This is a thread for ILXors ON THE WAGON (and for the Wagon Curious)

3wks in and found the post work conference drink hard to navigate. Prevalent "it would just be the one" thoughts as I stood at the bar. Managed to get a tonic water without anything harder but didn't stay long with everyone who was throwing stuff down and have had similar introspective time since then thinking about sociability. Hard to come to terms with realising that there's been two of me for so long one of which is an obnoxious boor. Thanks for the useful perspective ulysses.

5 weeks today, gonna go sell records in a bar all day long

ymmv with this tactic, but something i did early on while quitting, as i had to spend a lot of time at or near bars: I would start by approaching the bartender at a quiet moment with a fiver on the bar and saying "Hey, I'm really trying to quit drinking, can you make sure I only have a cranberry and soda in my hand all night?" Bartenders are people too, they tend to respect if you tell them up front what the deal is and tip them immediately.
Also: candy helps to deal with the oral fixation elements. I would go through a packet of tic-tacs a night for awhile.

yeah I am all about bitters and soda. I spend a fair amount of time in bars anyway and I went into this knowing that. My wife's still drinking as well, none of that seems to matter - proximity doesn't seem to be an issue thankfully.

at least two of the other sellers don't drink either, shit we're all getting old

Hey, I remember hearing an AA saying somewhere (possibly Infinite Jest) about how "doing your best is what got you here." But searching that doesn't bring me any relevant results. Does anybody know what I'm talking about?

no but the implication (I believe) would be the "you can't do this alone" focus of 12-step - you, by yourself, doing your best, isn't enough to overcome addiction.

7 weeks for me this coming Sunday, last Sunday I tried about a 5-6 ounce pour of a fresh hop IPA at a DJ gig, it was pretty good but I had no desire to drink more either at that point or in the following days.

still reading The Naked Mind and it has turned from vague hippie nonsense to terrifying scientific precision regarding alcohol and its effects.

is the "spontaneous sobriety" thing that she's going on about here actually a real thing in anyone's experience?

https://www.addiction.com/12020/what-are-the-odds-youll-get-sober-on-your-own/

"Spontaneous sobriety" as described in that article is not exactly spontaneous. People quit drinking or cut back to non-problematic use without formal treatment, sure. But I don't know of anyone who has done this without making some significant changes. IME it doesn't just happen naturally, as the word "spontaneous" suggests. It takes effort. That effort may look different people, but sitting around not making any changes and hoping that sobriety happens spontaneously? Yeah I've never seen sobriety happen that way. Do that and you are way more likely to get worse, not better. EtOH is an addictive neurotoxin, that is really quite undisputable.

whew Monday night was rough, it's the boring evenings that bring on the desire.

52 days now, gonna try for 90 and then take stock

congrats. i never lasted more than 60 days without after my puberty, i think.

when you say boring nights, do you mean boring nights out or in?

both :)

congrats! are you feeling better in general?

not really, tbh, but I don't miss waking up at 3 AM with a dehydration headache that's for sure

pretty sure I've lost weight thought

thought though

getting enough rest though is really important to ensure your body has enough time to recover/repair. I need to get my yearly physical still and was just looking at my bloodwork from last year. My liver enzymes were on the cusp of being over the standard threshold so I am hoping they are much better this year.

I just saw this phrase, "wagon-curious," on a menu description in upstate New York. I forget which 0% ABV drink it was advertising. ILX, was that you?

I usually see it in articles as "sober curious".

I was just looking it up and the Club Soda NYC event people have a book called Sober Curious. I am wondering if they coined that.

ooh in other "wagon" news, my local pub now has a tap devoted to a 0% ABV/25 mg CBD soda drink :)

Interesting, I hadn't seen that phrase but it's definitely one. And yes it seems to come from a book by a faintly goopy mystic/astrologer/or as her site says, Author. Speaker. Curator. Book Doula.

omg thx for new DN

xxp delicious!

the company is called Ablis, I am learning interesting things on Google today:

Any beverage maker, whether a big corporation or a small business, faces a fundamental issue when trying to put weed in their water: Cannabinoids are hydrophobic, or insoluble in water. That creates confusion for consumers, primarily: How was the CBD infused, and, thus, will they feel its effects? The answer to the latter largely depends on the former.

“For compounds like CBD that don’t really mix well with water, usually you have to put another agent with it to help it dissolve,” said Dr. Yasmin Hurd, a professor of neuroscience, pharmacological sciences and psychiatry at New York City’s Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. “Different ways used by people or the pharmaceutical industry are being adapted by cannabinoid companies.”

https://www.chicagotribune.com/dining/ct-food-chicago-cbd-infused-drinks-0529-story.html

lol they are from Oregon of course

https://www.ablisbev.com/

well I'm not exactly off the wagon but I had a total of 5 beers over 3 days last weekend. nothing since Monday. still really enjoying ginger beers and lime Topo Chico. I spent a total of 9 weeks completely on-wagon, single 5-oz. beer pour excepted. Let's see how it goes moving forward for the last 30 days of the 90 I planned. I have a new Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale in the fridge that has been there since Monday, I am definitely gonna drink it this weekend :)

I’m something over six months on the uberwagon, maybe a year of greatly reduced drinky overall. I find abstinence less effortful than “cutting back” so I guess I will just keep going with this because I’m lazy like that.

don't you get that feeling of unbearable soberness after a couple of days on the wagon? after a week usually i am so sober and dried out that i see no sense to stay on the wagon anymore as it seems just so boring and useless.

nah I liked it! I sleep way better with super limited booze intake, for one.

