to what extent does your life revolve around alcohol?

think my ideal drinking would be three drinks per night--a beer or glass of wine w/dinner, a stronger beer or cocktail after dinner cleanup, and a whiskey leading up to bedtime. most nights i'm slightly over that :/

My drinking was curtailed by (a) working in a bar where I saw more than one regular customer degenerate from teetotal to shambling, foul smelling jakie to dead person, which really took the shine off the boozing and, later by (b) having kids, which made hangovers a million times harder to handle. If you have not kids, but do have relentlessly energetic friends, arrange for them to drag you out of the house for physical exercise at 8 on a Saturday morning. It isn't so much having something planned, it's having somethig planned that other people are expecting you to be and and which will, if you are hungover, make you feel horrible. This is what kids do.

still doesn't work for me. i get up at 8 anyway and then the exercise makes me feel good and by 4pm i'm ready for a pint.

By the time i was 30 i had realized that most of my friends were highly functioning alcoholics.

still doesn't work for me. i get up at 8 anyway and then the exercise makes me feel good and by 4pm i'm ready for a pint.

― Heterocyclic ring ring (LocalGarda), Wednesday, 16 January 2013 16:47 (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Aw bloody hell, I could kill a nice Leffe about now.

i just moan at the kids tbh

I just let them down

Maybe get the energetic pal to ask you if he can bounce up and down on your chest while another energetic pal shits himself and has you wipe his or her arse clean.

Or shits herself. Just trying to find ways to make what worked for me work for you.

came in, thought it was girl probs thread, left /grampa simpson

Any advice on a liver detox? Alcohol wreaks havoc on my kidneys after too much consumption. Part of it may be that I'm dehydrated.

If your liver is hammered from overconsumption it's 99% a condition called steatosis - each liver cell accumulates a fat globule inside which seriously impairs its processing capability. Essentially human foie gras. Unfortunately the remedy is no alcohol for six weeks. But the alternative is inflammation (steatohepatitis) followed by angry immune cells depositing collagen fibres everywhere, which can never be removed, making the liver go hard (cirrhosis) at which point you need a new one.
So yeah, google steatosis of the liver - although it's essential to realise you only get that by chronic high consumption (e.g. 6 drinks a day for several months). But the big plus is it's reversible if you can hack the six weeks without booze.

thanks MatthewK, very helpful

drink expensive whisky, neat. learn to sip it, it's looks the business, nobody wants you in a round.

― lemmy's rabbles (darraghmac)

tried it, it's amazing how quick you unlearn to sip it

― non-elitist melted poo (Noodle Vague)

NV otm

I used to teach this stuff - basically alcohol gets broken down to acetaldehyde which is a very nasty irritant, then processed further into safe things. If the liver get overloaded then lots of acetaldehyde hangs around and makes you feel gross, inflaming tissues etc.

Essentially human foie gras.

Harsh but fair. But harsh.

Aimless otm

If you don't have six weeks, two weeks of [a very low calorie diet](http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/84/2/304.long) may do the trick, as the body preferentially pulls fat from the liver before it reduces peripheral fat.

chronic high consumption

*relaxes*

(e.g. 6 drinks a day for several months)

*sorry u fuckin what?*

I (barely) knew a guy who died with alcoholic cirrhosis at age 42. His nightly routine was 5-6 six-packs of beer, IIRC.

That'll do it

A case a day you might as well be buying the hard stuff. And the piss volumes alone. And the time commitment. Jesus.

He drank in his backyard (reportedly filled with bags of empties). Shift the lawn chair over a bit each day for a new pissoir.

Addiction produces fuck-tons of perseverance and commitment.

"12 ounces of piss" he says as he sways over the toilet

This thread turned into the Lifestyle Channel just now

If you don't have six weeks, two weeks of [a very low calorie diet](http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/84/2/304.long) may do the trick, as the body preferentially pulls fat from the liver before it reduces peripheral fat.

To answer the thread question: not at all. For a while now I've been thinking that I SHOULD drink more than I do now; right now my average is 1-2 alcoholic beverages per month.

Wish I could say the same. I drink every day, beer when I get home, couple of glasses of wine over dinner, maybe another afterwards. More on the weekend. It's crept up over the years.

I've been thinking that I SHOULD drink more

According to the advertising, your life will become more vibrant, happier and involve more beautiful women in skimpy clothes if you do. It hasn't worked for me so far, but maybe, like you, I just drink insufficient amounts to make the transformation.

My last drink was in February of last year. I quit drinking partly to help support someone in my family who was struggling and wanted to quit, necessitating a dry household, and also because I've seen enough alcoholism in my family.

I drink a lot less than I used to, out of sheer "I'm in my late 40s and this shit's too hard to bounce back from anymore". Also I have a partner and stepkids. We'll drink around them but you cant be maggoted around a bunch of children.

(I still drink on the reg tho, and really should pull back more)

Always try to do fun things less, adult people.
That's how you hold off death! Spoilers he gets you in the end.

