to what extent does your life revolve around alcohol?

yeah, weekend afternoon coffee is good because if it goes extremely well you can segue into something else. meaning another social activity, as it’s the middle of the day

as a mostly sober person, getting a soda/seltzer at a bar is fine

this year so far, quite a lot tbh but not more than usual in a negative sense

been enjoying one/two drinks after work or with dinner as a more common thing, and am consciously trying to cease more than say five or six in a go

i've tried not eating sugar in its most obvious forms so many times and i get maybe a day, maybe two days if i'm lucky. i don't think i can do it.

I had a friend who said quitting soda was more difficult than quitting smoking and nowadays I believe it. I think I'd feel a lot better after quitting sugar than quitting drinking honestly.

many midwesterners are fucking weird and, even if they drink regularly and aren't particularly religious/moral, think drinking is bad and anyone who abstains is affecting a morally superior position

if she's a minnesotan she's stuck halfway between catholic/lutheran morality and it's a hellscape of weird judgment and passive-aggressiveness

― mh, Tuesday, February 12, 2019 9:35 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

For real for real. Your body is a temple.

my married friends were joking about the husband's mom and how she actually deployed the "well, that's different" when talking about a food she had not previously experienced. where "different" means "I don't like this because it is outside my conception of food"

scorching passive aggression

in our group of close friends we have a few couples and one pair of them decided to do Dry January. For two weeks the group chat was the rest of us making clubbing plans while they sat it out, so I decided that we were going to have a Sober Night In where we watched some TV shows and ate pizza and the worst thing we would consume was fizzy juice. There was a moment at 9.48pm where we all nervously asked "so if the off-license closes at 10pm and we can't buy booze, we are definitely doing this, right?" and there was a beat where nobody wanted to be the one to surrender or the one to insist. But we stuck it out, stayed sober and had a lovely night til 2am when they left on the note "this has been fun and we've all enjoyed it, but let's never do it again"

two weeks later we all got very drunk on a Saturday night and watched the same shows and listened to music and they left at Sunday 7pm and normally I would say "it's just a good night" but now I feel confident that it was good company and we could give up The Sesh and still enjoy a social life if we had to. Which is totally different to ~10 years ago when I went sober for six months and realised my whole social life was centred around drinking and dancing with people who had no common interests with me.

I didn't drink for 3years in the early-mid 2010s? I got into such good shape.

could you have gotten in shape and kept drinking? or was the drinking what was causing you to be out of shape?

I think it is close to impossible to get into that level of shape while drinking at all. I cut out all sugar, coffee and simple carbs too. I don't know what Marvel movie I was auditioning for.

in shape and drinking? ah, you've reminded me of the strangely alluring millenial-targeted marketing of the White Claw instagram
https://www.instagram.com/whiteclaw/

I spent ten minutes sitting around one day marveling at the weird cross-section of interests they've constructed in the purpose of selling alcoholic fruity sparkling water

damn, Yerac went hard

Yeah it sucks too because I look at pictures of pasta like it's porn.

aren't there a lot of beer ads that feature exclusively young and in-shape people who drink between bouts of volleyball and windsurfing

I am sure they are running one mile to defeat that one beer.

I mean I still exercise a lot, not as hard as I used to, but 75-85% of it is really what you eat/drink that makes the difference. Unfortunately, I heavily got into wine and spirits and I am very frugal so hate spitting during tastings if it's something that I bought or that I know is super expensive. And I want to eat the world when I drink.

I think it is close to impossible to get into that level of shape while drinking at all. I cut out all sugar, coffee and simple carbs too. I don't know what Marvel movie I was auditioning for.

― Yerac, Wednesday, February 13, 2019 4:15 PM (six minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This was my life from May through November before I started fucking up. Trying to get back on the horse again starting this week. Fitting into smaller clothing is great after years of not fitting into any sizes that they carry at department stores.

