign of heavy drinking present. I even mentioned to my doctor I was struggling and drinking an ungodly amount of alcohol and had plans to hopefully get sober. I don't think she believed me. It's amazing what our bodies will handle... Until they don't.

I had managed to drink "responsibly" (that is a HUGE stretch) for years. What I mean by that is, I wasn't worried. I felt like I was fine and was just one of the crew. Yes, hangovers always sucked and often thought, is this too much? I had always maintained a positive mindset until I guess things just caught up with me and I went off the rails. I hear it's like that for others, I hear there's no going back once you hit a certain point, I definitely hit that point.

Our brains heal and re-wire themselves when you quit but your brain will always be short-circuited if alcohol is present.

Quick Note:

There is a science to this, I'll post a link, but I work best with analogies so here goes:

We get to a point where we realize, "Oh, this is awful, this isn't working for me anymore, I want to quit." So, we quit. We get some time away from alcohol, and after time we slowly (or quickly) forget the reasons why we quit in the first place. Then when we go back to drinking we are right back where we left off within a few days or weeks, and the reasons why we quit quickly reappear.

Okay, so why is it that you end up right where you left off? Alcohol over time creates pretty clear neural pathways in your brain. You know how it takes a long time to form a healthy habit? We have to practice, and work hard at it? Alcohol isn't like that, it's a state-of-the-art neural pathway fiber-optic cable connector, it's there for one reason and it knows its job well. It zings through your brain and makes deep neural pathways in a flash, and for some people, it leaves lifelong receptors/connectors that will always lay dormant while not in use. Lucky us, right? We are all different. That's why alcohol doesn't have that effect on some people, like my husband and some of my best friends. Just like some people taste soap when they eat cilantro and I would die without it on my tacos. We are all different. In my brain, alcohol is like a flash flood re-opening all the neural pathways I was trying to reroute with sobriety, every time I pick up a drink. This can be instant for some, others it will appear years after consuming alcohol like a "normal" drinker, alcohol is addictive, remember?

My hodgepodge rewiring job from sobriety is no match when alcohol hit's my system. My brain does not stand a chance, which is why I chose the removal of all alcohol over moderation.

| Please take time to read this: https://pubs.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/aa77/aa77.pdf

This article does talk about medications to help you quit drinking such as Antabuse, I don't take medications and I am not recommending them by posting this link. This publication gives reliable information on how alcohol in the brain works. |

The damage from that bender may not have long-term effects on my health but that's just a maybe. It may strike back in the form of disease/cancer later down the road. Every time you drink you're sending messages to your body on a cellular level. Your cells take that message and respond with "Okay, guess I'll just die? Thanks a lot." Every. Time. You. Drink.(click for more information on how your cells respond to alcohol in the body) Your cells are like microscopic computers reading data you input and as you're consuming a carcinogen regularly they're malfunctioning and misreading what you want from them. That's why if you treat them with love and give them nutrients, they thank you by helping you look alive and rejuvenized.

Okay, back to being a superficial queen. Even early in your drinking days, you're going to look malaise while hungover but it starts to leave its footprint later down the road when you're like 29...

You can get botox, buy expensive creams, go under the knife, to make it appear that you're not trashing your body every day...

I'm going to be real with you, botox gave me a new lease on life with my face. I could drink as much as I wanted and NO ONE COULD TELL! Those eyebags? Gone. The wrinkles in my forehead giving me a constant resting bitch face? Gone. All for less than you would think.

That little reminder in the back of my head not to go overboard because I needed to look presentable in the morning was washed away. No need to scale back girl, you got botulism on your side now!

This was possibly the worst thing and also the best thing. It allowed me to take this to a whole new level because as long as I kept up my appearances, I was never going to quit drinking. It allowed me to go overboard. That's when my Mental Health stepped in hard.

The thing is you can put bandaids over everything for a long time, your blood work may never come up with anything alarming, even your emotional health can hold one for awhile... Until it doesn't.

Ever have a panic attack? Those are a treat.

If you're drinking and experiencing anxiety the next day, that isn't a coincidence.

Fast forward to today, do I still want to look amazing? Yep, I do. I am a Leo after all, the mirror is my best friend. I regularly work out, eat nutritious food, take vitamins, and buy expensive creams. It's just that this time I'm doing it because I love myself, not to shake a hangover.

Best, Jen