I grew up in an environment where excessive drinking was the norm for 16-22 year olds. In my high school years, it seemed as if everyone I associated myself with would go out drinking pretty much every weekend. This kind of party lifestyle certainly didn’t slow up once I got to college as drinking every weekend soon turned into drinking 3-5 times a week. By the time I graduated, my years of bad nutrition and excessive alcohol consumption had finally caught up to me. I could feel my life slipping away as my psoriasis became uncontrollable and my overall health began to deteriorate.
To answer the question: Does alcohol trigger psoriasis? Yes. Alcohol is one of the worst things to consume if you have psoriasis. Skin disease is closely related to gut health and drinking alcohol can prove to do some real damage to your digestive system. With that said, you do not need to completely eliminate alcohol from your life in order to heal your skin. You simply need to take a step back from drinking for a while and reassess your relationship with alcohol.
NEGATIVE EFFECTS OF ALCOHOL ON YOUR SKIN
As I said, one of the main causes of skin disease is toxic gut health. If your skin is breaking out, odds are you have done some damage to your digestive system. It is crucial that this is corrected if you want to heal your skin. In my experience, nothing interferes with this repair process more than binge drinking. The food that I consume the day after a long night always seems to be digested much slower and less efficiently than usual. I can almost feel my digestive tract struggling to extract nutrients from the food that it is processing.
This hindered digestion is often demonstrated in your stools. Do you ever notice that your stool experiences aren’t always very pleasant after consuming alcohol? I’m sure you have. This is a tell-tale sign that your food was not digested properly. Poop is not something that people love to talk about, but it is a great way to gauge the health of your digestive functions.
Drinking is also famously known for increasing appetite. If you drink, you have most definitely had nights when you have came home and devoured everything in your sight. It goes without saying that this is not moving you any closer to your goal of healing your skin disease through natural methods. There is also something to be said about the types of foods that drinking makes you crave. When you’re intoxicated your body is in a toxic state and it in turn tends to crave more toxic foods. You usually aren’t going to crave any highly nutritious foods that are going to help you heal.
With that in mind, if you do drink too much and need to find a healthier option to soak up all that alcohol, eat some whole grain bread or maybe some oats. You could even make some nut butter toast or whip up some bean or fish tacos. Do whatever you have to do to stay out of the fast food line and away from junk foods.
HOW MUCH CAN YOU DRINK?
If you are currently struggling with psoriasis and want to do whatever is necessary to clear your skin, I would recommend that you completely stay away from drinking at least until your skin shows some real signs of improvement. Does this mean that having a drink or two is going to ruin any progress you’ve made? No. But it also isn’t going to do you any favors.
Honestly, going out and drinking should be the last thing on your mind during the healing process. Yes, passing on weekend plans can be frustrating at first. Don’t worry, it won’t last forever. Just try to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Show some self control and dedication and it will pay off.
Once you have reached a point with your skin that you are comfortable with incorporating some alcohol back into your life, then reward yourself with the occasional drink or night out. One of the most impactful lessons that you can learn on your healing journey is how to listen to your body. Once you start to reintroduce alcohol to your system, be sure to pay attention to how your body is reacting to it. This kind of body awareness can be used as a sort of gauge to determine what and how much you should be drinking.
Another thing to keep in mind is that alcohol is not always going to produce negative skin effects righty away. Sometimes you will feel great the day of drinking and have no negative symptoms the following day. In my experience, this is quite common and the real negative skin effects of the alcohol don’t really show until 3-4 days later. These “negative skin effects” often come in the form of sweating and minor to moderate breakouts. This goes for everything you put in your body. The cause and effect are not always back to back. Often times you have to take a look back on the last week or the last month when searching for the cause of your skin reaction.
How much do I drink? I would say that I drink once a week on average. Sometimes that one day is spent on a night out with friends, sometimes it is just a few glasses of wine after dinner, and sometimes I don’t drink at all. I’m not worried about drinking hurting my skin progress at this point. I feel like I have a health understanding of the role that drinking plays in my life.
HEALTHIEST ALCOHOL OPTIONS
While I don’t think I would place any alcohol consumption under the category of “healthy”, there are ways that you can drink that will do less damage to your skin health. Learning how to do minimal damage to your gut while drinking is very important if you do choose to drink.
As my relationship with alcohol has changed, so have my drink choices. In the past, my favorite drinks were Bud Light and Jack and Coke. While I still do like drinking beer and whiskey, I usually don’t drink beer all night when I’m out like I used to and I’ve ditched pop all together. Nowadays I’ve learned to appreciate and savor my drinks. I now prefer drinks such as gin and tonic or manhattans. I have found that drinking is more enjoyable when you really enjoy the drinks themselves rather than just the feeling they give you.
Just to be clear, I don’t think that gin and tonics and manhattans are the healthiest drink options. If you are looking for the absolute healthiest option, I would suggest you drink your favorite liquor mixed with water and maybe a fruit garnish such as a fresh squeezed lemon or lime. Clear liquor such as vodka or gin is probably your best bet. But if you are a dark kind of person, some whiskey with a little water can work for you.
IS SMOKING MARIJUANA BAD FOR PSORIASIS?
Although smoking marijuana does not seem to have a real noticeable negative impact the skin healing process, it is important to understand that to much of anything is never good. While I do think that smoking marijuana can be included in healthy lifestyle, too much of it can really throw off the spiritual balance of many people and lead to a difficult road to recovery.
Smoking marijuana can be a very relaxing and enjoyable experience. But I have found that it is very easy to get carried away and become mentally addicted. So I guess my advice would be: Go ahead and enjoy some marijuana. Just be cautious that it does not become a bigger part of your life than it should be.
The fact that you are inhaling smoke is another thing to consider. Marijuana smoke is substantially less harmful than say tobacco smoke. With that in mind, I find that more often than not, people tend to smoke using unhealthy or dirty devices. If your bowl is filled with resin or your bong water is dirty, that is not going to have a positive effect of your lungs or your overall health. Smoking blunts with cigar wraps is also not the healthiest choice in the world. I’m not saying that smoking blunts or dirty bowls is going to kill your health progress, it is just something to consider.
DEVELOPING A NEW RELATIONSHIP WITH DRINKING
The bottom line is, you are never going to heal your skin while drinking alcohol. The negative effects of drinking will undoubtedly hinder your progress and leave you feeling frustrated. It is crucial that you completely stay away from alcohol in the beginning stages of your healing process. But as I stated earlier, you do not need to completely eliminate drinking from your life in order to be free of skin disease. The real key is to develop a new relationship with drinking and reevaluate the role that it plays in your life.
As with any other cravings, your cravings for alcohol will become less and less powerful the longer you stay away from it. If you are currently drinking several times a week, refraining from going out to the bar or having a few beers on your couch after a long day is going to be a bit difficult at first. Just know that in time this will become much easier as your brain begins to separate itself from the effects of alcohol.
Also, instead of feeling sorry for yourself when you are stuck at home while your friends are out partying, find something productive to do with your time. It sounds cliche, but this is important. Is your limited free time really best spent out at the bar drinking? Or do you think your time might be better spent doing something that is going to help move you closer to your goals. Imagine if you spent those free hours developing skills for your dream job or hitting the gym to get yourself in the best shape of your life. Be competitive. Do what other people aren’t doing. This kind of mentality is exactly what you need to not only heal your skin but also become the great human being you envisioned yourself becoming as a child. Just a thought.
