How Quitting Alcohol Changed My Skin And Sleep

Alcohol can feel like a small, normal part of life until you realize it’s quietly pulling the same biological levers that drive acne. I’m Dr. Stacy Shillington, a naturopathic doctor who’s helped women heal acne for 20 years, and I’m sharing the personal turning point that made me stop drinking for good and why the results shocked me even with all my clinical knowledge. My skin improved, my mood steadied, and after nearly a decade of insomnia, I finally slept deeply again and woke up rested.

We break down the real connection between alcohol and acne: not that alcohol directly “causes” breakouts, but that it amplifies the pathways behind hormonal acne and inflammatory acne. You’ll hear how alcohol spikes blood sugar, insulin, and IGF-1 to stimulate oil production, how it raises inflammatory cytokines and oxidative stress, and how it can overload liver detox so hormone metabolism slows. We also talk about the gut-skin axis, because gut lining irritation and microbiome disruption often show up on the skin, especially when you’re already acne-prone.

If you’re not ready to quit completely, I still want you to have options. I share practical, skin-friendly harm reduction tips like choosing lower-sugar drinks (dry wine, champagne, tequila with soda, vodka, gin), avoiding sugary cocktails and beer, eating protein or fat before drinking, hydrating with electrolytes, and supporting detox with cruciferous vegetables and antioxidant-rich foods. I also explain why alcohol wrecks deep sleep, drives cortisol higher, and slows skin healing, which is often the missing piece for persistent breakouts.

If you want a structured clear skin plan, I’ll point you to my seven-week clear skin program and my one-on-one program for complex cystic acne cases. Subscribe, share this with a friend on a clear skin journey, and leave a review if it helps so more women can find this support.

