Going Dry

Last weekend on the drive home from our semi-weekly shopping trip, my husband and I discussed how much money we have been spending on alcohol in the past few months and as result how much we have been consuming.

While my husband does not believe that our consumption of alcohol is having any negative effects on us, I suggested that we try to go "dry" for a length of time; in this case stop purchasing and drinking alcohol for a month, maybe two. My theory is that our consumption of alcohol affects us on three levels;
1. Money - we spend money on wine, beer and tequila on a pretty regular basis. 2. Poor Eating - when we drink we make extra trips to the store to buy the alcohol, while there we usually decide we want junk food to go with our alcohol, so we spend more money to eat junk food and don't use the good food we have in the house. 3. Unwanted Habits - drinking on a regular basis the way we do encourages us to sit in front of the t.v. for a couple of hours every night instead of doing all the other things we are always saying we want to do; i.e. exercise, read interesting books, work on our respective businesses we're starting, etc..

My husband has agreed to stop consuming alcohol as long as I track our expenses so we can compare this next month of no alcohol to our previous month of drinking alcohol and see if we really do save money. I already do this tracking on a regular basis as part of our budgeting so it will be no problem to track it going forward. We agreed last Sunday that once the alcohol in the house was gone we would not purchase anymore for a month and I would start tracking. Today starts our first week of alcohol free living and I am very interested to see how it affects our daily lives as well as our bank account.

Ten good reasons to reduce your consumption of alcohol:

1. Extremely Diuretic: causing dehydration; and as a result other health problems.
2. Highly Addictive
3. Weakens the immune system
4. Increases risk of cancers: mouth, esophagus, throat, liver and breast.
5. Liver Damage: Fibrosis, Cirrhosis, Steatosis (Fatty Liver)
6. Heart damage: Cardiomyopathy, Stroke, High Blood Pressure
7. Expensive: alcohol can be a monetary burden due to high costs and repeated expenditure.
8. Drowsiness
9. Lethargy
10. Weight gain – calories from alcohol have no nutritional value for the body,can cause cravings for fatty and sugary foods and mindless eating. 

Just in case you were wondering exactly how many calories you are drinking, here are a few examples:

Tequila: 1.5 ounces = 100 cal =
3 1/4 cups of broccoli.
Hoegaarden Beer: 1 bottle = 176 cal =
25 cups of spinach.
Red Wine: 4 ounce glass = 100 cal =
3 3/4 cups of cherry tomatoes.

That is an incredible amount of veggies for three drinks! I don't think I could eat 25 cups of spinach in a day, but I know that I definitely have consumed three or more bottles of beer in less than six hours.

This week try to substitute one of your alcoholic drinks for a calming herbal tea, a glass of water, or a couple of giant salads!

Wishing you whole health and happiness!