> Those nights with friends I had known for years felt no different now that I was sober. As I didn’t feel awkward or uncomfortable around them, and drinking together wasn’t the only activity or situation we saw each other during. Relationships with people who I only ever drank or partied with definitely started to fade away, but I never felt like I lost anything as a result of that. The nights where I was stinging for a beer to get through it, however, were the events I had no real genuine interest in attending, or with crowds that I didn’t fit in with.
This is a common theme among my friends who previously drank heavily: They participate less in certain alcohol-centric groups, but they realize they aren't really missing them.
Moderate to heavy drinkers seem to get stuck in a rut where it feels like everyone drinks as much, or more, alcohol than they do. Yet once they break out of that rut, they realize that a lot of people have no problem having a good time without heavy drinking.
Alcohol is definitely a crutch for a lot of people.
I can say it helped me in my early 20's. I was "in my shell" up until I started going to bars and dance clubs once I hit about 21 to 22. Having just enough alcohol in me to not be shy helped build a social group, but it was still fun to go out even on nights that I would stick to soda or water.
However depending on the bar I went to, some of them were more pleasant if I was drinking. When I was sober, I really couldn't stand to be around a bunch of less-than-sober people (they were no longer funny or interesting). But I had the opposite experience with other crowds. Weird how that works out sometimes.
Now at my age (and without being a regular drinker), if I have one drink I'm ready to go to bed.
Absolutely helped me in my 20’s. I was severely repressed, and alcohol in moderation felt like it basically “unlocked” me. I actually have a pet theory that the people who evolved to tolerate alcohol (and not die from it or misadventure via it) actually depend on it to “fully be themselves” because the cost of this is being LESS daring etc. (basically having an overabundance of self control) while sober.
I’m a software engineer with 100% German ancestry, so this may figure.
Not sure if related to this, but 100% of my best sexual experiences (as well as the first few experiences at all) were under the influence to some degree.
I used to feel bad for people who’d drink and get real angry and then learn they need to stop drinking, but I never considered that I might actually be paying an ongoing cost for my alcohol tolerance.
I thought alcohol was helping me in my 20’s - just like I thought I was a high functioning alcoholic by the end of said 20’s.
In actuality, my consumption had slowly (but dramatically) lowered my standards on _everything_. My daily routines had all but evaporated. I was in a constant rush, phoning in virtually everything in my life - all while planning for the next drink.
Took 30 days of sobriety to realize the sauce had robbed me of 15 years of my life. I can count on one hand the number of events in hindsight actually _better_ due to alcohol’s presence. Turns out most gatherings begin awkward - with or without alcohol.
Alcohol is a scourge. It suffocated my values and turned me into someone I was not. Unsurprising [0]”Criminal activity is more closely linked to the use of alcohol than any other drug.”
Fascinating “Pet Theory” that would surely electrify a room of bev alc marketers.
[0] Esser, M., Sherk, A., Liu, Y., Naimi, T.S., Stockwell, T., Stahre, M., Kanny, D., Landen, M., Saitz, R., and Brewer, R.D. (2020). Deaths and years of potential life lost from excessive alcohol use-United States, 2011-2015. MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep, 69 (30): 981-987.
I definitely noticed this with a lot of people I worked with in engineering. They were quite shy and a bit hard to crack, but once they had a drink or two at a work event they were very sociable and easy to talk to. And outside of these situations they never really drank. So I think for them, alcohol was never really an issue.
This pretty closely describes how/why I usually drink as a dev.
While sober I can function socially more than well enough to get along in the day to day without issue, but it’s much much smoother if I’ve had some alcohol (but not too much).
I also tend to focus more squarely on my conversation partner when I’m buzzed, whereas sober my head is all over the place, plus I don’t get bored with the conversation or lose energy to converse as easily.
Since beginning to work from home I’ve had very little to drink, averaging 0-2 beers per month. It’s really a social thing.
Humanity has been bonding over beer for thousands of years - I'd guess it's adaptive and selected for.
The cultural signaling of whether it's cool to give it up or not just comes in waves imo (outside of people with more serious drinking issues). Right now it's cool to say you don't drink so there's lots of these blog posts, same category as people that tell you 'they don't even have a TV'. It's not that interesting, but generates a lot of commentary from people in both directions and I think it's mostly some form of social status thing.
I've noticed a similar thing with young people thinking it's cool to be religious after a swing for a bit in the other direction. There's always some points you can get for doing the less common thing in certain circles.
In our culture, we've created a space of less accountability around alcohol. We judge people less harshly for what they do under influence of alcohol. Mostly, it means you don't need to worry about mild social norm breaking, others (and yourself) will ascribe it partially to the alcohol rather than your inherent character.
Not all cultures have this. Cultures ascribe widely different attributes to alcohol. That's for another post, though.
I'm convinced this isn't a free lunch. This space of less self-control we've carved out, comes at the cost of MORE demands when we're sober. I think your shell, and mine as well, was in part a product of a culture where we, like Dr. Jekyll, sought to split off some sides of ourselves.
> Moderate to heavy drinkers seem to get stuck in a rut where it feels like everyone drinks as much, or more, alcohol than they do.