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Transcript

Welcome To Clear Skin Sessions

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to Naturopathic Beauty's Clear Skin Sessions where we heal your acne from the inside out. Hello, beauties, and welcome to the Clear Skin Sessions. I'm Dr. Stacy Shillington, Naturopathic Doctor, and I have been helping women heal their acne for 20 years. This podcast is for you. If you are on a clear skin journey, my intention is to give you tips and tricks to help you get clear skin quickly. And today I want to talk about something that affected me not only on a physical level very, very, very deeply, but also an emotional, a mental level, and it impacted my lifestyle just tremendously. I mean, my life has never been the same since I stopped drinking alcohol. And I want to tell you a little bit about why I decided to quit alcohol, what the actual impetus was behind that decision, and the changes that I saw. So, you know, I grew up in the 90s and the 2000s. I was born in 73. So my the youth culture that I was surrounded by, it was a party culture. We went out drinking and partying all the time. That is what we did. And, you know, so I I it was just very normal for me to go out for dinner and have a bottle of wine with friends, get really tipsy, sometimes really, really tipsy, and just go nuts. And that's what I did for years and years and years. And of course, this entire time I was having difficulty with my skin. I was trying different things. Some things would improve it, some things would make it worse. You know, sometimes I reduced the amount of alcohol that I was drinking, and that did make it make a difference. But, you know, I never really fully gave up alcohol because it was just such a normal part of my life. And then 13 years ago, my husband hit rock bottom. And, you know, this happens to a lot of alcoholics. And yes, my husband actually is an alcoholic, and I want to share a little story with you. So on our first or second date, he asked me to go to a wedding with him. It was mutual friends, we're getting what ready, we're getting married. And during that wedding, I actually kept count because I had recently left my previous husband, who was an alcoholic. I know this sounds very, very messy, and it kind of was, but I was really sensitive to alcoholism and men getting drunk at this point in time. Anyways, I was counting the amount of drinks that he was drinking. He ended up drinking 14 rye and cokes in one night. Like just wrap your head around that. Like, that's a hell of a lot of alcohol. And I brought that up. I was like, Tim, you know, that you drank 14 rye and Cokes. That's a lot of alcohol, but he was funny, he was nice, he was charming. And, you know, I let it slide. So years later, you know, we are married, we have two babies, and the drinking is seriously out of control. Like to the point where I'm like, I think I'm gonna have to leave this man. Like, I can't live like this anymore. My health, my nervous system, everything was not going very well. And I did not think he'd ever stop drinking because right now the drinking is really coming between us. And then one night, I don't, I don't even know exactly what happened. I kind of have an idea. But he came home, he sat on the porch, he asked me to come downstairs. I didn't he said, I'm never gonna drink again in my life. To me, this was very hopeful. I didn't know if I believed it for sure at this point, because honestly, I was getting ready to leave, leave him. And I was like, Well, okay, if you're gonna stop drinking, then obviously I'm gonna stop drinking too, because I can't imagine an alcoholic trying to stop drinking while his partner's still drinking. To me, that sounded insane. So, you know, we both stopped drinking that very day. And by the way, neither of us have had a single drop of alcohol since that night on the porch. That was 13 years ago. So that is how I stopped drinking. It wasn't, I didn't think about it, you know, it wasn't something I planned for a long time. It's something I just did in the spur of the moment because my husband was having difficulty and I thought he needed my support. So, what happened next in terms of my health was a crazy shock to me. And it shouldn't have been a shock because I'm a naturopathic doctor. I understand the physiology of the body, but it wasn't until I actually experienced it myself that I was like, oh gosh, this is a really big deal. Drinking alcohol is not a good idea. It hit me hard. So right away my skin improved dramatically for sure. I mean, my skin wasn't doing bad at this point in time, but I was still getting brand and breakouts here and there. But when I stopped the alcohol, I noticed a massive difference in my skin. And we're gonna talk a little bit more about skin and alcohol in a second. The other thing that really changed in my life was my ability to sleep, to get deep sleep, to sleep through the night. So, you know, up until this point, I'd have, you know, a couple of glasses of wine here and there. Um, I wasn't a heavy drinker at this point, but I still had wine in my life. But once I cut it out completely, the sleep that I got, I cannot tell you how that changed my life. Suddenly I was sleeping through the night. I was waking rested. And guys, this is after almost a decade of insomnia. And, you know, we can talk about that. That's a whole other podcast episode. But just to be able to sleep changed my life. It changed everything for me. So just because of that, I will never drink again because I love my sleep and I realize just how much alcohol affected my sleep. And everything else in my body just seemed to regulate all of a sudden. And of course, I don't need to tell you this, but you know, things in my relationship improved tremendously. You know, my family life was so much better. I can't, I can't even tell you what it's like to go from having a partner who's drunk all the time and turning into an angry drunk to having a partner who's healing. You know, it's not always an easy journey, but he's healing, he's becoming aware, he's apologizing, he's doing better, like beyond grateful. Like the gratitude that I experienced was just next level. So that is why I stopped drinking. That's the whole story behind it. And of course, recovery from alcoholism for my husband, it hasn't always been easy, and it's definitely a it's it's a process, and it's still a process. I mean, he's still an addict, you know, he still