to what extent does your life revolve around alcohol?

As a matter of fact your honour, I believe he was called jack daniels

Essentially when someone goes dark after drinking alcohol or polluting themselves in many other ways, their body often becomes possessed by another entity

in my case it's usually slimer from ghostbusters

guilty lol

There are lots of alcohol threads, jeez. Anyway, I read this WaPo essay and it really bugged me:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/food/giving-up-alcohol-made-our-lives-better--and-turned-us-into-terrible-guests/2019/02/08/7169dab6-2b1e-11e9-b011-d8500644dc98_story.html

Not the general gist of it (if you don't want to drink alcohol, fine), but sort of what's missing from the piece. That is, how much drinking is Drinking? The author gives all these symptoms -"Without alcohol, everything got better. Indigestion? Gone. Sleep? Vastly improved. Skin? Amazingly clear and better hydrated. Mood? Stable and light" - and while she relates it to the potentiated symptoms associated with menopause, I thought, man, alcohol has never been a problem for me, or given me any problems, probably because ... I don't drink too much of it? Sometimes I have a drink or two a day, sometimes I go several days without drinks, but I would never excise it because it's never been a problem, which is sort of tautological: it doesn't give me any problems because I'm not a problem drinker. I drink plenty of beer and bourbon and other things, just not all at once, in huge amounts. Seems a pretty sensible strategy, if you're going to drink at all.

Though it did get me thinking back to my high school (or earlier?) health teacher. If you drink regularly, is that in and of itself a problem, no matter the quantity? Could I imagine my life without alcohol? I guess, but only in the same way I could imagine my life without bread, or sugar: I think it would be worse! I don't know, this essay just rubbed me the wrong way. Her husband, for example, stopped drinking and lost 18 pounds and lessened the amount of blood pressure meds he needed. If drinking cause you to gain 20 pounds and gives you high blood pressure, among other things, then yeah, maybe that's the difference between drinking and Drinking.

Well, yeah. I don't wish to be glib about this, but: If drinking a lot causes you problems, don't drink a lot. If you can't drink at all without it becoming a problem, then... don't drink at all, I guess.

The discussion becomes unhelpfully polarized when we don't recognize that moderate - even enthusiastic
- enjoyment is an option.

I get really down when I see someone rich and famous having trouble with the bottle, or with drugs for that matter, because I think that having lots of money should open options for fun that go way beyond the stuff a schmuck like me can buy, such that the basic stuff no longer comes to mind. like, shouldn't there be bodily pleasures concomitant with crazy cash, that aren't just excesses of the basic stuff that everyone already likes? like, it makes me feel bad not only for the imaginations of the rich, but for how limited our imaginations and powers of pleasure are as a species.

there is part of me that thinks alcohol is a social ill and one of the worst drugs ever but otherwise yeah

Well, there's always this old lushes' tale, which I assume is an urban legend:

https://japanophile.livejournal.com/259667.html

xp

I'm starting to feel like the odd one out for having a healthy relationship to drinking. I really enjoy a beer or a cocktail, maybe 2 (!) on a weekend, but have basically no desire to go beyond that, or to feel wasted/out-of-control.

But the vast majority of our friends have stopped drinking, and the ones that haven't still go way too hard. Feels like there are very few friends we can just have a casual drink with on a Friday night.

That essay just makes me really think that Minnesota (and other midwestern states) really need to legalize recreational pot.

I would love to quit drinking but it would require a heroic level of self control because i love beer and it’s available at every social event

Seems really insidious, like smartphones

I mean, all states should legalize weed. I'm not a big fan, though – it doesn't rival the occasional night of Eastern European-style drinking.

2xp

Weed gives me anxiety

Exactly. Heightened perception of music doesn't make up for it. I also get awful weed hangovers.

my life is a weed hangover

and yeah weed doesn't do the same thing as alcohol, obv

what is a weed hangover

No such luck on my end.

I had my first drink since March 2017 last month. Two Johnny Walker Blacks at a work function for my wife. It was fine. The alcohol tasted worse than it used to back when I drank daily. Had a mild hangover the next day, which was a big surprise with such little alcohol. Haven't had a drop since, but I think enjoying one every 20 months or so will be fine.

In the meantime, with reflection I've really come to realize that in addition to my reasons that I outlined before, I really was not as good of a husband or father when I was regularly using alcohol. Not like, a raging monster, but in ways that were too subtle for me to notice at the time. Brought it up with my wife the other night and she was like "yeah, you were kind of a dick."

the weed thing was pointed directly to some issues outlined in the essay which I would think plagues a lot of aging chilly people in the midwestern states.

They did manage to get a reference to hummus in. I was looking for that.

if drinking made me angry or dickish I'd probably just quit

the idea of just giving it up for a month to see what happens healthwise is pretty good. but even that is difficult to do; it's just so freely available at everything you do

what is a weed hangover

― frogbs, Tuesday, February 12, 2019 11:57 AM (six minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

maybe i smoke too much

I honestly never heard of such a thing

You wake up the next morning and still feel like complete shit. Takes another 24h to get it out of your system. In my experience, at least.

if drinking made me angry or dickish I'd probably just quit

That's how it was kind of insidious for me. It took some distance and self-reflection to even realize I was being a dick.

None at all. I prefer weed.

Someone just gave me a bunch of edibles (chocolate and gummies). I have never had a commercially produced one so am excited.

Weed gives me anxiety

if there's anything hanging over from the bowl i smoked last night it is usually a pleasant soft feeling, doesn't make stray beams of daylight feel like knives like alcohol does

hangovers from alcohol (which i get now if i drink... more than a beer) permanently changed my relationship to alcohol. alcohol also responsible for an abyssal deepening in my depression/anxiety but it took *years* to be conscious of it

Someone just gave me a bunch of edibles (chocolate and gummies). I have never had a commercially produced one so am excited.