Well are they necessarily wrong? There's that "friendship paradox". Most people probably drink with people who drink more than them on average, since people who drink a lot presumably have more "drink with" relationships.
Quitting alcohol seems to be in vogue these days. I'd like to offer a counterpoint: I love to drink. By the government definition, I'm a very heavy drinker. I have 1 - 3 glasses of wine a night to relax after putting my child to bed. Of course, I do go many days without drinking when life gets in the way. But I certainly enjoy my night time ritual.
But what I really love about drinking is socializing over drinks. No, I don't mean the physical effects of the alcohol. What I like about socializing over a drink or three is that you're almost entirely focused on your conversation partners. People aren't focused on a board game, activity, or food. A group out drinking has made a commitment to one another that they're going to socialize in raw form. I like that.
Not to defend alcohol, but by that logic, we should also be giving up on BBQ, cured meats, and stir fries, and yet I don't see very many people merrily throwing those away.
Smoked meats have high levels of carcinogens. The carcinogens are created when food cooks at a high temp. For smoking, in particular, they are created when fat drips on to the heat source and then the resulting carcinogens end up in the meat [0].
Cured meats contain nitrates or nitrites, both of which have been associated with an increased risk of cancer.
> I have 1 - 3 glasses of wine a night to relax after putting my child to bed.
I'm sorry but I have to acknowledge that 1-3 glasses a night by yourself is a lot of drinking. I was the same way with weed. It didn't have any major affects on my life until I quit smoking and I realized my life was way better without it.
I'm some random idiot on the internet so feel free to ignore my take, but finding ways to relax without alcohol will make your life so much better.
We are going slightly off topic here, but may I ask how your life turned better without weed?
When Corona made availability a bit harder I quit last year for several months. But to my surprise I wasn't more productive, wasn't more focused all I got was getting more moody and easier to distact.
I came to accept that weed is self medication against my ADD and depression that works better than I actually expected.
No worries, this really depends on the person and their smoking habits. I know for me I was smoking almost daily, using it to cope with founder stress in unhealthy ways, using it to run away from problems. For me personally, weed has the effect that it makes me super lazy, and that effect lingers for a couple of days, which made me more stressed.
Cutting weed definitely made me a ton more anxious for the first month, but after that I felt more motivated, more linguistically fluid.
As a sober alcoholic, coffee meets your requirements for a 1 on 1 convo. I like it for the same reasons! Your choice of days to meet is much more limited (people typically recuperate in a weekend morning, so each person really only has one day they can meet) but all it takes is one good 1 on 1 convo every few years to maintain a great friendship. In the same way that small amounts of alcohol act as a CNS stimulant, coffee boosts the convo too.
I never tried alcohol and never felt compelled to.
As a kid I wondered what's happening with those drunk people I had a chance to see. So I read some books in library about alcohol (my mother was librarian, so that was my internet back then). It all just made sense and I decided that don't want to even try. I was asked to try alcohol by parents and relatives, I was ridiculed and insulted by classmates (drinking somehow was a sign of being cool for them), but I didn't care - I knew how it works, and I didn't want it in my life. The same goes for any other drug, of course.
The whole concept of using poisonous chemicals to alter your brain state was and still is very alien to me. I just don't get it. Willingly disrupt your body's functions on a cellular level hoping for something good, while all the scientific evidence points only to the bad? Still don't get it.
I do get the social benefits part, but I think it's hugely exaggerated. Yes, being drunk seems to be like removing your psychological self-defence, which builds trust, especially in a high-stake business relations. But it's not the only way to build trust, for sure, and definitely doesn't justify the damage alcohol does to the body.
If you don't want to drink and don't think you are missing out, then that's a very healthy choice. No question, and I'm not trying to convince you otherwise.
As to why, however. It's no big mystery. It's "fun", or at least can be. If you don't feel it's "worth it", that perfectly fine, but we all have a range of what's "worth it" and what's not. Ranging from a Big Mac to cocaine.
*To be clear, I fall in the middle of that range. I don't advocate cocaine.
Nice to find another life-long teetotaler. One of the most infuriating things is how confused people get when they hear that I don't drink, I have had people ask me how I am "able to have fun" and other similar things. I don't understand why people need to be in an altered state to have fun, I have plenty of fun and it seems like alcohol brings a lot of trouble. I'm not against alcohol, I think it can be used in a moral and responsible way, but the widespread dependence for social interaction is concerning.
Even as a person that drinks sometimes, I find it annoying when people try to pressure me to drink if I don't want to. It's polite to offer but if someone says no than just ignore it.
Haha, yes. Also "alcohol and sex" - it always went like "you don't drink, so don't like sex either". I even started to suspect that some people have never experienced sex in a sober state, hence the link.
I hope you stick with it. I know too many people who tried addictive substances and failed badly. Specifically I know people who began by drinking just one glass with dinner, but over decades end up with chronic drinking behaviours.
We all “know” the obvious reasons for not drinking. Anecdotally, I see plenty of unobvious health outcomes, like long term negative mental health outcomes from boozing (such as memory issues - I suspect there is a spectrum of memory issues before Korsakoff syndrome).
Also anecdotally, drinking seems to lead to all your social group being drinkers or alcoholics. I unfortunately know very few who don’t occasionally drink to excess (New Zealand has a strong drinking culture).
