to what extent does your life revolve around alcohol?

^^^ I mix your recipe for a Jasmine weekly.

1-3 a night if I feel like it. I often don't.

The pandemic made me realize I'm just not interested in drinking unless I'm at a bar or restaurant with people. I don't think I had a beer from March to November 2020.

most days i'll do a cocktail or 2 in the hours after work. I'm actually kind of astonished that my drinking didnt vastly increase during the pandemic, but i guess i'm saved by the fact that being drunk at home without friends around just doesnt hold any appeal. going back out to concerts while also negotiating a mask has made me realize that i find it almost impossible to enjoy live music without access to a drink, which is a discovery i'm not crazy about but whatever.

I'm actually kind of astonished that my drinking didnt vastly increase during the pandemic, but i guess i'm saved by the fact that being drunk at home without friends around just doesnt hold any appeal.

This a hundred times. When Florida's flaccid version of a lockdown began, I determined not to drink before 5 p.m. now that I was stuck at home.

Yes, same here. I'll want a drink every once in while at home, but I can take it or leave it. However, the couple times I went to shows during my no-alcohol-diet were awful. I became so anti-social with people I knew a little bit but hadn't seen in forever due to the pan. I thought I could muster the strength to be myself without the alcohol and I crumbled. Disturbing. Hard to tell how much of that was due to the pan making everyone really socially awkward, but still, it was a bummer to find out how much alcohol contributes to my enjoyment of things I love doing.

Last year, I took a break from drinking due to a health scare. During lockdown times I probably did resort too much to joyless, robotic, habitual boozing.

Now that I'm starting to go out more, I am reintroducing very moderate drinking that focuses on camaraderie and connoisseurship and enjoyment. So far it's going okay.

Because of my musical habits, I spend a lot of time in bars and breweries and wineries. As the weather improves and outdoor gigs multiply, I want to be able to enjoy beverages responsibly, as the ads say. The idea of spending four hours in a bar with my closest friends... nursing an iced tea... is just not very appealing.

My experience at shows has drastically improved with sobriety. I once got tossed out of a Dropkick Murphys show (really) for being drunk and disorderly. Saw them again a few years later with one of my kids after stopping drinking, it was a hugely better time. That's the most extreme example, but I personally have a much more direct and connected experience with the show without the haze of alcohol.

one of the hardest parts of quitting alcohol for me was rediscovering fun. my drinking problem meant that i just couldn't imagine doing anything fun or social without alcohol. eventually i realized that it was actually keeping me from having fun in many ways, that it exacerbated non-fun times, that i still had my social anxiety even if it felt blunted to me personally, etc. not to turn this into an anti-alcohol thread or anything. my point being that spending four hours with your friends in one room that isn't someone's home, with the alcohol removed... idk, i can see how that might be fun i guess, but that doesn't sound fun to me at all. sipping an iced tea with a few friends for a half hour then going for a walk or going to get dinner or getting stoned in a park and talking about tv shows, etc, that's more my idea of fun (though i literally watch no tv so idk what to talk about with friends).

being drunk & disorderly enough to stand out from the crowd at a dropkick murphys show, thats like some kind of quantum physics string theory of intoxication that can be theorized about but is still difficult for me to imagine, glad you are healthy & happy now jimbeaux but still, thats some notch in the ol' showgoing belt

Funnily enough, I treat weed as sone of you treat booze. I always have a stash at home yet....I forget to smoke it lol. I packed a bowl at home for the first time in months last Thursday. I'd just rather drink a cocktail.

However, weed's never not offered when I visit a friend, and I always accept a joint.

I wish I was in a legal weed state. Other than very occasional use, the most I’d partake many years ago was visiting stoner friends for most of a week maybe once a year, and it was like a great mental reset.
Not a hangover, but an existential reset where I’d keep pace with them, and then just fall asleep on the lumpy couch and feel very nice about it.
Assigning an era to this, I memorably fell asleep just after 10pm on election night in 2004 😆

My alcohol intake has decreased over the last 10 years, due to quitting smoking cigarettes 10 years ago and starting to smoke more pot within the last couple years. Now I drink nearly every night, usually between .5 and 1.5 beers sipped over 2-3 hours while making dinner, combined with one hit, and usually feel just fine the next day. I rarely drink hard alcohol anymore. It would be healthier to drink less and I try to skip one day a week, but feel I'm in a better place than I was when I was younger.