Yeah. But dying early of cirrhosis of the liver is not a fun way to go.

I like drinking, on balance it's a positive in my life, but I also need to cut down a bit for health reasons.

As my old Da always says "something's gotta kill you".

Hes in his 70s now so he's doin orright.

I've been trying to dial it down for a while. It sometimes feels Sisyphean when the very special part of me decides that a bender is the right choice because FUKKKIIIIITT!!! TALL CANS IN THE AIR RAISED HIGH but if I look at my habits 10 years or even 5 back it does appear that a there has been a cumulative effect and I'm less shitty for it.

I wish I could say that! Ive dialled right back but I'm feeling sicker/older/sorer than ever. It is possibly for other reasons tho.

i hit the "shit's too hard to bounce back from anymore" wall around age 26–27, now I barely drink

Counterpoint

Moderate and heavy drinkers had 2-fold higher odds of living to age 85 without cognitive impairment relative to non-drinkers.

Well there you go if I don't die I might be still pretty good at crosswords while I'm in hospice care

Or the causation that's in the correlation is that the clever ones tend to drink more

In 2012 I spent a couple of months in the "automatic purchase and consumption of vodka" zone, until I happened (there were no decisions at this point in my life, stuff just *happened*) to drop some powdered shroom capsules at the onset of the daily blackout. The next morning, the urge to drink was gone. And without that urge, physical withdrawal symptoms are nothing more than a mild gastroenteritis, so I managed to quit easily.

I also wrecked my place and shat in the sink that night but overall my life has improved I think.

I only drink once a week now, 4-5 drinks total. Alcohol seems to massively exacerbate my depression as I've gotten older (along with a hangover at any more than 2 beers), the not-fun of coming home and reading depressive stuff and listening to sad music and the next day started to outweigh what fun there was the night-of.

I'd quit completely if not for the social component - not that any of my friends would care if I didn't drink but I can't fathom how any couple has sex for the first time dead sober and weed doesn't have that conversational glow of a group of people in the 2-4 drinks range.

Quitting completely also feels like it cuts off a part of life I enjoy, I don't want to shut the door on those (now rare) nights of just talking drunk shit at the bar with strangers.

I started binge drinking at 12 and have drank heavily for 21 years since then. At the moment I'm really happy with my consumption, at last. I get shittered sometimes, I get drunk during the week every once in a while. I drink a decent amount most weekends but sometimes not that much, or only on one or two nights.

This contrasts with say my mid/late 20s when I was living alone and probably drunk at least 4 nights a week and often would go on 3 or 4 day drunks (facilitated by working a 6 days on, 4 days off work schedule). That was too much.

I have a decent not spectacular whiskey shelf, now drink wine with meals if out, quarterly sessions with work or w/e might see me drunk but nothing major these days

When I was younger I used to drink more, but almost always in relative moderation. I have never been able to go above 5 pints without becoming drunk and often ill. Three pints used to be my typical consumption. Nowadays I drink only 2 pints (sometimes only 1), as I like the effect up to that point but not the negative effects when I drink more than that. I only drink at weekends, so 1 or two pints on Saturday, the same on Sunday, as I am scared of the risk to my health of drinking more frequently. But recently I have thought it might be nice to become one of those people who is a more regular fixture at the pub. I do enjoy the lift to my mood that 1 or 2 pints give me, and I dislike being bored and gloomy all the time during the week.

I'm lucky with alcohol; don't normally get much of a hangover & somehow I've never felt any real craving for it while sober. I don't monitor or think about my intake and it varies a lot but probably averages about twice a week, normally a couple of beers with some weeknight venture. never really got into drinking at home. I've still indulged in plenty of reckless and self-destructive drunk behaviour mind, and that triumphant feeling you get when you're a bit drunk is such a seductive high, but I've got other vices to fall back on

I unapologetically love drinking. Alcoholic beverages are tasty, they pair nicely with food, and they enhance camaraderie. They provide a little layer of insulation from the harshness of world, which is, in moderation, quite a nice feeling. Bar culture is rich and evocative; wine and beer and spirits have interesting histories and social roles.

So I drink often, but not a huge amount at a time. That is, I will generally have two or three drinks almost every evening, and at pretty much every restaurant meal. What I've never been a fan of is the big weekendy college-type binge. The 8, 9, 10-drink spree that you don't remember much about and isn't much fun and feels terrible in the morning.

So even though I drink almost every day, it's been many years since I've felt solidly drunk. Not least because drinking steadily for 30 years leads to formidable tolerance. If I undertook to get really drunk, it would take a LOT.

I haven't ever come across much information about how steady-yet-modest drinking (spread throughout the week) compares with the same amount consumed all on Friday night, in terms of how much it's wrecking my body. In any case, I periodically take a week or two off every now and then, whether to demonstrate that I can, or to push the reset button on my bloodstream just a little.