> Yes, being drunk seems to be like removing your psychological self-defence, which builds trust, especially in a high-stake business relations. But it's not the only way to build trust, for sure, and definitely doesn't justify the damage alcohol does to the body.
Not trying to convince you to change your mind, but you seem to be missing some information: I'd wager that for the vast, vast majority of people, "drinking alcohol" in a typical way rarely means "being drunk." At least in US culture, those things are only synonymous for certain specific groups, like people to whom drinking is novel (think college students) or alcoholics. Your mileage may vary, of course, and lots of this is my perception, but "benefits of drinking" and "benefits of being drunk" are definitely not the same conversations.
You're right. In post-soviet countries people generally drink to get intoxicated on purpose. In Europe and US, from my experience, drinking culture is much more healthy. I do have respect for that. Yet, if alcohol was invented today it would be clearly classified as worse drug then heroin, for example, and would be banned.
Discussing that one country has more helthy heroin mass-consumption culture than another country hopefully sounds odd to everyone.
Alcohol and heroin are not even close in terms of danger and having had a friend who I lost to heroin it sounds odd that someone makes that comparison.
Sorry to hear that. But I actually see this comparison a lot in the literature.
Both heroin and alcohol are dangerous, but as alcohol is socially acceptable and widely available in a different forms, the perception of the danger differs. It's not a question for which drug we lose more people per year (alcohol is by far the clear winner here). It's a perception of these losses are different, and makes us believe that other drugs are more dangerous.
Alcohol is only worse than heroin on an absolute scale. A lot of people drink. A small minority damage their lives and the lives of others through poor decision making (e.g. drunk driving) or addiction. The size of this minority is larger than the entire population of heroin users. If as many people did heroin as drink alcohol, the damage to society would be catastrophic.
Is the literature comparing alcohol and heroine with actual data? Along what metric(s) is alcohol worse than heroine?
If this is actually true, the real takeway is that heroine is not nearly as bad as we've been led to believe and we should all go experiment this weekend.
There are some drug harm rankings, yes, but I haven't studied it so can't say what's the actual consensus of the field experts. I think I just saw this "alcohol is more harmful from alcohol" a few times in the articles.
You're really not missing anything skipping the booze. If the stuff was invented today it would be seen in the same light as huffing paint for fun. I definitely don't like when people sober-shame others for not partaking in the stuff, even as someone who drinks from time to time.
However, not all drugs are poisonous in the same way alchohol is. Caffeine is a drug and in moderate quantities is probably pretty good for you. Weed is probably far less toxic than booze if used in small amounts by adults that don't have certain genetic markers for schizophrenia. Mushrooms aren't toxic at all. There are tons of psychoactive drugs used for medicine and fun that arguably cause more harm than good.
Anyway, people have a natural impulse to alter their consciousness, be it through extremely harmful ways like booze and coke, or through less harmful ways like mushrooms or meditation. I don't see it ending anytime soon.
My impression is the USA has the worst drinking culture. Many other places in the world have much better ones. UK pubs, Japanese izakayas.
I had a pretty negative view of drinking growing up in the USA with MADD's messaging etc. Even though my parents drank socially it just seemed not worth.
Then I moved abroad and my outlook changed
Here's an interesting talk on some of the possible benefits to society of drinking
note: I am not suggesting you should go drink. Rather, I'm only passing on my experience. I didn't drink until I moved abroad in my mid 30s. I still generally don't drink in the USA but I've had some great times drinking abroad.
I experienced those "benefits" outside the USA but rarely inside.
> For business workers, drinking is non-negotiable. Drinks after work strengthen relationships with colleagues, and an invitation to drink with an office superior is a great compliment that should not be turned down. The drinking etiquette, which requires that a person’s cup never be left empty, increases the pressure to drink. Constant topping up makes binge drinking the norm, while refusing drinks is seen as rejecting generosity or denying someone who is trying to help you have a good time.
I've seen that form of institutionalized alcoholism in other countries as well and in many areas up to high-ranking public officials. I wonder what the long-term costs of this culture are.
I'm from Ukraine, and as other post-soviet countries, Ukraine had all the typical soviet issues with alcohol consumption. It wasn't unusual to go to school in the early morning and see people (neigbours) vomiting at the street in a heavy hangover. My classmates (13-14 y.o.) were bragging how they were hospitalized with some acute form of gastritis from drinking too much vodka. That was how you gained popularity in a class. In (ex-)USSR countries there were no culture of healthy drinking whatsover.
> The whole concept of using poisonous chemicals to alter your brain state was and still is very alien to me. I just don't get it. Willingly disrupt your body's functions on a cellular level hoping for something good, while all the scientific evidence points only to the bad? Still don't get it.
So in the ancestral environment they fermented grain (first by accident, then on purpose) which became a means of preserving the calories from competitor organisms. This phenomenon probably co-evolved with agriculture and predates written records.
Note that in the Epic of Gilgamesh, Gilgamesh (agricultural) and Enkidu (a 'wild man' which would imply he came from a pre-agricultural, foraging people) were to fight but they gave Enkidu beer and a woman. This probably indicates that beer was something the agriculturalists had and the 'wild men' did not.
