to what extent does your life revolve around alcohol?

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.

― Malevolent Arugula (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Sunday, December 11, 2022 3:38 PM (three weeks ago)

This is super otm ... I have friends that are alcoholics and can't just have one drink, I have friends that are totally sober for the same reason ... I have the friends that will do the equivalent of fasting in re booze, then go back to being functional lushes. My life currently revolves way less around alcohol than it used to. I haven't had a drink in a little over a month (since unofficial work holiday party where I had 3 ciders ... only 3 ... no shots, no cocktails ... I felt good about being able to moderate) ... Like that's basically my goal: to be able to drink in moderation and to be able to stop when I need to, AND to recognize the negative affects of alcohol in terms of being able to distinguish them from the anxiety/depression that are my rock and hard place tbh.

one fun "life hack" I've discovered is that smoking weed or taking an edible and then having 2 drinks gets you as messed up as like, 8 drinks. but you don't feel shitty afterwards, nor are you risking a DUI (obviously I try not to drive until I've come down but you know how it is sometimes). the hard part is sometimes those 2 drinks turn into like 6-7 and that's when you get those really weird hangovers, it's not like the throbbing pain of taking too many shots but you do feel utterly emotionally drained

Edibles or weed have done wonders to blunt the effect of alcohol, but tbh age is doing it already. In the last month with friends in town for backyard hangouts I'm likely to mix two cocktails, have a hit or two of weed, and I'm fine. I wake up in the morning even finer.

Historically I did it the other way round: if I was uncomfortably high, drinking a modest amount of wine or beer would help center me (because my body knows what to do with booze. I know tipsiness and am more used to it).

Nowadays I have dramatically reduced drinking (due to a health scare), and turned to newly legal weed (and weed-adjacent products) as recreation/relaxation/sleep aid.

I genuinely like beer and for a good long while, my primary reason for drinking alcohol at all was to try new ones at dinner.

I still like to do that but my primary motive is often being buzzed and in a zone so I've started drinking shittier beer with higher ABV more often.

Edibles are cool but my resting heart rate hits like 150 on em

St Bernardus is my fav, and I used to savor it, sipping for an hour, now I wind up gulping it and ruining the experience.

xp frogbs -- my anti-anxiety medication also has this effect. Like, i have a baseline quantity I take, but if I take the maximum prescribed, I can have one drink only and feel the same fun euphoria "I'm a charming social person" feeling that normally it would take 3 drinks to achieve.

I also like the taste of good cocktails and I recently discovered a blackberry cider that is super delicious

Neando, I find that if I was t to savor a beer but also really want to chug one down I drink a cheap beer first to get full then I am physically and psychologically able to nurse the next one.

Been busy af with work and family this week so have thankfully been back on my no drink / no smoke during the workweek schtick. Feels good but will probably have some spare time to get stupid soon enough

Christmas is usually a difficult time for me with booze but, one blowout on Christmas Day aside (which, tbf was a 12hr blowout), I pretty much avoided booze altogether. I went to a party on the 29th, where I drove, had a couple of non-alcoholic Guinness and two moderate beers and drove home. I felt *magnificent* the next day. I think this could be sustainable in the future.

1) The non-alcoholic Guinness is really *good* but 2) I still hid the cans when I'd poured them. Coward.

Agree that it's basically down to metabolism. After my Christmas Day session, I was out of action for basically 3 days; the people I'd drunk with were back down the pub Boxing Day. I have no idea how.

yeah my metabolism re alcohol has gotten slower as I've gotten older ... it used to be I'd be drinking, out of action for a day, and then back to drinking the next, basically, every other day getting wasted. Now, it's definitely two days of recovery time, if not 3.

I've gone out two nights this week and have my godson's birthday tomorrow plus lunch with a former ILXor, which means tonight I stay home, mix a Negroni, and have two glasses of wine for dinner. In bed by 10 p.m.

One thing that's definitely a corollary of the metabolic slowdown: not wanting to stay up late. I can't be doing with 3am sessions any more. I can't be doing with midnight sessions, tbh.

two cocktails, have a hit or two of weed, and I'm fine

This is kind of my ideal, a mild mixed buzz.

My wife and I are actually doing dry January this year. In the past we'd maybe do a week, but it's joined to a broader New Year's health rededication. Doing fine with no booze so far though granted it's not even a full week yet. Mostly just drinking a lot of La Croix, kombucha and tea, though we did buy some of the fancy new NA drinks to try for fun.

what about weed or is it not a part of your lives?

It's not included in the "dry January" because they're separate things to me (and alcohol is obviously a lot unhealthier than weed). But so far limited to a few nighttime gummis.