Assigning an era to this, I memorably fell asleep just after 10pm on election night in 2004 😆

I don't think I've had a drink since ~2004. Doctor's orders; he thought alcohol would cause a bad reaction with my diabetes medication. I wasn't drinking very often before that anyway (or doing/taking anything else), because I can't write unless I'm sober, and being able to write is my #1 priority at all times.

I don't write drunk or high either, though I have on two or three occasions revised when high because Editing Brain functions differently from Writing Brain.

I remember watching the 2016 vice presidential debate high and being overcome with a feeling of dread and paranoia. I don't think I've got high since then.

I usually have 1-2 drinks with dinner, usually 1. On rare occasions maybe up to 3. Can’t remember the last time I got more than pleasantly buzzed.

i had a hard-drinking friend who had to suddenly & permanently quit due to medical reasons. i'll never forget asking him once if he missed it and he said surprisingly no, the only weird thing about it was that when socializing he noticed that he would often unconsciously hold his empty hand in front of his chest, as if gripping a phantom beer bottle.

for me drinking is mostly a social activity, so I wound up doing way less of it when the pandemic started. funny because one of the things we stocked up on in March 2020 was beer, "just to get us through the next few weeks"...lmao

of course it could just be that I've been enjoying weed a lot more, especially if you're just gonna be in your basement listening to records or whatever. it's nice to be able to get fucked up and not feel it the next morning. I've had some good drunken times but I'm 35 now and my body kind of tells me that what I'm doing is not great. Like I remember my first party post-vaxx, hitting it pretty hard & remembering the next morning what a real hangover felt like...and was like whoa I used to do this every week? Fucked up.

I think if I could just stick to 4-5 beers on a night out I'd be great

the day after +10 beers/drinks is... difficult

^

if i had 4-5 beers in one night i would not be able to get out of bed for the entire next day

Had a few drinks last weekend, and now I think I'm on a possibly permanent break. I don't drink heavily, but I feel like I'm not enjoying it enough for it to be worth the constant lingering anxiety that comes from having a family history of alcoholism. I'd rather just not have to think about alcohol at all.

Wouldn’t it be nice

I've been alcohol free for 4 weeks since Friday, it's a new record for me. It had to go because my health was declining and I've never been capable of moderate drinking. lol being f/t sober is quite a trip!

Congrats calzino! That's a big achievement!

I'm not sober, but I have an "I only drink at parties" rule in place now. No glasses of wine over dinner, no pints at the bar before bed, no nightcaps. If it's somebody's birthday I'll tie one on but otherwise no thanks :)

I'm going the wrong way. Third time I yakked due to a hangover in the last two months.

Congrats calzino btw!

I quit 4 months ago. I couldn’t drink only a modest amount if there was booze in the house, and as I’ve gotten older it takes less to feel hungover. I’ve got two kids so any sort of hangover is blindingly miserable in the mornings if I have to wrangle kids, so it just wasn’t worth it anymore. It’s been pretty easy, the only challenge is xmas parties and being social. I have solved this by putting myself on dishes duty or avoiding parties altogether. It’s not that i’m tempted, I just really relied on booze to help me be social and without it I don’t have the patience.

And being around drunk people while sober is…. ugh

there is a shrink who phones me every fortnight - I've told her about it to put more pressure and accountability on myself. I did the full confessional on how bad I'd got so now if I fall off the wagon I'll either have to lie or I'll be in big trouble! But it has been a lot easier than I expected. I think my body was missing all the sugar content but I have been getting that from ginger beer now.

I've been fully sober from pot and alcohol for just over a year now (again). It has had innumerable benefits and very few challenges. Like calzino, I've never been capable of moderate drinking. It starts moderate, but after a few months, I'm invariably back to jelly jars full of gin.

Last night I was at a friend's annual holiday party. They always have an open bar to which I've helped myself in the past. Had a moment of, "After all, why not? Why shouldn't I drink it?" I shook the idea off and the moment passed.

It had been a week full of bad news prior to the party, and maybe that had something to do with it. Back when I used to smoke cigarettes, innumerable attempts at quitting were derailed by scenarios such as "my car broke down and my girlfriend dumped me - can I bum a smoke?" Happy to have avoided that trap this time around.

Jesus, I guess I'm closing in on two years since I've had even a single beer. It feels weird, so many good memories wrapped in drinking (and smoking) but I can't drink like I could until ~35 and moderation (one drink with dinner or whatever) holds no interest for me. It's either shots until last call or nada.

