How to Relax and Unwind Without Drinking Alcohol

Alcohol has long been synonymous with relaxation. If you want to unwind after a rough day at work—or kick back on the couch, at a baseball game, or in the pool—there’s historically been a good chance you’ll have a drink in hand.

Now, the tides are turning. In early January, then-U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy issued a report warning that even small amounts of alcohol can cause cancer. Drinking just one alcoholic beverage a day increases the risk of liver cirrhosis, esophageal cancer, oral cancer, and various injuries, a federal analysis suggests. According to a recent survey, nearly half of Americans are trying to cut back on their alcohol consumption in 2025—a 44% increase since 2023. The message is especially getting through to young Americans, who increasingly view less as more, leading the charge among age groups going dry.

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As the science around alcohol’s health risks crystallizes, a new question is brewing: What are you supposed to do to relax and unwind and escape your mental headspace if you ditch booze? Is there a healthier way to turn off your brain temporarily or shift into a happier place—and if so, how do you achieve it?

“It’s a major dilemma,” says Dr. Anna Lembke, chief of the Stanford Addiction Medicine Dual Diagnosis Clinic and author of Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence. She works with people struggling with alcohol use disorder, who have to give up drinking altogether. They often wrestle with “what to do to relax to deal with their negative emotions, and to have fun, because alcohol is what they’ve relied on to achieve those goals,” she says. “It’s a real challenge, because many of the alternatives are also addictive, like scrolling online. The risk of cross-addiction is huge.”

We asked experts why it’s so hard to figure out what to replace alcohol with—and to share their favorite ideas on how to relax booze-free.

How does alcohol affect the brain, anyway?

Alcohol affects many different organs, but one of its primary targets is the brain. That’s “one of the reasons why we like it,” Lembke says. It acts as a central nervous system depressant, which means it slows brain activity, causing your muscles to relax and making you feel calm. It can elevate mood, curb anxiety, relieve pain, and make social situations more fun and enjoyable.

Yet over time, “alcohol really impacts how our brain and body perceive and experience relief and reward, particularly as drinking becomes more of a habit,” says Marilyn Piccirillo, a psychologist with the Rutgers Addiction Research Center. “People find they’ve gotten into the habit of drinking for stress relief, or to make situations even better, and then without alcohol, those situations become less rewarding.” If you drink often, you’ll start to need even more alcohol to achieve the same pleasurable feeling, and you’ll begin to experience a muted response to all the things you once enjoyed, because they won’t compare to the “reward” of drinking. That can lead to addiction and compulsive drinking, Piccirillo adds.

Read More: Why, Exactly, Is Alcohol So Bad for You?

It’s no surprise, then, that even if it feels good in the moment, most experts don’t consider drinking a healthy way to escape real life. It’s a “maladaptive coping strategy,” says Lara Ray, a psychologist who runs the UCLA Addictions Laboratory. “A lot of people end up using alcohol excessively because they’re trying to cope with stressors—be it family or romantic relationships, or financial stressors.” But that’s not going to benefit you over the long run, which is why instead, it’s smart to look for an alternative. “It should be healthier than alcohol, and you should have multiple outlets,” Ray says. “We’re substituting this ineffective coping strategy—‘I’m so stressed, so I drink’—with an effective coping strategy, which is ‘I’m stressed, so maybe I talk to my partner, I talk to my friends, I call my therapist.’”

Why it’s so hard to find a satisfying escape

You’ve seen the memes about parents who grab a glass of wine—their “mommy juice”—as a way to cope with another chaotic day. That image speaks to one reason why alcohol is such a convenient escape: You can do it alongside whatever else you’re doing, says Hayley Treloar Padovano, an associate professor of behavioral and social sciences at the Center for Alcohol and Addiction Studies at Brown University. Other coping strategies—like hiking a gorgeous trail—might be more difficult to integrate into your daily routine. “If I’m going to go do yoga, my kids can’t be climbing all over me,” she says. “But they could be climbing all over me as I’m sipping on a glass of wine.” 

That’s why Treloar Padovano suggests brainstorming activities or habits you can easily build into your day, like texting or calling a friend, playing a game, or turning on an upbeat playlist when you get home. Keeping busy is essential, she says; time that was spent drinking needs to be filled with something else, so make a list of ideas. “The bottom line is that if we’re going to remove something, we need to put something else in its place,” she says. You’ll need to put effort into planning ahead, Treloar Padovano adds, especially for situations in which you would typically drink.

Read More: Do You Really Store Stress in Your Body?