has this tendency, but we know how to deal with it at this point. But what happened? My sleep became deeper, my skin became clearer, my mood became steadier, my nervous system started to calm down. And the interesting thing about this, because everybody that's listening to this, you know, you deal with acne. And many of the same biological pathways that alcohol affects are the exact pathways that drive acne. And this is one of the reasons why I get so excited when I have a patient who's drinking alcohol on a regular basis, and you know, I get her to remove that alcohol. I get so excited by the changes that happen. Like, really, this is like the excitement that I get in my life. So let's talk a little bit about what alcohol actually does to your body. So it doesn't directly cause acne, but it amplifies biological pathways that drive breakouts. So, number one, one of the things alcohol really does is it spikes blood sugar and insulin levels. And we all know, or maybe you don't know, but when insulin spikes, it also increases a hormone called IGF-1, insulin-like growth factor. And this stimulates sebaceous glands. So this is going to increase oil production in your skin directly. So when you're drinking alcohol, it's like opening up oil production in your in your skin pores. It's just what's going to happen physiologically because of the surge in insulin. The other thing that alcohol does is it's very pro-inflammatory. So it's going to increase inflammatory cytokines in the body. That promotes oxidative stress. And this is going to drive acne, especially cystic acne. So when we have increased inflammation systemically, we're going to experience inflammation in the skin. Specifically, if you're prone to acne, that's where inflammation is going to show up. So some people, they're not prone to acne. That's not the way their physiology works. So their bodies can be incredibly inflamed and their skin could still be crystal clear, which I know to all of us can be incredibly frustrating to watch somebody doing all the bad things and still having clear skin. But unfortunately, that's the way it is. You know, we have to keep our bodies healthy and free of inflammation to experience the beautiful skin that we're all after. The other thing that, you know, you know, is such a big driver behind acne and alcohol is the liver. So the liver is the organ that's responsible for metabolizing alcohol. That means breaking down alcohol. And alcohol is so toxic within the body that the liver is going to stop clearing hormones and inflammatory metabolites so it can focus on getting that alcohol out of your body. So what we have is we get a toxic buildup of other toxins because our body has to deal with the alcohol so quickly. This means it's going to slow hormone metabolism. It means that inflammatory compounds are going to start to accumulate. So this can really contribute to hormonal acne. If you drink alcohol, chances are you may have a stronger predisposition to hormonal acne. So, and you know, the skin is the largest detoxification organ in the body. So if the liver's busy with other things, other toxins are gonna, or the body is going to start detoxing through the skin. So this is a really big deal. It's something really important to think about. And also alcohol, it can irritate the gut lining, it can disrupt the microbiome. And we know what's happening in the gut is going to be reflected on the skin. It's a very powerful gut-skin axis. And then, like I already alluded to, alcohol, it can make you feel tired initially, but it's going to disrupt deep restorative sleep cycles. So you are going to have poor sleep when you drink. You're going to have higher cortisol levels, which leads to more inflammation, slower skin healing, increased oil production, increased androgen signaling. So when you're drinking alcohol, when you're not sleeping well, when your cortisol is high, your skin is going to flare. Like, okay, so by now you're getting the picture. You're understanding, okay, alcohol is really not working, you know, for my skin. And of course, alcohol acts as a diuretic as well. So it's going to make you pee. When you pee, you lose electrolytes. And this was going to dehydrate your skin cells. It's going to deplete important minerals such as magnesium and potassium. And these minerals are essential for your nervous system regulation and cellular repair. So as you can see, there are so many critical pathways in the body that alcohol affects. And all these pathways happen to be the same pathways that are involved in acne. So I know, big sigh. If you are a girl out there that likes to have a few drinks, but you're also struggling with your skin, what are you going to do? So my first answer would be please stop drinking because you are going to feel so much better. And I'm just saying that because that was my experience. It was like a huge aha kind of like revelation for my biology. It was just like, oh, I feel free, I feel happy, I feel calm, my skin is clear. It was so great for me to stop drinking. But, you know, some people, you may be in those years where you're out partying a lot. Believe me, I've been there. I understand that. I understand what it's like to hang out with your friends and have a really great time with a few drinks. I know what that's like. So what are you going to do if you still want to drink? Number one, you're going to choose a lower sugar alcohol, such as a dry red wine or a white wine, a champagne or maybe a tequila with soda water or a vodka or a gin. You want to stay away from the cocktails that have a lot of sugar. You want to stay away from beer. You want to stay away from alcohol that's going to spike those insulin levels. Now, alcohol is just going to spike it on its own. You're not completely out of the woods, but you can reduce the damage by choosing a lower alcohol, um, alcohol, a lower sugar alcohol. Um, also drink slowly, limit the quantity. So if you're gonna go out, you're gonna have a few drinks, maybe just have one. And, you know, don't have six or seven drinks, don't have a whole bottle of wine. Try, try and mitigate the damage. Um, you know, I get it. I know what a full night of partying is look like, looks like, but I really feel like we've kind of we're past that now. Like I watch what my teenagers do, and it's so different from what I did as a teen. Like, I really feel like younger people are so much more intelligent than my generation was when we were teens. Like we