Unless the OP is also eating some sort of super healthy no sugar diet (maybe they are, but I doubt it) this is just rationalizing a decision made for other reasons.
The reason people are annoyed by it isn't because they don't understand it, it's because he's condescending and self-righteous, it's moralizing.
People make all sorts of things their identity and that's fine, but there's some sort of lack of curiosity that makes them a little less interesting imo. A candy bar isn't good for you, but people enjoy them on occasion. That's true of a lot of things in life.
The majority (but not all) people I've known in this category have been mormons, obviously people can do as they wish, but it's often other beliefs driving this with after the fact reasoning applied vs. some epistemically consistent model.
Oh it's very good for you, especially if low on glucose at the moment. Sugar is not bad per se. Glucose is the main molecule that transfers energy in your body, so we love sweet taste for a reason.
The problem with sugar is that we don't have a sensor that would say "hey, that was enough glucose intake, stop now". Historically there was no such concept as "too much food". Every molecule of glucose was meant to save you from death. That's why we love sweet taste so much.
The problem, of course, that we hijacked that pleasure response from glucose intake and started to pump sugar in our food like crazy. And discovered that it wreaks havoc on our metabolic fitness, health and lifespans, so now pushing back to limit sugar in our diets.
Bottom line, I try to balance my sugar intake (definitely not pouring it into the tea) and waiting for the non-invasive CGMs (Continious Glucose Monitors) to become mainstream, as they will be a game-changer for every person. In a way, the feedback loop between "food intake" and "what's happening to my body" is super slow now - 1-2 years (and is done using mirror in your bedroom). With CGMs it'll shorten to 1-2 minutes.
Beyond the social aspects the lens I view it through is escapism. If your life is where you want it to be and you're doing what you need to, why would you feel the need to escape? How do you feel about caffeine and other nootropics?
Yes, that's how I explained it myself as well - a lot of people have life and jobs they hate, they're overstressed and here is a cheap and socially approved (pressured even) way to deal with it.
I had a programming as a hobby since age of 6 and non-controlling parents, so I was good.
Caffeine I don't care much. I love culture of coffee, and enjoy good coffee. The latest metastudy I read on coffee concluded that there is no detrimental effects, unless excessive consumption or special conditions. Seems safe to me. I also tried 3 months off the coffee completely and it was incredibly easy switch - no issues at all.
I doubt that, given that you never tried it, nor drugs. No shame in not knowing, though.
Benefits are definitely exaggerated, the addicts, when not on the thing, or on the way to their next hit of the thing, love to apologize for the thing.
I'll be frank with my motivation to drink, it was to kill myself, and self-expression of that I'm so miserable that I'm killing myself. And getting drunk felt good. I think if you never yearned for that, that's healthy. I wonder if we could raise an entire generation in a way that everybody feels that way.
> I doubt that, given that you never tried it, nor drugs.
By knowing I mean "understanding". I.e. I understood the concept of addiction and realized that I'll probably "like" alcohol too.
Sorry to hear you had to experience that. I think there is a theory in psychology that explicitly asks this question - how to let people reach their maximum potential in wellbeing and flourish (which, of course, also means not wanting to kill themselves). It's a Self-Determination Theory (SDT) and it's a main theory in motivation, is very mature (70+ years and 1000+ studies and experiments) and all modern parenting/educational/sports systems take roots in SDT. For me it was a worlview changing theory, so I'd recommend to familiriaze with it.
I see your point on the "understanding", I have a similar view on most drugs.
Thanks for the recommendation on the SDT, it sounds like something that would benefit me also.
TL;DR: The method consists of "consumption of alcohol in combination with the prescription medication Naltrexone. ... When you take Naltrexone prior to drinking, it blocks endorphins, the naturally occurring opiates in the brain, from being released when alcohol is consumed [so] there is no “buzz” or rewarding experience, and the alcohol doesn’t make you feel the pleasure that drives you to drink excessively."
I accidentally quit smoking weed when a high dose of some other drug insensitized me to its effects completely.
I've asked people with relevant knowledge a number of times if that is a known effect of that other drug or if they had found a similar case, but apparently I'm just an anecdote, so excuse me if I don't share which drug it was. It could made more harm than good. Since there are ongoing studies on all kind of forbidden substances, it will surface eventually if it has merits beyond a casual interaction.
The experience also made alcohol useless, but I was a heavier user of weed at the time. A year later the buzz for both weed and alcohol returned, but I'd had enough time to ditch them as an habits, so no weed and only low-grad alcohol, always socially.
Overall, I'm very happy with the change. I see weed defended with good reasoning (not as bad as alcohol, creativity-inducing, anxiety relief, etc.) but over a certain threshold dosage, it's a net negative for most people and the nice effects quickly fade in a couple of months of heavy use.
The "neurons that fire together wire together" notion seems to hold in a lot of situations, but I don't know enough about the drug to know if it would be specific to treating alcoholism.
Yeah, I didn't mean the specific drug. I imagine that habits generally work by needing some chemical to act as a reward to reinforce it, maybe different chemicals for different habits. The idea of forming a good habit to preempt a bad habit with something that will block the reward chemical, whatever it is for the bad habit, is interesting, and I wonder how generally it can be applied. Like, I wonder if it would be an effective idea to block dopamine or another chemical to help against bad habits related to computers/internet or food.
