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.

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.