My skin was the last thing on my mind when I stopped drinking after 20 years of weekend binges and using wine to self-medicate. Sure, I expected clearer skin to be one of the welcome side effects, like having more disposable income and remembering everything from the night before. What I didn’t expect was how big a part of my recovery my skin-care regimen would become.
During my drinking days, it was less of a regimen and more of a two-second attempt at wiping my face. But even that simple step was too much to expect on the nights I woke up at 3 a.m. after crashing out on the sofa, or slipped into bed racked with self-loathing, unable to make eye contact with my sad face in the bathroom mirror. How could I possibly cleanse, tone, and moisturize when I couldn’t even manage to look at myself?
But when I stopped drinking almost two years ago, I suddenly had the time—and the inclination—to do Things Other People Did, like taking my makeup off properly.
“Many patients are not aware of just how much time they are spending accessing, using, or recovering from the effects of alcohol or drugs,” Timothy K. Brennan, M.D., director of the Fellowship in Addiction Medicine Program at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, tells SELF. “When people get sober, they suddenly have a lot of extra time on their hands. Filling that time with healthy habits is crucial.”
After spending years relying on a cursory wipe with disposable cloth, I suddenly wanted to do more. I wanted to be kinder to myself—and my skin seemed like an easy, no-pressure place to start. A baby step.
I took a bath. A long bath with a candle and nice oil and a closed door. I did the same the next night, and the night after that. I listened to recovery podcasts and read words written by other brave people who chose a life without alcohol. And I did it all in my new favorite place: the mini spa I had created within the safety of my own four walls.
The more sober days I clocked, the better my skin looked—no longer dehydrated from alcohol, its newfound glow was further boosted by oils, moisturizers, and face masks.
Bath time served another purpose—a quiet acknowledgement of the fact that I’d reached the end of another day without opening a bottle of wine. Over time, that ritual evolved into a deeper commitment to my skin-care regimen. As I noticed the positive effects of an alcohol-free lifestyle on my skin (replacing wine with water is a game-changer), I realized I had to take proper care of it.
In fact, taking care of your skin can tap into an important theme in long-term addiction recovery: the importance of developing goals, activities, and rituals that improve physical and mental health and well being, Suzette Glasner, Ph.D., associate professor of psychiatry at the University of California, Los Angeles, and principal investigator at the UCLA Integrated Substance Abuse Programs, tells SELF.
When I quit drinking, I also made goals to go back to yoga, journal every day, and run three times a week. But skin care became one of my main rituals because it was relatively easy—I didn’t have to leave my house, coax myself into any particular mindset, or adhere to a set schedule—yet rewarding. Although I have a lot of strategies in my sobriety toolbox, my skin-care regimen is the only one I commit to on a twice-daily basis.
This serves as yet another reminder that sobriety is different for everyone. There’s no rule book that says you have to go down the traditional route of recovery meetings, prayer, meditation, etc., or that you can’t combine all or some of those things with a range of self-care practices. Today, caring for my skin is an integral part of a much bigger goal—a lifelong commitment to good mental and physical health that began the day I ditched booze.
Skin care can be “in the service of improving both physical and mental health,” Glasner says, “because when you are healthy physically, it affects the way you feel psychologically.” This is exactly why skin care plays an important role in my sobriety toolbox: While my skin appears brighter and smoother than ever, it’s not really about how it looks on the outside. For me, it’s about finally paying attention to my self-worth, after years of neglect.
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