Congrats ‘zino!

I stopped drinking, more or less, about two years ago. After having Covid, even the slightest bit of a drink began triggering brutal 2-3 day headaches. This wasn’t the only thing causing headaches post-Covid but it was the most immediately obvious to me.

I still smoke weed though. I know I’m saving money, especially when I go out, but I just spend money on other bullshit instead so it doesn’t feel like it.

Love you all.

My wife and I are both drinkers, as a lifestyle. What we call sustainable hedonism. We love good drinks of all varieties — liquor, wine, beer — and we have a well-stocked home bar. Whenever we travel we always look for the best bars as well as restaurants, and our first trip to Mexico was entirely built around exploring Mezcal production (and trying tons of different kinds). We turned our hobby into a side gig, we run a cocktail catering company with a friend. Mostly we teach cocktail classes, which are super fun — we walk people through the mechanics of making drinks and also talk about the histories of specific liquors or drinks. At the same time, when we work parties we always include a (delicious) NA option.

It may sound funny to say it given that we are obviously in the top 5-10 percent of the population for alcohol consumption (at least according to the stats I’ve read about drinks per week), but we rarely let ourselves get much more than buzzed. I’ll typically have 2-3 drinks a day, almost never enough to even notice it the next day. I’ve gotten better about not drinking within a few hours of bedtime, because I did notice it messing with my sleep, that rebound effect. I have known and worked with alcoholics and I know how destructive it can be, but I’m in 50s and I feel like if I was going to develop a drinking problem I would have by now.

I’m a big fan of the growth of sober culture and the wide availability of NA options, I think it’s good and healthy. Part of our whole alcohol education mission is to make people THINK about drinking — make every drink a deliberate one, and hopefully a delicious one, not just something rote or blotto-seeking. Only drink the drinks you really want, and enjoy them. I can imagine not drinking at some point in the future, or drinking less (particularly if the doctor says so). But for now I enjoy it as one of life’s friendly pleasures.

tips, I'm with you. I'll stick to a cocktail + wine on weekdays, more on weekends.

But, as this thread is here to remind me, I don't for a moment forget how lucky I am about comorbidities and such.

I think the line's always going to be to what extent a person -- for a number of genetic, physical, and psychological reasons -- can handle mild to moderate drinking.

Yep, and knowing how to recognize if it’s getting off balance. We talk about it a fair amount, I think if either of us felt like the other one needed to ease up we’d be very open to the discussion.

I'm 95% sure my blood pressure issues are due to alcohol. When I'm home alone, I never drink. Even socially, I keep it moderate.

But at concerts, I get blitzed to the point of no return sometimes. In 2016 I woke up in an ER, covered in vomit. I've not had anything that bad since but I got thrown out of a show for sleeping on the bar two months ago.

It's not typically to numb pain (though I have had those nights) as I have had this problem a decade. It's mostly an addiction to the feeling of being that lit up at a live show and around friends.

So... that's what I try to tackle next.

I've gotten ads for non-alcoholic tequila and non-alcoholic/non-psychoactive "hemp spirits" lately, both of which strike me as missing the point of tequila and cannabis completely.

Neanderthal I know what you mean about getting smashed at a show. I went through a period, especially going to see really loud bands, where I loved that feeling. The only real blackout I've ever had was the night of an Acid Mothers Temple show. I successfully caught a taxi home from Brooklyn to Manhattan, got into my building, even laid out my clothes in a neat pile and woke up like 10 hours later with no clear memory from about halfway through the show forward. So that kind of set a limit for me, I didn't want that to happen again.

When I tried to cut down on the amount that I drank, I would give in if I had a rough day. Eventually I noticed that my definition of a “rough day” kept changing, and it took less for me to feel that “oh, I really need a drink.” Because I was rewarding myself for having a rough day, I started making my days feel a lot rougher than they really were. That realization was a big moment in convincing me to quit. Our brains are slippery fuckers.

Like many on this thread I can't do moderation. Once I have the first drink around 6, I just continue on until bedtime, and I can get through a lot without particularly noticing. Having just one drink is of no interest to me, I'd rather just go without, so I try not to drink during the week, and at least once a year I take a month off. I'm not willing to give up alcohol just yet, I enjoy it too much, but there's a constant tension there.