There are many hyperbolic articles about quitting drinking, as there are, reasonably, many hyperbolically bad situations that people find themselves in due to drinking.
I found that the moderate tone of this article spoke to me more than I've found hyperbolic articles tend to do -- much appreciated.
I'm glad you got something out of reading it! I was in a very similar situation as you where everything sobriety related I read made it out that quitting would turn me into the ubermensch overnight.
I quit the day my wife said she was pregnant. My dad gave up smoking and took up alcohol and after an incident one night which made him stop drinking. I took that as an experience I don't want my kids to experience.
I'll have a beer sometimes if out at dinner, but never more than 1 or 2. Majority of the time I don't even have that. This year I've had 2 beers total and that's it. Don't miss it at all.
I quit after I had kids and fucked up a couple of times getting inappropriately drunk and not being functional the next day. I didn't drink often but when I did it was a problem. I can now have a tipple when I'm away from the family. As long as I really restrict it to 1 or 2 drinks.
This sounds very strange to the uninitiated, but I grew up in a part of the punk music scene that was rebelling against drugs and alcohol. As someone who has never had a drink, I've never seen the appeal, and I always wonder why more people don't give it up. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straight_edge
I love straight edge music. Some of my favorite memories of the early 90's are from living in a squat where we would get some money together, get a keg and get trashed listening to Fugazi's Repeater.
Which also might sound strange to the uninitiated: we rebelled against straight edge people.
This can be exceedingly difficult in many areas. If you're in a big city it's probably no problem, but elsewhere it can be challenging or impossible to find people you really enjoy sober.
I don't mean that I can't get on with just about anyone while sober. But I find I'm 'faking it' and simply giving them the idea I'm having a good time. People who I'm genuinely excited to spend time with are few and far between.
I love a drink but have found it very difficult to stop after a couple. Like the author, I haven't destroyed my life, but it has caused me all number of problems. The typical high functioning problem drinker.
The one thing (and I tried many) that has worked for me is The Sinclair Method (TSM). After doing it for a couple of years, now I can still drinking socially without worrying about blowing up the night.
It's not a new thing, but if you are in a similar situation and looking for answers, I can high recommend looking into it.
I’ve never been a problem drinker (I never had behavioral problems when I drank) but it was killing me. I was drinking a significant amount every day and after a while I had a two week hangover. I think that was my body’s way of calling uncle. I didn’t need to see a doctor to know something was very, very wrong. I simply decided to stop, to never experience an hangover again. And that was it.
I just firmly and with certainty decided to stop. Alcoholics call it rock bottom but I think it’s just knowing that you don’t want to do it ever again. That certainly has been with me for years and I see no reason it should ever leave me.
Back when I was first attending university, I attended this national entrepreneurship convention with fellow peers from my university's local chapter. There was a social night where they rented out an entire bar and we were all socializing. I was with a female friend from my university, who was pretty and obviously a magnet for all sorts of men. She asked me if I could get her some water, so I did. I brought a bottle of water to her, from which she sipped. Some obnoxious dude comes up to us, wanting to know her. She's a magnet. He discovers that I gave her the water, and he looks at me incredulously, loudly saying, "You got her WATER? WATER???"
Not being a heavy drinker back then, plus being your standard computer nerd, I was of course uncomfortable. I felt shame, but I couldn't figure out why it was justified. I also felt resentment because I had done nothing wrong. Years later, I've discovered the shame was never justified, the guy was just a douche (for whatever reason), and I was quite happy my whole life without ever getting piss drunk. I did get buzzed at least three times in my life, so I don't know what it would take to make me really drunk. Guess I'll never know though, because I quit drinking after meeting my wife because she doesn't like to drink. But I'm fine with it.
I do wonder if society would be more civil if there was no pressure to drink. I don't think non-drinkers should judge people who drink, and drinkers certainly should not judge people who don't drink. But it is an awkward truth that alcohol is often associated with misbehaviour or worse, and I'm not sure how society deals with that and also avoids going down the path of the US prohibition era and the backlash that is Al Capone. I've lost faith in society's ability to engage in nuance and not be judgmental. Bleh.
I stopped drinking regularly once I realized how many empty calories are in alcohol. It’s diluted poison that ruins your sleep and makes you fat. It’s just suboptimal to be consuming on a regular basis. The psychological effects can be fun but the negative health impact does not seem worth it
I have to admit I simply don't understand drinking alcohol. Apparently it affects me differently from most people. The only effects I get are that I feel tired, and my field of vision narrows. Neither of those are pleasant. I wish I knew how other people feel when they drink alcohol.
> I wish I knew how other people feel when they drink alcohol.
I feel a sense of euphoria when I drink. I also have a bell curve where drinking enough removes a layer of fear which allows me to do things I couldn't previously do while still retaining my coordination. For instance when I was younger and lived in Santa Cruz, I'd often bomb hills skateboarding. On the nights I was 3-4 beers in, I'd have no problem whatsoever. If I drank less than that or more than that, I'd be a meat crayon.
On a general note, be happy alcohol does nothing for you. It's one of the most addictive, vile, and damaging drugs that exists. The withdrawl for alcoholics is worse than heroin, and one of the most deadly. The people I've met in my life that are addicted to it have a really hard time.
