Sarah MacKay Robinson recalls the exact moment she started questioning the role that alcohol was playing in her life. It was the day after she finished her crowning athletic achievement: competing at the 2016 Olympic Marathon Trials, the once-in-every-four-years race where the top three finishers earn a precious spot on the US team.
Simply qualifying for the event is a major achievement, and after the race, Sarah celebrated months of intense training by drinking with friends. But while she’s never felt addicted to alcohol or believed that there’s anything wrong with choosing to drink, she began to realise her decision to have a glass of wine a few times a week, or to toast a big moment, wasn’t adding value to her life.
‘I was sitting in the airport, holding my 18-month-old child, a little bit hungover,’ recalls the 40-year-old brand and content specialist. ‘I remember thinking, is this really how I want to feel after one of the biggest and proudest moments in my life? Do I want to be hungover with my kids?’ It wasn’t the first time she’d found herself analysing alcohol’s impact, either.
‘[By that point] I was so tired of questioning whether alcohol was good or bad for me. I wanted to free up that mental space for something else.’ It was around that time that she stopped drinking. Just for a little while at first – on-and-off periods for anything from 30 days to 60 days. And as life went on, those experimental periods grew longer.
High and Dry
Knowingly or not, Sarah joined the ‘sober curious’ movement – an umbrella term used to describe a reduction in drinking, be it in the form of total abstinence or simple moderation. The concept isn’t new, with Dry January and Sober October rising in popularity, but it’s attracting the masses more than ever before.
Last year, sales of no- and low-alcohol drinks grew by 7% around the world, according to Forbes, and European alcohol sales have fallen to below pre-pandemic levels. What’s more, one of the top reasons consumers cited for reeling in their drinking in a recent Nielsen report was improved wellness.
Katie Witkiewitz, director of the University of New Mexico’s Center on Alcohol, Substance Use And Addictions, is delighted by the trajectory. ‘[People are] starting to take a continuum health perspective on alcohol and it’s becoming more socially acceptable to not drink – whether it’s for Dry January or because you’re running a marathon,’ she says, adding that any reduction in drinking may help you be more active or competitive as a result of better sleep, more energy and improved physical function.
Worth a shot
What exactly does a bev here and there do to your performance, anyway? It depends on the person – along with gender, age, body mass and many other variables – when you drink, your body has to process the alcohol, which has no caloric (energetic) value. In turn, this hinders muscle repair and hydration – some of the key components of recovery that allow you to adapt to the stress of training and continue exercising. And the more you drink, the more you wee, further delaying the hydration process.
Alcohol also inhibits protein and carbohydrate intake, which stunts muscle repair, as well as limiting the production of hormones that help grow muscles. And while you may fall asleep a little faster after drinking a cocktail, alcohol decreases the overall quality of your night’s rest. Drinking spurs the liver to metabolise alcohol during the night; as the blood alcohol level decreases, you’re more likely to have sleep disruptions.
Less than ideal, given that high-quality sleep is the most critical aspect of recovery for athletes. Although science can’t entirely prove that quitting drinking for a certain number of days will help you run faster or lift heavier, it’s widely accepted that laying off the drinking – for a day, a week, a year or indefinitely – is more likely than not to positively impact your performance.
Bar class
When dietitian Stevie Lyn Smith trained for Ironman triathlons, she took part in the heavy happy-hour culture that came with them. She’d have a few drinks and get up the next day to train, even when she was hung-over. But when a move coincided with the onset of the pandemic, she tabled her socialising. It didn’t take her long to notice how much better she felt without alcohol – and she had the data to back it up.
Her sports watch tracked stats such as heart rate variability (or HRV – the variation in time between each beat), a measure that increased the less she drank, indicating greater fitness and better recovery. The number usually drops if you’re ill, tired, stressed or otherwise struggling. ‘Because of my Ironman background, I live and die by heart-rate training,’ she explains. ‘When I was drinking, my heart rate was higher and I’d just drag in workouts,’ she says.
While Stevie hasn’t cut out alcohol completely, she describes her drinking as intentional; she’ll go months at a time without drinking, doing so only when she really wants to, like at a restaurant that serves well-made cocktails. She even coaches other athletes on how to fuel their active lives.
And when her clients enquire about cutting down ahead of an endurance event, they have a hunch about what she’s going to say. ‘Most people come to me knowing that drinking is probably not the best choice for their goal,’ she says. And when they begin to be honest about their intake? ‘They tend to at least adjust their behaviours around it because they start to recognise that it’s detrimental,’ Stevie adds.
Half measures
For women considering a cutback, Dr Witkiewitz encourages them to first assess how much they drink by keeping a diary or using one of the many apps that allow you to track your drinking. Sarah uses a free app called I Am Sober, which has a feature that lets you list your reasons for omitting alcohol. When you log in to see how many days you’ve gone without an espresso martini, you’re then reminded of your “why”. When she used sobriety as motivation for a fitness goal, she’d post the date of the race on the app – ‘to have it front and centre’, she says.
After you’ve tracked your drinks for a month or so, identify the sips you could reasonably cut out. Some people choose not to have alcohol on weekdays, for example, or commit to one glass of wine with dinner instead of two. And plan ahead. If you’re looking at total drinks or units per week (under 14, following with the NHS guidelines) and you know you have an event coming up where you’ll want to indulge, adjust your drinking for the rest of the week.
Rachel Gersten, a therapist who removed alcohol to help her manage an inflammatory auto-immune disease, encourages anyone to try a dry period and see what happens. ‘Try to gather information about yourself [and ask] if you’re okay with what you learn,’ she says, adding that most people would be surprised by how much alcohol pops up in their day-to-day life and how it requires intention and awareness to adjust the drinking rituals they’ve become accustomed to.
When Lindsay Riess, 37, begins another 12-week training cycle in which she’ll run up to 70 miles per week to secure a new marathon PB, she cuts out alcohol. She can’t tell if the decision has had any obvious effect on her race results, but the habit makes her feel more healthy overall. Her one exception? The night before the race. ‘One drink dials down the anxiety for me, so that’s my little contradiction,’ Lindsay says.
For her part, Sarah has lasted without a drink for more than two years, earning her fastest marathon time after just three months as a teetotaller. If she does have one regret, it’s this: not doing it sooner. Are you ready to cut back on the cocktails?
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