I’ve been on medication for hypertension since my early 30s. “It runs in families,” my doctor said not knowing how alcohol was taking over my life. The lisinopril he prescribed never got me to normal level for 3 obvious reasons:
1. I rarely took the meds. Forget about the morning pill when I was planning to binge drink. My alcoholic mind thought it was the healthy choice to avoid those “dangerous” drug interactions.
2. I kept drinking and eating bar food. Before addiction took over, I had been very careful with my diet. When drunk I craved anything salty and deep-fried – not to mention downing a large pizza on a normal night at home. Drinking and pigging out became something of a ritual.
3. Stress was crazy because my life was falling apart. Marriage conflict, lying to everyone, destroying my career – I had it all plus a houseful of kids. Drinking left me powerless and unable to manage my daily pressures.
After a few weeks of sobriety my blood pressure has shown real improvement. I’m not doing anything special with my diet, at least not yet. I’ve started some exercise but only moderate jogging. The only health change has been giving up the booze.
Since I quit drinking my body is healing itself and I’m following doctors orders. Giving up alcohol has definitely lowered my blood pressure – the three problems I listed above have been reversed.
This wasn’t the main reason I decided to go sober, but it’s a nice side effect.
I’ll celebrate every win I can get.
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