I like to drink more than I ought to (and less than I used to), but your assessment sounds not exactly but a lot like how I feel about cannabis. At any THC dose enough to feel at all, it’s almost always tunnel vision and time dilation and anxiety, and all I want is to go be alone to wait it out. All side effects, no joy there. If I’m lucky enough to hit the perfect mark of low dose but perceptible effects, I like it okay but it’s totally unpredictable. Not worth whatever I might enjoy with perfect precision dosage.
People who enjoy THC describe it to me as similar to how they enjoy caffeine, which makes some sense to me having a dopamine supplement daily. Most of what I enjoy about alcohol is tasting it. As far as psychoactive effects, I find it calming but not as much as you do. It doesn’t generally make me sleepy unless I’m already headed that way. It just makes me feel less at odds with things in the world. Which is good for my psyche, as long as I don’t drink too much… which is when I remember feeling at odds with things in the world.
Everyone reacts to chemicals in their own way, but I think what you’re describing might be more related to general anxiety than to a particular chemical. It may exacerbate these feelings but I don’t think it’s ever really the root cause
This was exactly my theory for a long time, but I really do think it’s chemical. My baseline anxiety turns out to be very well treated by my ADHD meds (amphetamines). Cannabis high doesn’t feel at all like my baseline anxiety or like heightened anxiety that more closely fits typical general anxiety symptoms for me. It feels like what people describe when they talk about a bad trip.
Anyway I’ve thought about taking advantage of the legal market to see if there’s bud that works for me, and even (maybe especially) after working in the industry for over half a decade I’m not inclined. They just don’t grow anything for me, and I’m too old now to want to experiment.
I do appreciate your pattern recognition, because it’d be the same recognition I would have. I don’t think the pattern fits me though, I really do just react negatively to THC in high doses.
You have most likely done that already… but have you tried many different kinds of alcoholic drinks? Beer affects me exactly as you describe it so I almost never drink it.
Single malt scotch, on the other hand, has a very different effect - gives me energy, makes me more sociable, lifts my spirit. Red wine affects me differently from white wine, cocktails also have a different effect (can’t have sugar with alcohol!). Basically, at least for some people different kinds of alcohol have a very different effect.
Obviously in terms of the overall contents they are not the same - even eventually. Alcohol contents can be the same but the rest of the drink can not be discarded from the equation. For example, my body react poorly to high amounts of sugar, so drinking a sugary cocktail is vastly different from a shot of tequila. Beer instantly makes me feel bloated, so if I drink 2 pints of beer to match a glass of scotch, I will feel slow and foggy, not upbeat and sociable.
I used to drink pretty heavily in what could frequently be described as a "functional" alcoholic (regardless of what one thinks of that term)
For me the benefit was dulling the frantic nature of my mind, especially at night. Instead of thinking or worrying about everything under the sun, I was able to not ... have those brainwaves snapping until 3 am.
It is of course a cycle, since the negative effect of alcohol exacerbates that latent anxiety. I'd dull it and it would pop back up the next night.
The alcohol effects may be moderated by dosage, pacing, anything that accompanies the drink, etc. Personal metabolism can also affect the effects. Having right kind of food with the drink may indeed diminish the alcohol almost to the level of condiment.
I guess, the relaxing effect is what the casual drinkers are after. Loose tongue, less inhibitions in interactions, less anxiety. It works... but briefly, it's too easy to cross into drnking-for-the-sake-of-drinking zone. All leading to feeling tired and dehydrated one way or another.
As it's figuratively said, at some point even the finest wine begins drinking itself, that is its alcohol content overpowers anything else that made it 'fine'.
I guess, in youth the drinking is mostly for bonding, in adulthood it's also for coping and habit, god forbid, dependence... Well, it does make one sleepy too.
Looking back, one thing for sure is early youth social drinking is very much unnecessary and can cause more trouble than good.
A nice piece on the subject of alcohol and anxiety:
I was exposed to alcohol from around 13. Under age drinking is a pandemic where I'm from.
I never was a heavy drinker. I mostly stopped for religious purposes and out of personal conviction when I was 20.
On the personal conviction part, I always say that I prefer being in control of my faculties. Fast response times (esp when driving), situational awareness, control over what I say and do.
I don't know about other people: when I'm tipsy I'll do or say something, then a few seconds later I would say to myself "this isn't something I would have said/done". That alone has been enough to dissuade me.
I drink "on occasion with an annual quota". I find that to be a great personal goal because when in a situation where alcohol is offered to me, I almost always abstain.
Then again, I don't drink coffee as I jokingly say that caffeine is a drug (I don't judge anyone, it's something I say when asked why I don't drink it). I drink things with a significant amount of caffeine when offered and it's the only alternative, like cola.
For me, I definitely felt the full range of physical effects but I also didn't really enjoy it all that much. I drank an unhealthy amount in my early 20s due to social situations. It was kinda fun, then I'd just had enough. I never "quit" and still drink occasionally but I have absolutely no compulsion to drink and it doesn't do much for my mood.
These days, a single sip of wine when my wife is having a glass of wine with dinner. When I was younger, I'd have a glass or two of wine, or a pint of beer. But I always concluded that I'd feel better without the alcohol, so I cut back to the minimal amount.