were just wild. We had no idea about anything, we had no social media. We did not know what alcohol did to our body. But now, young people, they have access to all this amazing information. My kids know so much that they would, they do not want to even touch alcohol. I don't think either of my kids have ever even had a drink. And part of that is because they know what alcoholism can do because of their dad. But, you know, they just under, I mean, kids are so smart nowadays. I just have to say that. Um, the other thing, eat before drinking. So do not drink on an empty stomach. Oh, good Lord, please don't do that. When you have some fat or protein before you have alcohol, you are going to protect your stomach, number one. You are gonna prevent insulin surges, number two, and you're going to reduce the hormonal cascade that can worsen acne. And the other thing you want to do is hydrate with electrolytes. So, you know, don't just keep drinking alcoholic drinks. We've already talked about that. But after you have a drink, have some water with electrolytes. You know, rehydrate your body. You don't want to slip into that state of dehydration. And the other thing you can do is support detoxification. We already talked about how toxic alcohol metabolites can be. We want to support the liver because your liver is going to have to deal with that. Um, some things that you can do: cruciferous vegetables, lemon water, bone broth, berries, antioxidant-rich foods. Make sure to incorporate some of these things into your diet before and after you do drink. And, you know, you can choose cleaner alcohol as well. Definitely go for organic wines, um, organic spirits. This is only going to help because when we remove pesticides, when we remove additives, automatically that's gonna be easier for your liver. So hopefully this makes sense. Gosh, I am just so excited about this topic because just by eliminating alcohol or following these guidelines that I've suggested, you are going to reduce the effect of alcohol on your physiology tremendously. But it's, let's be honest, it's not just about the physiology. It's also about the mental, about the emotional impact of alcohol. And I'm definitely uh very passionate about this because my life has been deeply, deeply affected by alcohol. I can't, I can't emphasize this enough. I've had two alcoholic husbands. I've seen how alcohol deeply affects people. And of course, if you're a person that just goes out and has a drink here or there, I mean, obviously you don't fall into this camp, but obviously I'm like a little bit more emotional about this than most people will be because, you know, I've been personally affected. But if you are that person that likes to have a few drinks, follow the guidelines that I've talked about in this podcast and consider having periods of completely cutting alcohol out. When people come to me and they start working with me, I absolutely encourage them to just cut out the alcohol. Allow us to repair your body. Let me repair your gut. Let me heal your nervous system, let me support detoxification, let me completely, you know, restore nutrients at a cellular level. Because once I've done that, your body is far more resilient. You're gonna be able to tolerate a little bit of alcohol. You're gonna be able to eat the foods you want, you're gonna have clear skin because when I can rebuild your body, your body is gonna completely shift how it reacts to certain things, including alcohol, including those foods that trigger acne. It's absolutely amazing what happens when we heal the body. We are actually really, really resilient creatures. Um, but you know, we have to, we have to make sure we're healthy in order to experience that resilience. So I hope that this podcast has been helpful. Hopefully, you've learned a little something. Hopefully, you're inspired, you know, to maybe not have as much alcohol or maybe drink differently, or maybe just stop drinking. So I am sending you guys so much love. If you're interested in working with me and my team, check out the show notes. I have my seven-week clear skin program. And to be honest, this is where everybody should start their clear skin journey. Jump into this program. I've been healing acne for 20 years. This program I launched, my online program in 2017. I've been refining it for years. Thousands of women have gone through it. This is really my masterpiece. And 90% success rate, it is going to take you on your clear skin journey. All those things we just talked about repairing your gut, your nervous system, supporting detox, really creating a resilient body so that you have clear skin. That's what I walk you through in my seven-week clear skin program. Everybody needs to do this program. It's a super great price point. Um, it should be available for everybody to take advantage of. The the um link to learn more is in the show notes. Then I also have my one-on-one clear skin program. This is the program that you need to be a part of if you have chronic deep cystic acne. I really specialize in treating the most complex cases of acne. And if you've been struggling for a long time, you've tried everything and nothing's worked, there's likely something going on. We need to figure out what it is. Is it mold? Is it parasites? What kind of infections do you have? What's going on at a cellular level? Maybe you have genetic polymorphisms, you're not able to reduce, you know, free radicals easily. So we need to figure out what's going on in your body, and then we heal based on test results. We put together an individualized protocol for you, and we we work with you for seven months at least. Or, you know, some people heal before that, but the program is seven months. So we are with you every step of the way. We are healing your body, we are creating that resiliency. It is like the ultimate before and after makeover, which gets me very excited. And, you know, the link to that program is in your the show notes as well. And if you leave a review for this podcast, if you've enjoyed it, I am really excited to offer you, offer you one, offer you into the first module of the seven-week clear skin program for free. So I want you to experience it. I want you to understand my methodology and how I take women through their clear skin journey, which is the greatest pleasure of my life. I love to do it. So links to all those things are in the show notes. And thank you so much for joining me. And I will see you in my next podcast.