I haven't smoked weed regularly since, gah, college. But I do recall there was a saturation point where it just didn't seem fun or appealing unless I took some time off. Ditto booze, I think it's good to take a break every now and then if only to hit a reset button.

I rarely get hangovers from alcohol. I just turn into an asshole. :-(

People eat and drink things for certain reasons and benefits that works for them. It's good that this essayist has discovered it in their 50s. She should learn to make complex non-alcoholic cocktails and not to make plans with friends that she can't make conversation with unless loaded.

The edibles were explained to me about whether it was an up or down. So complicated. I don't get hangovers either but I drink loads of water and get analytical about abvs.

Seems really insidious, like smartphones

― Trϵϵship, Tuesday, 12 February 2019 18:45 (twenty-eight minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

stop this at once trís

I don't think alcohol has made me any worse of a person. which is to say, I can be an ass totally sober, and haven't noticed myself becoming more of an ass after a couple of drinks.

I also have a couple of friends who vacillate between abstaining and drinking to excess. Well, maybe excess is not the right word. Certainly drinking a lot more than I do. But I can think of very few situations where I would waive off a drink or two, any more than I would decline a cookie. I definitely know a few people who I sense drank a whole lot more than I did when they were younger. I really didn't drink much at all when I was younger. Maybe that is a big difference?

used to get anxiety some times w weed. think it just brought out what was already there, repressed. once I became more comfortable in my own skin plus lived in a place where it's legal, that went away. but yeah try some indica.

think the big thing with that is to just make sure you're in a situation where you don't have any responsibilities

xpost But what is loaded? What is, per my revive, drinking? I'm not sure I've ever drank to excess. Or if so, so infrequently or so rarely that I can't think of the last time it happened. And I don't think I've ever considered myself loaded. There seems to be this huge span between not drinking at all and drinking to excess. Perhaps for some, one drink is excessive, for others, a dozen. I think everyone agrees on what we mean by excess, but different people take different routes to get there.

My life, not at all. The steadiness of my hands, however...

Alcohol used to drag me further down the doldrums when I was younger and that has indeed cleared up over time but I've yet to undergo that same metamorphosis with weed.

it's kinda crazy watching old movies where hard drinks are offered to anyone at anytime, as a polite formality. US society def got more puritan about alcohol in past 40-50 yrs. or was everyone back in the old days just a lush.
which is to say, society-as-a-whole's outlook on alcohol can have a huge effect on how you view it in your own life. eg Josh, don't think you'd even be having these questions if it were pre 1980s.

I probably drink a lot more than most people. We are basically this ---> "Jacques (Pépin) chuckles that people freak out when he tells them he and his wife Gloria drink two bottles over dinner. “Well yes,” he details, “I start cooking at 4:00 in the afternoon and I open a bottle of white wine and by the time we eat at 7:00, we’ve finished that bottle of white wine and we open a bottle of red wine.” Jacques concludes this by saying he’s recently decided to exclusively buy magnums of wine. “So when my doctor asks, I will say, ‘Oh, I only drink one bottle."

I don't really experience the most commonly described symptoms of hangovers (headaches etc), mostly I just need extra sleep and experience a vague sense of unease/paranoia the following day. I wish I liked weed but it just puts me to sleep, which I already do too much of

xpost But what is loaded? What is, per my revive, drinking? I'm not sure I've ever drank to excess. Or if so, so infrequently or so rarely that I can't think of the last time it happened. And I don't think I've ever considered myself loaded. There seems to be this huge span between not drinking at all and drinking to excess. Perhaps for some, one drink is excessive, for others, a dozen. I think everyone agrees on what we mean by excess, but different people take different routes to get there.

yeah this is kinda my question too - the article above mentions drinking as part of a "daily routine" which I think is sort of excessive in itself. even though I drink more than I should I think the # of times my BAC gets above, say, .12 is maybe...I dunno, once or twice a year?

lots of xps to pomenitul re. that japanese article which yeah sounds like nonsense since it takes a long time to roast a pig & no one wants to sit in a restaurant that long

& uh plenty of common folks fuck animals, it's not really something that's just available to the rich

basically I wish rich people were more like Des Esseintes & less like, I dunno, Mel Gibson. like, you can afford real decadence, why does it just have to be booze & the drugs everyone can buy?

Perhaps those Des Esseintes do exist, tucked away in some self-designed Sadian dungeon.

But you're right, most of the time it seems like they go for the same shit as the rest of us, more or less. Cf. the king of Thailand:

https://static.independent.co.uk/s3fs-public/thumbnails/image/2016/10/14/11/thai-crown-prince-2-0.jpg

xpost And what is a daily "routine," and is that the problem? If I have one drink, every day, and that is part of my "daily routine," is that better or worse than not drinking at all during the week and having seven drinks on Saturday?

My wife's grandma had a martini a day from basically the 1940s until close to her death (of lung cancer, in her mid-'80s, and that was from decades of smoking, which she quit 30 years earlier, because it's fucking bad for you.) But I knew her well enough that she *needed* that one martini, and if she didn't get it she'd be angry. And if she had *two*, she'd also be angry. So for her, two (stiff) drinks was a problem, but one drink was not a problem - unless she didn't have it. So is that a problem?

It's not a problem unless it's a problem for you.

I should add that we do a ton of socializing without drinking and it's fine. It's usually (ok always) based around food and 'conversation' is not an issue. It's just nice to go to a bar sometimes too.