Did we blast our brains beyond repair with all of our drinking?

What if you drink heavily for decades?

Does it mean that you're doomed?

In this episode, I'm explaining a ton of different studies on brain recovery in sobriety.

You'll learn what to expect as you get more sober time, if our brains make a full recovery, how long it takes to see improvement,

how drinking less impacts your brain Jill and today we are talking

brain recovery. So as you may know, alcohol damages the whole brain. It damages neurons in every

area. It inhibits the functioning of every brain mechanism, alters the activity of all of our neural

pathways, and it increases the risk of developing neurological diseases and disorders like seizures,

having a stroke, brain cancer, and dementia. But it is not all that bad. According to the NIH, partial repair of some of the structural

changes to the brain can occur within just the first few months of sobriety. And the most noticeable

and important recovery effects occur in the first year. To get the full benefits, though, those will peak at around five to seven years.

And the level of damage and the time it takes for your brain to recover depends on a lot of different factors,

like how long you drink heavily, how much you drink, if you use any other drugs, including tobacco, your genetics, family history of alcohol

use disorder, how many relapses you've had, and lifestyle factors like diet and exercise.

I've done a few episodes recently on how multiple cycles of withdrawal affects the brain,

so make sure to check those out too.

Alcohol shrinks the brain, and it does this by dehydrating us and depleting the brain of water.

Around 80% of the brain is water, so you can imagine water's pretty important.

A small decrease in brain hydration can cause issues with memory and executive

functioning. It can cause brain fog and shrink your brain. I remember when I was 60 days sober,

it felt like I had woken up from a dream and I could finally think again. There's a lot of brain

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