Alot of psychadelic-friendly communities don’t use alcohol
In case anyone here needs inspiration on where its normal not to drink alcohol
(Those communities arent about psychadelics, nor are they a replacement or addicting, its just the only common theme I see amongst various communities that will also not be into alcohol)
As someone who can take it or leave it when it comes to alcohol I've made some interesting observations about alcohol and drinking culture!
I've found that for some its less about the alcohol and more about the ritual and the way it makes you feel. pouring that glass of wine after work or sipping the fancy cocktail before your meal in a restaurant.
It's the ritual people crave and having something unusual to taste. I find alcohol has very little to do with it and if your not able to switch your after work wine for low or non alcoholic I would guess there's a bigger problem there that is being self medicated by the numbing effects of alcohol!
I've never had anyone call me out for not drinking.
I'm able to stop drinking at any time, this includes half way or even two sips into a new drink. If I feel it's gone or going too far I stop. If someone insists on including me in the round after I've said no the drink doesn't get drunk. This was the hardest thing for me to learn but I've never been called out on it!
I also never drink if I'm in any form of bad mood and I won't drive if i've had even a sip of alcohol.
I'm lucky to be able to follow these 'rules' as I've gotten older I've found alcohol affects my blood sugar quite severely so it's a helpful incentive as it's very scary when it happens!
The non and low alcohol selections now are brilliant. enough variety to have that ritual or make a fancy mocktail! Best part is sipping on them during meetings during the summer!
I think my New Year’s resolution is going to limit my alcohol consumption to 3 units / week. I think of it as a tool for building relationships… for me 1 or 2 drinks goes a long way to opening up and having a good time with someone I’m trying to get to know (going on a date for example, or maybe catching up with a long lost friend). But outside of that application, I find that alcohol has no place in my life.
I noticed the same, and seeing the calander with red yellow and green days makes it easy to see how well I’m doing (plus drinking or not getting a good nights sleep is super important)
Are you talking about the Sleep section of Apple's Health app? AutoSleep seems to track more data than that does. It estimates my deep sleep, takes into account my HRV and heart rate, and gives me a sleep rating for the night (e.g. 90 out of 100).
Apple's Health app just tracks total time spent asleep which ignores my heart rate. My heart rate is always much higher if I've drank alcohol or ate something too close to bedtime, which AutoSleep uses to determine that my sleep quality is lower.
Several years ago, I decided to push myself a bit further than before in my hobby of running and decided to train for a marathon. Knowing that it would take an unwavering dedication to getting up early and going for long runs, I swore off drinking for that entire year to ensure my body would always have the rest and recovery it needed.
Much like the author, it was not too hard to go to social events that I wanted to attend; but work functions and outings where I only knew maybe one person became much more painful to get through. I also realized that a bit part of my socialization in college and afterward was reliant on having some alcohol in my system to lower my typically introverted inhibitions. It was during this year that I felt like I really learned how to be social and extroverted without the crutch of some form of alcohol.
Now, even years after the marathon, I don't drink nearly as much as I used to. I may have a drink or two when I see friends or when out to dinner, but I feel no need to have more than two on any occasion.
I was recently at a cocktail bar for a party. I think the cheapest cocktail was $17, but most were between $20-$30. And most people had at least two.
Meanwhile a lot of these places have cheap food (to encourage you to drink more), so I'm there in the corner scoffing my $4 pizza and $3 diet coke. Heh heh heh, suckers...
The (really good, fairly pricey, good service) cocktail bars that I have gone to in SF and NYC charge less than $17 for their normal cocktails (and the only one I've seen that had a $30 price tag was because it used Remy Martin XO)
I should probably have added (for an international audience), this is in Australia which has a pretty high alcohol tax. Plus the exchange rate - $17 AUD is $11.50 USD.
I literally can't find anything on a menu of any bay area cocktail bars that is more than $17. Trick dog, true laurel, pagan idol, smugglers cove, house of shields, etc. Most are $15 or less.
I mean until they're $17 pre-tip, your drink is under $20.
And yeah, most good cocktail bars except the absolute fanciest (like, nationally known) are running at half the price this person was saying. It's in incredible exaggeration.
I'm really wondering in what world you think a 20% tip is in need of a "karma tip".
And that article is bemoaning $12 and $15 cocktails. I'm not arguing that those are cheap. I am arguing that they aren't 20-30 dollar drinks, which is what the original post said. You've backed off from that by 30-50%.
And I agree you can find 16 or 18 dollar drinks in many places, I never argued otherwise. But you can't find $30 dollar drinks, much less pre tip, which is what the original post implied. And I'm not interested in you arguing for arguments sake. The original claim was that the cheapest drink on the menu was 17 and that most were 20-30. Find me a bar with those prices. I'll wait. But until then, don't pretend that a menu of mostly $14 cocktails fits the bill.
> I'm really wondering in what world you think a 20% tip is in need of a "karma tip
Because only "that guy" pays for a $16 drink with a $20 and demands a dollar in change. Lol. But you're immune, because, I can already tell, you go to bars and pay the slammed bartender with a credit card.