I made a health trello at start of November, with idea of tracking various things good and bad and aiming for an under/over on each. Plan was to allow for either 2 or 3 days per week with alcohol. I then went six weeks without a drink. I don't think the two things are related, probably more likely the arrival of colder weather

But I've definitely never gone that long without alcohol before. The only thing is, I don't really feel any different other than anything next-day related, but no longer or wider difference

Might try something similar with coffee

Since getting poleaxed at a wedding in July, I've managed to limit myself to a maximum of 3 or 4 beers at the weekend and have thoroughly enjoyed it. I've been going to the pub on my own with a book and goddamn if it isn't the best hour or so of my week.

Christmas will be the issue. I will inevitably spend a lot of time with my wife's family, all of whom are staggeringly competent pissheads. They can drink beers and a bottle of wine and whiskey afterwards and be up for it the next day. Historically, the only way I can really cope with these events is to join in/self-medicate. And be rotten hungover and anxious for days afterwards. I either don't go and further my standing as the 'grumpy bastard' who 'doesn't like us', or go, drive, and hover on the edge of things, wondering when is too early to leave.

"As a machine learning model, I do not have a personal life or experiences, and therefore my life does not revolve around any activities or substances, including alcohol. I am a purely computational entity, and my sole purpose is to assist users in generating natural-sounding text based on the input provided to me. I do not have personal beliefs, desires, or experiences, and I do not engage in any activities, including the consumption of alcohol. My function is solely to assist users in generating human-like text."

I should probably start drikning

An old post reminded me that last time I quit drinking (because I was badly injured in an accident and it took me weeks/months to recover and I didn't have any health points left for vices), within a few days I was UNCONTROLLABLY craving baked goods and sweets! So it's a wrap, the fact that eat almost zero sugar and don't want sweets or desserts is because I'm getting all my sugar as alcohol.

When I tried to cut down on the amount that I drank, I would give in if I had a rough day. Eventually I noticed that my definition of a “rough day” kept changing, and it took less for me to feel that “oh, I really need a drink.” Because I was rewarding myself for having a rough day, I started making my days feel a lot rougher than they really were. That realization was a big moment in convincing me to quit. Our brains are slippery fuckers.

― Cow_Art, Sunday, December 11, 2022 9:03 PM bookmarkflaglink

so otm. I had a tendency to romanticize the causes for my drinking for the longest time. "if only I wasn't depressed", "it's what I do to deal with things", but....I pretty much went HARD in my 20s when yeah, I didn't have anxiety meds and had mood problems, but most of the nights I went out drinking was when I was in a celebratory mood. The director of one of the plays I was in actually emailed one of my best friends worried about my drinking back when I was 24. Back then, we'd go to the Bennigans (lol) after the show got out, and they did two for ones all night, so I'd pound Gin and Tonics until my friend Eddy would tell me to sleep over at his place a few miles away, and he'd drive me there. Rinse repeat.

there were definitely sometimes I'd do it to cope, but I couldn't say that was a primary reason. I just liked to party because it made me a different person (to the chagrin of the people around me, no doubt). After driving drunk more times than I was proud of and almost crashing into a parked Fire Truck, I stopped (temporarily) drinking hard liquor and moved to beer, which I genuinely enjoyed, and for a while, mostly cut back on it.

I think my second 'wave' of drinking in my mid-30s did start more out of anguish than previous. First, I was a project manager terrified of losing my job due to abuse from a higher ranking person, working ungodly hours and being miserable 24/7 (and very nearly got a DUI when I wrecked my car, which was the final wake-up call, and why I Uber ANYTIME I go to a show or think I'm going to have a lot). and then my dad (long before his stroke) was living with my brother and I and I felt suffocated with a lack of privacy, so I started taking a lot more trips out of town to get some me time. that was only a few months, but I started enjoying the high of going on these trips, getting lit up and enjoying live concerts in holes in walls around the globe, so even after that bad chapter was over, now it was all I wanted to do. nevermind how hellish I would feel the day after, given how the alcohol interacts with my anxiety meds. I had an outright mental breakdown at Maryland Deathfest in 2016 that lasted the entire trip as a result.

my friend who is married w/ kids now told me he 'envied me' one day in frustration and I said "lol if you think this is bliss, it's usually a few hours of euphoria and cleanup for long after." I do miss some of the trips only because I love traveling, but I'm kinda glad I can't do it as often I was doing back then, cos literally I left FL so often my friend Rene would joke about how she'd go on FB to see "where Neanderthal is this week".