My current go-to NA drinks are the Ritual gin alternative (good and peppery, great with tonic and lime) and of beers, Athletic (mainly the Upside Dawn). The NA Heineken and Beck's taste pretty much like their alcoholic equivalents. OK in some contexts but not mindblowing.

We have some Canadian NA beer in the fridge — Sober Carpenter — but haven't tried it yet. Had a "Phony Negroni" last night that was basically Campari-flavored soda, not bad.

think I am the only person in the world who those unrealistic 'just say no' to drugs adverts/ kids tv shows worked on. ie the whole one drag of weed will lead to being a heroin addict within the week. therefore I have never been high. the most alcohol I have ever consumed in one night is two beers, so i've never been drunk either. Haven't actually drunk alcohol since I was 18. I guess being a bit drunk must be nice otherwise noone would do it but i'm too old and probably too incurious to give it a go now.

bravo!!

Definitely no reason to start if you haven't. I enjoy mild-to-medium mood- and mind-alteration, it works for me but I don't have any illusion that it's "healthy" per se. And it's nice to take a break just to know for sure that I don't "need" it.

I can thank/blame my school's anti-drug classes for introducing me to the existence of LSD and accidentally making it sound like the best thing ever (and it is, as well as the worst)

idk if more focus on the perils of booze beyond the already-outdated-by-then scourge of "alcopops" would have helped or hindered me but every time I'm drunk like now I'm reminded what a nasty piece of shit drug it is

anti-drug propaganda was so embedded within the school, one of our typing assignments was reproducing a three or four page anti-marijuana paper, which basically suggested a high school girl basically ate her baby and couldn't play the piano anymore because of weed

I've done my share of drugs and would not recommend starting over forty.

xpost Professor Longhair would have some things to say about that. (The piano, not the baby-eating.) There's a great passage in Dr. John's memoir where he talks about Fess smoking spliffs the size of your arm before he went on stage.

these days staying sober seems way more fucking cool than whatever bullshit 3rd hand hippie hangover drug romanticism we inherited which I really hope has finally run its course by now

you can never have enough posts on here about Professor Longhair, what a ledge!

I remember being mighty confused in 4th grade about how weed was supposed to ruin your life and possibly kill you when at the same time they considered it a "gateway drug" like the cigarettes and beer my Dad had. I still remember being terrified to try it, then when I finally did I kept laughing and thinking "wait, this is it?". in retrospect the shit I smoked was probably 95% oregano

"I don't smoke
I don't drink
I don't fuck
At least I can fucking think"

if he's so straight edge why does he sound like barney gumble

i don't care about being cool i care about getting through a day

Also: Negronis taste better than Jake Gyllenhaal's lips.

I only drink on fridays and saturdays now. I'm teetotal the rest of the time, that's my latest thing!

Negronis taste better than Jake Gyllenhaal's lips.

Discarded Taylor Swift lyrics

https://www.shockcinemamagazine.com/stoned.jpg

These days I take frequent and extended breaks from drinking (or, more accurately, I drink only sparingly except for special occasions).

So I am genially amused by my local bar advertising specials for dry January: dry white wine and dry martinis.

Just listened to a long podcast episode about alcohol and its effects and boy did it make a great case for not drinking at all. Then again, I've never had any problem related to drinking, not that I know of, and compared to a lot of folks really don't drink that much; I chalk it up to not starting until I was at least in my late '20s. Of course, the podcast repeatedly emphasizes that there is no "safe" amount of what is essentially poison to imbibe, so who knows.

Anyway, here's the podcast:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DkS1pkKpILY

One thing that's definitely a corollary of the metabolic slowdown: not wanting to stay up late. I can't be doing with 3am sessions any more. I can't be doing with midnight sessions, tbh.

― Shard-borne Beatles with their drowsy hums (Chinaski), Friday, January 6, 2023 2:38 PM (five days ago) bookmarkflaglink

This is a point of amusement with friends I’ve known since we were 18-19 - the point in the evening where we’re like “well, looks like I should get home - gotta do some laundry, maybe catch up on reading.” In the old days we’d have been drinking until dawn.

Or, if not drinking, then talking, etc.

i still love staying up late. just not with other people.

❤️

(I don’t want to throw this thread off course, but to expand on Neanderthal’s point: there are few things in life as wonderful as a killer book, a third wind, and a Friday or Saturday evening. MIDDLE AGE RIOT)

yeah, 11pm is my current witching hour.. that's when I'm either home in bed, or trying to get home to bed. (Shows, of course, don't count)

I am sipping a sidecar as I read this thread.

Well, it is almost the weekend.

It's sidecar o'clock somewhere.

EST to be specific

Wait Until Friday, Bandini