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I didn’t stop drinking for my skin, which feels almost embarrassing to admit after more than 25 years working as a beauty editor. I’d tried every retinol, LED facial, and faddy 24 carat gold-infused cream known to the beauty world, but it never occurred to me that the real game-changer might be quitting alcohol.

When I first decided to go sober, my skin was an afterthought. Like so many women in their forties, I was done with how alcohol was making me feel—permanently rough and anxious—even after just a couple of glasses of wine. I wasn’t someone who drank heavily in my twenties, but over the years, alcohol became threaded through my everyday life: after-work drinks, family parties, a post-putting-the-kids-to-bed treat.

And then almost four years ago, when I was 45, I moved from London to Florida, where it always feels like cocktail o’clock, and that quiet habit turned into something louder. I was also experiencing perimenopause at the time, which didn’t help my drinking. Or my skin for that matter. My tolerance to alcohol was shrinking while my anxiety and sleeplessness were growing. And my skin was suffering too. I noticed sagging creeping into my jawline, lines on my upper lip, worsening pigmentation, more prominent dark circles.

At 48, I’d had enough and decided to give up alcohol—literally overnight—and everything changed.

The very first week, I woke up with a clear head and clearer skin. That short timeline for good results is actually quite common, according to board-certified dermatologist Mona Gohara, MD, especially if alcohol was a regular part of your routine. “Even a week off can be enough for your skin barrier to recover some of its moisture and for inflammation to start calming down,” Dr. Gohara explains. Jessica Krant, MD, a board-certified NYC dermatologist also points out that alcohol is a diuretic, meaning that it causes the body to release more urine and lose water, which is awful news for aging skin, as it is drier by default. “Dehydration can negatively affect your skin by causing it to dry out and become dull and rough," Dr. Krant says. "Lack of hydration can also decrease the skin elasticity, making it saggy and wrinkled, so you appear older than you are.”

Images courtesy subject

A big reason alcohol affects your skin is because of how it can mess with your sleep schedule. “Alcohol disrupts your sleep, and poor sleep raises cortisol, your stress hormone, creating a double-whammy pro-inflammatory state,” Dr. Gohara says. “It also dilates blood vessels, which can worsen redness and flushing.” Within six weeks of giving up drinking, I was sleeping deeply and waking up without that familiar anxiety, or the dryness and puffiness. At nine weeks, I noticed that my skin looked plump—you know, that collagen-rich baby bounce you forget that you once had. People started to comment on how fresh I looked.

By the three month mark, even my two teenage sons were remarking on my sober skin. “It just looks a bit more alive now,” my 14-year-old said bluntly over breakfast one morning. And I knew what he meant. To translate to beauty speak, he noticed the depuffing, the debloating, the clarity. And I noticed it too. I still had some lines and wrinkles that being almost 50 brings of course, but they weren’t as deep and pronounced. I would always wake up with those ugly morning pillow creases on my face, even after drinking just a couple of glasses of wine, but not any more.

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Images courtesy subject

“When your skin is well hydrated and your collagen isn’t under constant assault from alcohol-related inflammation, it’s more resilient, meaning it bounces back faster from pressure,” Dr. Gohara explains. “Alcohol also disrupts sleep quality, reducing the restorative deep sleep that helps skin repair overnight. Better hydration plus better quality sleep means your skin recovers from compression more efficiently, so those creases fade—or never form in the first place.”

Even I, a beauty editor, underestimated the impact sobriety would have on my skin. I’ve been testing skin care for years, but no serum or treatment had ever made this kind of difference. At five months sober, I was waking up with even fewer creases, less congestion, and a brightness that no vitamin C product has ever delivered. I felt like my cheekbones and jawline were more defined, and my glow was closer to its pre-perimenopause spark.

Drinking alcohol also weakens collagen and elastin (the stuff that keeps skin bouncy and firm) and can contribute to volume loss and broken capillaries—the tiny red veins that pop up around the nose and cheeks. “Add in sugary cocktails, juice mixers, or sweet wines, and you're also speeding up glycation, a process where sugar binds to collagen and elastin, breaking them down faster,” notes Dr. Gohara. “That means more wrinkles, sagging, and dullness over time—basically, sugar and alcohol age you from the inside out.”

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Being in the midst of midlife, I had to consider the impact that hormones were also having on my skin, too. “During perimenopause, declining estrogen makes skin thinner, drier, and less elastic,” Dr. Gohara explains. “Alcohol compounds this by further reducing hydration and damaging collagen. It’s like pouring gasoline on an already smoldering fire: Your skin’s more vulnerable, and alcohol makes recovery harder.”

Just over one year in, sobriety hasn’t erased all of my skin concerns. I’m 50 next year and I’m still menopausal, so there’s no doubt that my face is in for lots of changes. But being sober at midlife has definitely given my skin a far better baseline, especially as someone who doesn't get neuromodulator or filler injections.

And there’s the ironic twist: For years, I have shunned toxins like Botox in my skin-care routine, all while quietly nursing the effects of alcohol, also an undeniable toxin. I thought I was making healthy choices, but I was ignoring the one habit that was quietly undoing so many of them.

That’s the unexpected beauty of sobriety: It brings a kind of clarity no serum can deliver. Not just to my skin, but in the way I see myself, my habits, and the way I want to live. So these days, sober is my new skin type—and I’m really comfortable in it.

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