I ignore my own eating and exercise habits and just talk about "the metabolism" like some people talk about "the economy"

i overdrafted my account today. i think i might not be able to afford drinking in new york? if i tell myself this, will i believe it?

i want to have abs at least once before i'm old. yerac's posts reminded me that this is still a goal i have.

i also have another goal to run a 7 minute beer mile though

I've been off the sauce completely since mid-March and at this point I really can't see going back. I had fallen into a Homer Simpson-esque existence of pounding back a few after work/during dinner/before bed. Every once in a while I'd let myself dry out for a few weeks, but would soon fall back into the same pattern.

My main reasons for quitting:

1.) I had just started going through physical therapy and I realized that I still smelled of booze at my 7:30 a.m. appointments. Additionally, alcohol in the system made me less motivated to do my daily exercises.
2.) My kids got one bout of cold/flu after the other this winter. After a couple months of this, I had lost the energy to take care of my sick kids while drinking as well.
3.) I've been stuck at about 70 lbs overweight for the entire 2010s. Booze was a huge part of my caloric intake and usually led to me binging on junk food as well. Without the booze, it's been easier to reign those other impulses in. I'm still fat but I'm beginning to see results.

― how's life, Thursday, August 10, 2017 9:50 AM (three years ago) bookmarkflaglink

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."

― peace, man, Tuesday, February 12, 2019 1:58 PM (one year ago) bookmarkflaglink

Back in early lockdown, gave up and started drinking wine regularly with my wife to self-medicate for all that "end-of-the-world" anxiety. Stopped and started again a few times, but also began buying myself bottles of hard liquor and drinking by myself on nights that she worked. I've been doing that pretty much every night for the last few weeks, and added to the edibles I've been consuming, it has not been "moderate" amounts of intoxication. Need to dry out and quit again. This hasn't been good for me, mentally or physically.

Sorry to hear it. I'm pretty much the opposite. I've never really drunk at home much and I haven't done at all since March. Been to a pub a few times and had a few meals out in the last 9 months and that's it.

I should say it's made no discernible difference to my physical or mental health.

That’s hard to face (I have some behaviours I’m not ready to face at the moment) and naming it is a big deal already. You’ve got the will to change, clearly, so maybe it’s worth getting some kind of help to ask what it is you need from alcohol that brings you back, and whether you can improve those factors in other ways.
Big respect for your self diagnosis and for stating your intent too, there can be a heck of a barrier to that.

Good luck peace, man. After ramping up my drinking during quarantine, I recently cut back to about 1 drink a night on weeknights and feel much better about it.

I cannot imagine what a shitshow this year would have been has I not quit drink. Or actually I CAN imagine, and thank god it was otherwise.

Good luck, peace man

Quit drinking at the start of September, not necessarily with the expectation of never drinking again but after much deliberation I think that may be for the best. Might make an exception for when I'm home in Scotland as that's once a year at most (couldn't go this year for obvious reasons,doubt I'll be there till at least 2022, so I have time to mull that).

good luck, peace, man - hopefully this is a start to finding a way to manage things again

I've been lucky (if that's the right word) in that we grew up in an environment so completely fucked by alcohol abuse that my wife and I made an early pact to never let it get that far. Still could have happened of course but we had enough alarm bells all around us to mostly keep a lid on it over the years.

Heh, "lucky" is right, coming from similar and tbh i was as bad as anyone for the teenage binges through the lad years despite all of that- although i dont think i was ever (or ever felt, anyway) in danger of going the way my folks had

Ive a nice handle on it now, i think. Enjoy good whiskey, enjoy a drink with food, if im drunk twice a year nowadays that would be about it, and even then its nothing like the level of the wilder days

Thanks for the support, all.

Yesterday I managed to resist the urge. End of the night, my daughter and I were brushing our teeth together when I mentioned that her electric toothbrush sounded out of batteries. "Dad, it's been like this for 3 days!" Three days that I had been blitzed by the time tooth-brushing rolled around. I wasn't totally blacked out, but smaller gaps in the memory? Drunk promises made to fix it that had drifted away by morning? So that sucked. Not a great feeling for your kid to be calling you out on being totally checked-out like that.