Neat! Of course, you really should do it without the needless potshots that just arent remotely true. If you had just said that at the beginning,you might have avoided all this needless un-niceness. But it really seems like your goal is to be mean, not engaging. Your loss I guess.
nobody is trying to embarrass you or "take potshots" but when you start objecting to comments because they are off by a rounding error or you start calculating percentages in response to the theme of "this shit has gotten expensive," you're outing yourself
That wasn't the "theme". Like I already said once: you changed the subject to try and argue something different than what was initially said. You've then decided to, as best as I can tell call me an asshole to people in the service industry because I pointed out that you kept changing the argument to something less extreme.
I don't disagree with "drinks are expensive" I disagree that they're commonly $20-30. That's all I've ever said and you seem deeply intent on trying to say that actually 18 or 15 or 12 dollar drinks are also expensive, which sure okay but that's irrelevant!
Like, all I said is that I was amazed at 20-30 dollar drinks, which I still am, you managed to find one bar with drinks at that price point, and when I said that drinks at that price point are rare even in expensive cities, you said "in 2010", when I pointed out that no, even today its difficult to find drinks at that price point, you started taking potshots. It's really weird. And yeah "you're an asshole to bartenders" is clearly just a potshot that had nothing to do with the conversation.
I gave it up in my 40s a couple years ago. I can’t say I miss it. I certainly don’t miss the hangovers and the feeling that I was killing myself. I plan to never have a hangover again and that probably means never drinking again.
I thought I would miss the social aspect, but I don’t.
I’ve gone out with some friends and the places had mock tails or NA beer so it was just normal hanging out. Of course not being drunk I called it a night after an hour or so, but that’s probably sane and healthy.
The recent meta studies of the health effects of alcohol indicate that the health number of drinks per day is zero. Maybe you can have one or two a WEEK without negative health effects. Anyone who drinks more than that is needlessly lowering their lifespan and increasing risk of heart attack and cancer.
> My drinking was never outwardly a major issue, in fact, in Australia, it probably wasn’t even noticeable to anyone else around me and would’ve been considered pretty standard early twenties behaviour.
It seems rare for people to claim that their homeland doesn't have a heavy drinking culture. Reading through these comments, you see it claimed of the United States, New Zealand, Ukraine, South Korea.
In general, I can only remember hearing of Italy having "healthy" drinking culture. What are the others? I also wonder the extent to which the British empire spread the drinking culture of the British isles to much of the rest of the world (e.g., USA, Australia, New Zealand etc).
I haven't had a drink in forty years. From the age of about 18-20, I fell rapidly into getting blackout drunk several times a week. I don't miss it. I did AA to get away from it but I ended up leaving that. I don't mind if people like having AA in their life, or even making it their life. It wasn't the answer for me though.
One thing I've eventually realized is that I am not comfortable around a lot of ordinary people. I was using alcohol to try and force myself to be around people. Now I would say there's no reason to do that, it's a sign that you're in the wrong place.
Lots of people have a “problem with” x for various values of x, usually something socially prevalent. Respect to those who recognize this and can help themselves by refraining.
It seems like a key to overcoming is recognizing negative effects and having a strong desire to avoid them… but I can’t talk much about it because I have almost the opposite of an addiction problem in the inability to form habits regardless of the vice or activity. Besides perhaps a concerted effort to correct the beginnings of a weight problem I’ve never had to try to “give up” anything but more like just forgotten about doing the thing for extended periods.
Alcohol is great if you can keep it moderate. It helps socialization quite a lot and I don't think I would keep going to clubs and parties if I didn't drink. But I try to only drink once a week and not go beyond 4 beers.
Drinking, much like smoking, starts in the teenage years, not as an act of rebellion but as an aspirational goal of adulthood. It's something adolescents will frequently see as a marker of adulthood and reach for the marker as a way to bridge the difficult years where they are too old to be children and quite there as adults. Of course, these markers take on a life of their own, even when they have outlived their original purpose.
I gave up drinking in my early twenties because of cycling. By the end of my 20's, I had visited 9 countries by bike and crossed the US by bicycle three times.
When I got into my 30s I just found that it screws with my sleep too hard and it is just too much of a commitment. I really have a hard time getting past a drink or two once or twice a months these days. The calories really start to pack on as well.
I'm a drinker in principle, as in not being a teetotaller, but am just not attracted to drink very often. I probably have less than a bottle of wine and half a dozen beers a year. Same with drugs. I've tried most of the common ones, including those considered very addictive, but was never tempted to make a habit of any of them. Likewise food - I'm not an over eater and am in my late '50s the same weight I was 3 decades ago (though a little fitter since taking up running, which along with other sporty activities I abjured with exaggerated horror in my youth).
None of this has taken the slightest effort or even any consideration to be honest. Neither is this easy sobriety a consequence of some sort of well-managed successful life (au contraire - it's a mess).
Perhaps some of us just have naturally temperate temperaments.
This is a common theme among my friends who previously drank heavily: They participate less in certain alcohol-centric groups, but they realize they aren't really missing them.
Moderate to heavy drinkers seem to get stuck in a rut where it feels like everyone drinks as much, or more, alcohol than they do. Yet once they break out of that rut, they realize that a lot of people have no problem having a good time without heavy drinking.
Alcohol is definitely a crutch for a lot of people.