This is Annie Grace and you're listening to this naked mind podcast where without judgment,

pain or rules, we explore the role of alcohol in our lives and culture.

I hope everybody is doing awesome. I get asked this question all the time and I wanted to answer it again

because I feel like it's just such a cool question. The question is, Annie, are you really having more fun now that you don't drink?

And when I was drinking a lot, pretty much every day, there was a few days here and there a year where I would feel like,

you know, get the flu or something and I wouldn't drink. But mostly I was drinking every day.

And one of the main reasons I gave for drinking was that it was fun. Like it was fun at all. It made fun, you know, parenting more fun.

It made socialization more fun. It made business more fun. It made networking more fun. It made sales meetings more fun and on and on and on.

It made sex more fun. All of these things. And so it's like, how am I like that would suck not to drink? Of course, it would be like so boring, right?

And so now fast forward. It's been almost five years since I've, you know, really drank alcohol on any sort of consistent basis.

And the question is, okay, is it really more fun to not drink? And it's amazing. I feel like, okay, so I have some definitive evidence for you.

I was on three antidepressants and a sleeping medication when I was drinking regularly. And I take no antidepressants anymore, no antidexiety and no sleeping medication.

So just like kind of empirically, I think that's pretty good evidence. But the truth is, like, how do I feel every day? Do I smile more? Am I more relaxed? Am I happier? Am I having more fun or things more fun?

So something happens to me that it probably took, you know, a while for kind of me to get back on my feet and stuff.

But I can laugh, like, to the point where I must pee my pants, I can eat your old, like laugh hysterically to where you cannot breathe anymore.

And yeah, I was laugh when I was drunk or when I was drinking, but not in that sort of way that, or if I did, I was so drinking, I didn't really remember it.

And so I now know that there's so much science behind the fact that alcohol really steals the brain's ability to have fun.

And there's all these complicated chemicals and scientific processes behind that, which you can find out in my podcast or reading this naked mind or the alcohol experiment.

I go into all that detail. But trust me when I tell you that scientifically, alcohol can rob you of that ability to, like, laugh like an eight-year-old and just have so much fun.

Now, if you don't want to take my word for it, there was this study done by, I think, it was the Royal College of London.

And it said, a four-week break in alcohol.

People reported being 92% like much happier.

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