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Should I Quit Drinking Alcohol During Menopause & Why Is It So Hard to Cut Down?

Joanne Fazel • Sep 06, 2022

Do I need to stop drinking alcohol now I'm menopausal?  Why am I Finding It Hard to Cut Down?

Are you somebody that really enjoys having a drink?  Do you really look forward to that glass of white wine that's chilling in the fridge maybe after a hard day, or do you associate Friday night with having a few drinks with friends in the pub?  Is any kind of social occasion synonymous with having a drink a drink or two?

If so, then you aren’t alone. 

 Alcohol for many of us plays an important part in our lives. However, as you transition through the menopause you may have found that alcohol exacerbates your symptoms and it’s got you wondering whether it’s actually a good idea to carry on drinking or whether you should now be looking a little more closely at whether cutting down might help you to feel better.

However, when it comes to making changes to diet and lifestyle in order to reduce menopause symptoms, alcohol is often not the first thing women want to tackle and it’s common to find it quite hard to think about reducing drinking because it is often closely tied to our social habits.

In this blog post I wanted to explain just what alcohol affects in terms of menopause symptoms so that you can decide for yourself whether you think cutting back might be beneficial to you, and then explore why it might prove harder than you think and some strategies to help you overcome the challenges. 

Impact of Alcohol on Menopause Symptoms

Let's start with some of the reasons why alcohol during the menopause is really not helping. 

• Impact on blood sugar balance

As we go through menopause our levels of oestrogen reduce. This has an impact on insulin sensitivity and control and can lead to blood sugar imbalance. When this happens, it causes a knock-on effect to other hormones such as our stress hormone, cortisol.

It can make a whole host of your menopause symptoms worse such as weight gain, sleep, anxiety, brain fog and hot flushes.

• Impact on brain chemicals

Alcohol interferes with certain brain chemicals which are responsible for mood. So, if you are finding that mood swings are a problem for you and you are swinging wildly between feeling really sad and emotional and screaming with rage the next minute, alcohol may be making this worse.

• Depletes B Vitamins

Your body has to detox alcohol from its system via the liver but this takes up energy and depletes B vitamins in order to do so. But B vitamins are very important to give us enough energy to function so if you are using them up detoxing, you could feel fatigued.

• It’s a diuretic

This means that it will dry out your skin, but also exacerbate vaginal dryness which is common during menopause. And if you are suffering with bladder leakage or urgency the diuretic effect of alcohol will also make this worse.

• Impact on bone renewal

We start to rapidly lose bone mass as we go through the menopause which can contribute to osteoporosis. Alcohol interferes with bone renewal and so speeds up the bone loss.


These are just a few of the reasons why alcohol can really affect your menopause symptoms. But even if you know this (and a lot of women do), why does it feel so hard to give it up? Why do I find that clients quite often don't want to discuss the idea of reducing their drinking and prefer to focus on other aspects of diet and lifestyle change?

Reasons Why Giving Up or Reducing Alcohol Intake May be Harder Than you Think

The main reason really is that our alcohol intake can have some very strong social or emotional habits associated with it. So, for example, if you are always having a drink with a particular friend on a particular evening, in a particular place, they become very strongly associated with each other and with the emotions that that scenario brings.

If in that scenario you see it as having a lot of fun, you're really enjoying yourself, or maybe it’s your release of stress from the working week and calms you, those emotions are powerful. It creates this linking of the activity of having the drink with the expectation of how you are going to feel. You may associate it with increasing your confidence in a social situation and reducing your inhibitions. You might feel it stops you looking boring. And you may have had a lot of practice repeating the same habit in the same scenario over and over again.

It could be to do with expectations of others. So, if it's somewhere that you go and the people with you also drink, it can feel like there's an expectation that you should drink too. It could be as a way of connecting with somebody, whether it's something you do with a partner at home after work or in a social setting with friends where you put the world to rights over a bottle of rose.  Or perhaps you feel like it's a treat and it's something that you reward yourself with or maybe you use it as a way to escape the frustration of insomnia.


Think about the scenario’s alcohol inhabits for you

It’s important to really think about in what scenarios does drinking come up for you. It can be hard because if you are used to drinking with people who all drink and they don't understand why you might not want to drink, it can make you feel like you are not really part of something anymore. Like you have removed yourself from something that bonded you together.

That can be really, really hard to break out of if you feel you're going to be judged or worried that you are going to be questioned constantly by people about your decision. I'm not going to say that that won't happen because I have experienced that myself on many occasions where others really find it hard to believe that it's possible to go out in situations and have a good time and talk to people and enjoy yourself without having alcohol. But I have learned over the years to really make sure that I'm connected with why I'm doing it, what my motivation is for not drinking. 

And it's very important to me.

It's important to my health. And, and I know that I'm going to feel far better in myself if I have something other than alcohol in those kinds of social situations, or even if I'm at home and feeling sad or super stressed. 
I keep that motivation forefront all of the time. 

And then I expect that I'm going to get questions so I'm not bamboozled by them. I have my answer ready as to why it is that I don't drink. You'll find that some people just accept your explanation. Others will confide that they, too, want to reduce their intake. You'll also find though that some people think it's their mission to try and change your mind and will attempt to badger & cajole you into having a drink.

You need to understand that that's coming from a place of their own insecurity. It's not really coming from a place of concern for your wellbeing. No matter how much they might say ‘you need to loosen up’ or ‘you're going to enjoy yourself more’, their comments are really just linked to how strongly they associate their own feelings and emotions with drinking and what it might mean about them.

So, you have to make sure that you're not taking on somebody else's feelings and opinions. Be strong in what you are doing it for, move on and don't get swayed. Eventually it won’t be a big issue and your friends or partner will see that drinking less doesn’t make you any less fun or able to connect.

My Challenge to You

So, if you are thinking about reducing your alcohol intake to help reduce menopause symptoms and improve your health through this transition, my challenge for you comes in 3 steps:


Step 1: Audit Your Intake

Make a note of every time you drink – where it was, what time and who you were with. Note down how you were feeling at the time and what you were expecting to feel. This helps you to start to uncover the pattern and how your emotions might be linked to that habit.

Even if you want a drink, but don’t have one, it’s still worth noting the above down.

Step 2: Make a list of alternatives

Cutting down on alcohol doesn’t mean you have to have boring drinks. Of course, you’ll want to be mindful of choosing alternatives that aren’t full of sugar but there are plenty of options which have less sugar than a standard fizzy drink.

By thinking ahead about what you could have instead you can make sure you have some available in the fridge or are less likely to be swayed at the bar as you have options in mind.

Some suggestions could be:

A comforting, warm drink like a fruit or herbal tea
Sparkling water with a dash of elderflower or lime cordial, ice & a slice & sprig of mint
Zero alcohol alternatives such as Seedlip Botanical with tonic
Non-alcoholic beer
Kombucha

Step 3: Make a Commitment

Now you've done your audit, have a look see where the low hanging fruit is - where are the drinks that would be the easiest to swap to something else? Then make a commitment to yourself that you're going to swap out those drinks.  

You don’t have to completely give up if you don’t want to, but even just cutting down will bring you benefits.


If you’re experiencing menopause symptoms which are getting in the way of living and enjoying your life and want to be able to handle the hormonal havoc so that you can feel like yourself again, then you’ll want to know about my 12-week 1:1 menopause health coaching program. 

Take away the overwhelm of not knowing what you should be eating or which lifestyle interventions will be of most benefit to you to soothe your symptoms and be guided & fully supported to confidently get back to a life and body you love.

Find out more by booking a free VIP Menopause Empowerment Call with me now at https://calendly.com/feelgoodforlife


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