Getting Sober: How Putting Down the Bottle Helped My Surfing

Disclaimer: You shouldn’t quit drinking alcohol cold turkey without first contacting your doctor. Getting sober immediately without proper medical supervision can lead to the following symptoms¹.

Reason #1 – Getting Sober Means No Hangovers

Well, this should not come as a surprise, but no drinking means no hangover. Which, means more time to surf and less time spent nursing yourself alone in bed. And, when you do surf, you will likely be at 100% (also assuming you have had the proper amount of sleep and good nutrition). I don’t think much more has to be said about any of this!

Reason #2 – More Time, Less Days Wasted

When I first quit drinking, I noticed I had so much more time on my hands. At first, it was almost overwhelming how much extra time I had. Quickly, I realized I needed to use this time productively, otherwise, it too would be wasted and could end me back out at a bar.

Now just because you stop drinking doesn’t mean that you are going to have to completely abandon your whole social life. I still will meet up with friends (at bars even) from time to time and have some food. But usually, I won’t stay out for more than a few hours. Now that the tractor-beam effect alcohol has on most people when out at bars is removed, your time spent “out” becomes a lot shorter, allowing more time to engage in more productive activity (like surfing).

Reason #3 – Getting Sober is Great for Weight Loss

When I first started getting sober, I melted the first 20 pounds off of me within about 2 months without really putting any effort forward. My diet was still not great but the pounds kept falling off! Well, apparently when you consume lots of alcohol over long periods your body stores a ton of extra water weight, so this was my body’s response to early sobriety. I noticed the weight loss slowed down once I lost the initial 20 pounds, but I knew my body still had plenty more fat to lose so this is when I started to sharpen up my diet and exercise routine. In the next 4 months, I would lose another 20 pounds.

40 pounds floating on a surfboard can make quite a noticeable difference in floatation. I soon found myself flying around the lineup on boards that used to feel slower to paddle. This becomes especially important when riding smaller boards with less volume, or trying to get in early on bigger waves.

Now, I am not saying that everyone that quits drinking will lose 40 pounds in their first 6 months of being sober, this depends on a lot of different things. I’m already a bigger guy (6’1″) to start with, and by this time in my life, I had been drinking pretty heavily for about 10 years. Everyone’s individual genetics and lifestyle factors are highly variable so you might lose more weight than me, or you might lose less. It just depends. But if you are as overweight as I was (Before: 240 lbs, Now: 200 lbs), becoming sober can certainly catapult your physical fitness in ways that you probably could never achieve while drinking heavily.

Reason #4 – More Focused on Hitting Goals

The Relationship Between Alcohol and Dopamine

Alcohol consumption plays a huge role in the body’s dopamine reward system². When you are consuming alcohol, you are essentially giving your body high and easily accessible hits of dopamine. When you use alcohol frequently it then becomes a psychological reward for your body to consume it, and thus other patterns of disciplined behavior might start to fall by the wayside as a result. You will become less likely to seek out the more difficult tasks and may opt for the quicker and easier ones.

This isn’t to say that all people who drink have problems accomplishing goals or difficult tasks. There are certainly plenty of examples of people that drink yet still accomplish a lot. However, the more your drink and the frequency at which you drink can have a direct impact on your body’s dopamine system, and make you less likely to seek out difficult but highly rewarding tasks.

My Experience Getting Sober

When I was drinking regularly I was not opting for the more difficult but rewarding tasks. More often than not I was just going through the motions trying to scrape by on a day-to-day basis, consuming endless social media content (more cheap hits of dopamine). Now sober, getting better sleep, exercising regularly, eating healthy, and surfing regularly, I have re-wired my brain to opt for the long-term and more difficult yet rewarding tasks (like creating this website for example).

I have certainly been hitting more short, medium, and longer-term goals in my own surfing progression and accomplishing them all at a much faster rate than I was before. This is due to not only the increase in physical fitness but also the increased amount of time spent in the water. More hours spent practicing your surfing during the week is always going to pay off in dividends in the long term.

Reason #5 – Higher Quality Sleep!

After about 4-6 weeks into getting sober, your sleep quality will improve dramatically³. This is because when you consume alcohol chronically⁴ your body activates alpha brain waves which are not normally used for sleep. So even though you might have had 8 hours or more of sleep, you will still likely feel tired and sluggish if you are a frequent user of alcohol.

So, once you get to around 4-6 weeks sober the alpha brain waves are no longer a factor. 6 hours of sleep being sober (past the 4-6 week threshold) to me felt like 8 or 9 hours of sleep when I was consuming alcohol. This was especially important for me, being the dawn patrol surfer that I am. Now, 5 am wake-up calls to get ready to surf and head to work are now a lot easier, my performance is better, and my recovery is faster. Faster recovery = more surf time!

Conclusion

Now, by no means am I saying that everyone who surfs shouldn’t drink ever. Everyone is free to do as they choose! I simply wanted to give some anecdotal context and insight into my own life and routine to share how getting sober helped my surfing. If anything, I hope that this article has convinced someone to take a break from the booze and see if it can help their surfing progression. You never know, you might become addicted to the success and find that maybe you were spending too much time hitting the sauce!

References

1. https://americanaddictioncenters.org/withdrawal-timelines-treatments/cold-turkey
2.  https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6826820/#:~:text=Even%20low%20alcohol%20doses%20can,role%20in%20promoting%20alcohol%20consumption.
3.  https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2936493/
4. https://www.niaaa.nih.gov/alcohol-health/overview-alcohol-consumption/moderate-binge-drinking#:~:text=For%20men%2C%20consuming%20more%20than,than%207%20drinks%20per%20week