I only feel the unbearable sobriety when around others who are drunk i.e. some good friends invited me to karaoke Sat night and they will be fully loaded. I’m like, “do I have to?” Late-night dance parties are another example. Otherwise, no.

Christ yes I am hating being around my closest friends drunk when Im sober, but its also becase when sober I just dont want to beb social/talk to anyone and they all wont stop yammering on.

still on

Major wagon benefit: waking up early on weekends with zero effort, feeling good after a good night's sleep.

It still feels strange that I'll have been up and puttering about quite a lot on a Sunday morning, thinking "oh I guess it is about lunchtime," then looking at the clock and seeing it is 10:30 a.m.

That prick of joy has not gotten old.

^^^ ha yes I love that feeling and often reward myself with the mid-morning weekend nap. We’ve earned it!

Was at a big bat mitzvah party last night and accidentally took a big swig of someone’s clear booze drink, thinking it was my club soda. It tasted great tbh and many neurons in my brain perked up at the taste. Mixed feelings about that.

Major wagon benefit: waking up early on weekends with zero effort, feeling good after a good night's sleep.

It still feels strange that I'll have been up and puttering about quite a lot on a Sunday morning, thinking "oh I guess it is about lunchtime," then looking at the clock and seeing it is 10:30 a.m.

That prick of joy has not gotten old.

Also even if you don’t have to wake up early, you can stay up late and not feel like shit when you wake up if you haven’t been drinking!! A night person doesn’t need to turn into a morning person to reap the benefits of teetotaling 😎

My point is that staying up late does not need to include substance abuse! Seems obvious but it’s easy to forget in adulthood.

^^^agree. If I was having drinks I either didn't have or didn't pay attention to "bedtime!" signals. Now I notice when I feel like going to bed and just. . . go to bed.

First 18 days of the new year without a drink. I felt noticeably great for the first two weeks; my diet has improved and I've been reading and exercising. I have that lovely feeling of being ready and able at the weekends too, which really is quite a thing. It's my birthday next weekend so I'll see how I go.

Are you wanting to stay on the wagon despite birthday or?

I'm pretty sanguine about it. I'm enjoying the periods of clarity (I did 6 weeks sober in September/October), while also enjoying exploring different beers when I get the chance.

Wagon in Time of COVID revive

I'm coming up on a year. It really isn't difficult at all anymore. A wistfulness once in a. while, but it isn't uncomfortable like a craving.

I 100% believe that the experience of cutting out EtOH and dealing with that discomfort, developing distress tolerance, learning new coping skill, etc. is the reason I am weathering the current storm with pretty much no distress.

How are others doing?

EtOH ?

It’s what teletubbies drink

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethanol

good boy

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b0/Ethanol-3D-balls.png/220px-Ethanol-3D-balls.png

I often try a dry patch in September (I teach and tend to overdo it in August for obvious reasons). I'm 14 days in and I'd forgotten how productive it can be. I've not written a symphony or anything but having that little bit of extra energy and mental stability means I'm walking/reading/gardening etc more.

I stuck a toe off the wagon while on vacation. Didn’t overdo it by any means but nevertheless concluded that I was not missing much except poorer sleep.

I worked at a small grocery store one summer and heard the harder they come soundtrack, and some Boz Scaggs record about 100 times each but I’m climbing aboard

i am on a few wagons. cigs for 5 years (by FAR the hardest), booze for one year and sugar since march and off of the edibles for...5 days? and other drugs i have managed to avoid pretty good aside from edibles. nobody ever offers me any for one thing. and i always could have reached out for lsd and mushrooms and other stuff from friends but i never do/did. i can live without them. even though i love them. thank the lord i never had a steady supplier of coke or i would be a goner. i know city friends who have those insane ala carte online delivery services and that shit would be the death of me.

so now its just me. naked and unashamed. what do i do???? guess i'll start a podcast...

I went to the Dropkick Murphys St. Patrick's Day Tour show here last night (long story), and one of the openers was some other Boston band called Haywire. 2/3 into the set the singer/yeller asked if anyone in the crowd was drinking (Dropkick Murphys, Chicago, St. Pat lead-up show ... ), and after the expected cheers announced that he himself was celebrating 11 months sober, stressing that he was not judging anyone else or their lifestyles, only describing his own personal journey with alcohol and imploring people to be careful with their choices. He said it a lot better than I described it, not preachy at all, but I was impressed all the same by his courage, imparting his road to sobriety to a punk rock crowd of 4000 at a sold out Boston Irish punk show.

Interesting. I imagine that's a very 2026 phenomenon and may not have made sense 25 years ago; audiences are different.

There is a lyric in the Jason Isbell song "Cover Me Up" - "I sobered up, and swore off that stuff, forever this time" - and evidently when he sings it live, audiences cheer that line. Which is interesting because it requires both knowledge of Isbell's personal life and complete conflation of him with the character in the song.

i am inclined to fully quit, there are so many places out there which serve mocktails and NA beer and in recent months when i've gone out, i've exclusively had those.

xpost Yeah, can attest it happens at his shows. It shows I think a yeah maybe relatively newfound degree of respect, empathy, support and acknowledgment from fans, who if stats bear out are themselves drinking less, and for sure know people drinking less or abstaining altogether.