As you reflect on possible alcohol alternatives, try not to gravitate toward harmful replacements. Some people, for instance, trade alcohol for marijuana. “I’m not trying to be a teetotaler on either one of these things,” Treloar Padovano says. “It might work for you, but it really is a slippery slope into that becoming the thing that then causes problems for you.”

It’s also a good idea to keep expectations in check, since new types of relaxation probably aren’t going to have an instant effect. Throughout the adjustment period, remind yourself why you decided to cut back. “If I’m used to feeling immediate relief by pouring a glass of wine, even before I have a drink of it, I may not feel that same immediate relief when I pour a glass of seltzer and put lime in it,” Treloar Padovano says. Instead of giving up on your sparkling drink, focus on what you’re getting out of it. “Maybe the benefit in the moment isn’t going to be as strong,” she says. “But if I play the tape through my head to the end, I know I’m not going to feel hungover tomorrow. I’m not going to yell at my kids later. There’s a trade-off, and it may not be to the level that you had it, but it’ll be enough to get you by.”

5 ways to relax without alcohol

Figuring out how to unwind without alcohol is individual, experts stress—not every idea will work for every person.

Lembke has worked with many people who find it hard to believe they’ll get to a point where they will be able to enjoy supposedly relaxing alternatives to alcohol. But with time, many are pleasantly surprised. “There’s an enormous sense of freedom that they no longer have to rely on this substance in order to function and feel—or not feel, as the case may be,” she says. It doesn’t happen overnight, but if you stick with it, “there’s a real self-actualization or improvement in psycho-spiritual well-being.”

Here are a few activities to consider.

Seek out (temporary, safe) pain

Small doses of painful stimuli—like taking an ice or steam bath, fasting from food, or weightlifting—can be beneficial, according to the scientific field of hormesis. These are “difficult, painful, or challenging in the moment, but make us feel better afterwards,” Lembke says. When you subject yourself to a healthy form of pain, your body senses injury, and in response to that, increases production of neurotransmitters like dopamine, norepinephrine, and serotonin, she explains. “We make all of these feel-good chemicals within our own brain,” she says. “We don’t actually need to go outside to look for them—we can find ways to activate them in our own minds.”

Find your own way into the mind-body world

When Lembke encourages people to think about healthy and adaptive ways to de-stress, she often points them to mind-body activities like prayer, meditation, Tai chai, guided imagery, progressive muscle relaxation, and breathwork. These types of practices help you connect with your physical sensations, emotions, and thoughts—which means instead of using alcohol to distract yourself from your inner world, you’ll learn to tolerate even the most uncomfortable moments. Research suggests mindfulness can spark positive changes in the brain, including lowered stress, anxiety, depression, and other negative emotions. “We are embodied creatures—we have bodies,” she says. “Often, drugs provide an embodied experience, but not necessarily a healthy one. So as an alternative, we can look for other embodied experiences that are generally not addictive and healthy—and there are lots of them.”

Read More: How to Get Better at Doing Things Alone

Reconnect with old interests and passions

When you’re trying to figure out what to do instead of drink, think broadly about what will satisfy your needs, Ray encourages. She’s found that many people have luck rediscovering long-forgotten hobbies, like running, cooking, or crafting. Plus, research suggests that people who regularly engage in hobbies have fewer symptoms of depression and better health, happiness, and life satisfaction than those who don’t. “We want folks to draw upon their life experiences and see, what do they find rewarding?’” Ray says. “It could be volunteering; it could be playing volleyball.”

Treat yourself 

Keep track of the money you would have spent buying alcohol, and buy yourself something nice instead, Treloar Padovano suggests. Put whatever you save into a relaxation fund, and use it to splurge on a spa day, massage, super comfortable weighted blanket—you name it. “Maybe you’ve always wanted to be someone who was able to get their nails done every week, but you just decided you didn’t have the money,” she says. “Well, now you’re not drinking, and with the money you’re saving, you can get your nails done every week.”

Socialize more than you normally would

If you’re used to drinking in social situations, think through whether there are people in your network who are booze-free—or situations where you’re less likely to crack open a beer. Maybe you have friends who don’t drink, Piccirillo says, and you can start to prioritize plans with them. You might find you enjoy outings like walking in the park or going to the movies.

In general, leaning into your friendships is one of the best ways to relax without alcohol. Meaningful human connections “release dopamine and opioids in our brain,” Lembke says. “We are social creatures—we’re wired to connect—so replacing alcohol with deep and intimate human connections is a good and healthy substitute for drinking.”

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