Got completely sober again last November. Is it just me, or do people who drink alcohol kinda smell like lunch meat?

I have done sone experimental trips off the wagon in recent months. Easier to just stay on it full time IME.

Alcohol drinkers smell like whatever they were drinking after it’s fermented in meat juices in a warm incubator.

So kind of like lunch meat, yes!

I have been sober for nearly five years. Decided I'd had enough when I woke up on the toilet after having passed out. One of the best decisions I've ever made. I don't miss it at all.

I should say, my close friends, all of whom drink regularly, not to say heavily, have been nothing but supportive. I was a little worried about the social ramifications, but if anything it's made my friendships better, since I have a tendency to say really stupid shit when I get drunk.

I've had quite a few extended periods on the wagon in the last few years - up to 3 months at a time. I don't drink much anyway because of my job (teaching) but a) I tend to get the taste when I do drink and have no 'off' button and b) suffer pretty bad with hangovers - physically and mentally. I would certainly say I feel better for it, physically and mentally: I exercise more, read more, my diet is much better. My main issue is my social life, or what's left of it.

Pretty much all of my social relationships are built around booze to some extent or another and, I realise now, I do essentially self-medicate to cope with social situations. When I give up the sauce, I essentially stop socialising, especially trickier social situations. I'm broadly fine with that but my wife's life is all about socialising and meeting up with people and, well, it's making things difficult.

I didn't mean to go sober but the pandemic killed 99.99% of the reason I ever drank (sociability) and now I think I've just lost the taste? Even when I do see people there's no urge to have a couple of fingers of Scotch or drink a beer and the idea of pounding shots kind of makes my stomach hurt.

Same boat as Milo here. I’ve gas a few drinks in the last couple years and even a single beer gives me a headache. I spend my saved income on RPGs and war games. Still smoke weed every day tho.

Having a glass of wine after a pre-dinner martini. I can no longer day-drink, which is to say: drink with lunch and keep going for hours. I got another reminder yesterday during an Easter BBQ. I wanted to leave at 4 p.m.

Best way to curb your drinking is to stay out of bars. Sounds obvious but it’s true. And I am a person who likes to drink at home, alone or otherwise. Yet when the pandemic first hit and all the bars closed I found it really easy to reduce my drinking to a level even a doctor wouldn’t have a problem with. Binge drinking can happen anywhere, it’s true, but if you stay out of bars you’ll do it way way less.

Maybe it's the wrong question to ask, but how many of you can still drink a beer/glass of wine/cocktail before/during dinner and call it a night?

I have reduced my drinking by a great deal. I have a beer once every four months now and it just makes me feel bloated and tired so it’s like why bother. But I sure do still have romantic yearnings about drinking and bars and stuff.

I did what Alfred said just yesterday but that was because I was still nursing a hangover and one drink was sufficient. Would love to restrict my drinking to mealtime but in all honesty I’d probably have more than one during my meal, as a rule.

For me my restrictions stem from my diet, which is basically small amounts of food for breakfast, midday snack, and lunch. I have a glass of wine on Fridays and Saturdays with lunch, my weekend, and I already feel bloated. But when I hang out with friends my self-imposed weekday schedule is so rigorous that age + body mass + boredom = uggggggggh if I have more than three drinks on weekends.

Pretty much the same for me as brimstead these days.

Wait so you have your daily cocktail and then no evening meal afterwards? It sounds to me like you have this totally under control.

x-post

No, sorry if I wasn't clear. I have a cocktail before dinner, then a couple glasses of wine with dinner. At the moment I'm having my coffee and am done for the night.

I have a drink every day, but it's 1 with dinner, sometimes 2. It's never been an issue for me and i realise that I'm very lucky in that respect.