to what extent does your life revolve around alcohol?

blatherskite, one of the reasons I like edibles is that I have to plan ahead and be really intentional about it. I have to know where I'm going to be and what I'm expected to be doing 45 minutes or an hour from now. Also that there is a ceiling to the high. Example:

A quarter of a brownie = in X minutes I will probably be at X level of highness for Y hours (some of which I will be asleep for).

But HALF of a brownie = in X minutes I will probably be at X level of highness for Y+2 hours (most of which I will be asleep for).

The larger dose doesn't seem to affect the time of arrival or the amount of alteredness. Just its duration (for me, anyway). And since I sleep through a lot of it, it really doesn't matter.

This is distinct from the buzz maintenance strategies required for gin (he said, striving mightily to tack back to the topic).

One gin & tonic = Tasty, but meh in terms of buzz.

Two gin & tonics in 30 minutes = Oh, nice.

Three gin & tonics in 45 minutes = Now you're talking.

Four gin & tonics in 60 minutes = Guess I'll be ubering home.

Five, six, well... let's just not go there because it isn't pretty.

“ and that third time, the friend's house, in her company, doing an activity together and feeling the sun, reminded me of why i had stopped in the first place. because it was so, so good, in a normal way, which is to say the outstanding way that used to be normal for me for so long. somewhere along the way, though, i lost that. i mentioned it to a friend a few weeks ago and still remember, so i guess it's halfway worth remembering -- smoking had become maintenance for me. sure, it made me feel better, but i was starting to feel really dull and moody without it, and on some occasions which should have been warm family gatherings, i'd find myself thinking about getting home and smoking. not good. smoking weed should, and can be, a wonderful experience that softens things, opens up creativity, pushes back against the negative voice. it shouldn't be a debt you have to pay to get back to normal, and that's what it had become for me.”

Without getting specific, I’ll just say of KM what the young folks say about their favorite rappers - that MFer spittin’

In Moderation Management, we used to use the metaphor of a line in the sand - one this side of the line (let's say 4 pints) all is well and fun and celebratory - and on that side of the line (maybe 6 pints) they returns are diminishing, you're starting to get stupid and you have booze breath and you're probably not going sleep well.. and you'll likely feel it in the morning.

So this goal is to try and stay on this side of line - slow down, drink some water, make sure to eat some food, etc.

to be honest I would have loved for this stuff to have been discussed on ilx 5-10 years ago because I did not know anybody who talked about “problems” with weed and felt like a complete chuffhead for having a problem or thinking I did or whatever. That shows a supreme deficit of character and introspection on my part, but… nobody took this seriously. Through “treatment” I met maybe 2 people out of dozens of addicts who had a “pot problem” but I’m pretty sure one of them was a narc. Ok enough over sharing :-(

yup that is the struggle now, once you've had Drink #4 you're in a good spot and it's really hard not to think "ooh a 5th would make me feel even better" and at that point you just don't have the willpower to say no. worse this is when someone will bring up shots and you just go oh hell yeah

and yeah I identify with that KM quote too, always helps to take breaks here and there. the sense of euphoria is a lot more pronounced after a few days off

was not easy going to the pub as a new widower, but little by little, the local crew got to know and accept this weird music loving bloke.
i now have a lot of local friends that i would never have had if not for booze.

mark e, this was very much my experience when I was first divorced. There was one brewpub downtown at the time (this was pre-downtown revival here) where everybody who lived, worked or just hung out downtown would get together. I met so many people there over the next year or two, mostly by virtue of not wanting to go home and be by myself. Some of my best friends to this day. And a couple of girlfriends too. And the booze 100 percent facilitated all of that.

One little speech I give sometimes when my wife and I are doing cocktail classes is about the importance of alcohol to human civilization. There's a reason for its enduring ubiquity (at least, in countries where it's legal) — its greatest use imo is as a social drug. It smooths the frictions of social anxiety and awkwardness. Human interaction is stressful, there's real value in making it less so. (Which alcohol does up to a point, past which point — as noted above — returns diminish speedily and even catastrophically.)

And don't forget, for hundreds of years beer et al. was safer to drink than water.

Going back to that podcast (sorry), he kept emphasizing the carcinogenic properties of alcohol, which is, of course, any way you look at it, explicitly a poison. That is, it is nothing but bad for you, with no minimum/safe amount, just degrees of badness. I found the emphasis really striking, as was his comparison of drinking and smoking and their similar (if not exactly analogous) hazards. That is, I always figured, hey, I don't drink to excess, it does not appear to be negatively impacting my life, so no problem. But saying that 14 drinks or whatever is the same cancer risk as smoking 10 cigarettes or something, I have to admit, I'd never thought about it like that. The invisible impacts, the way that alcohol can pretty much infiltrate and mess with your entire body. It did give me pause. But not enough to make me quit drinking, lol.

I would have loved for this stuff to have been discussed on ilx 5-10 years ago

Search is your friend for past discussions, and if anybody wants to bump one for weed-o-centric content (Note: I am not trying to be the thread police - fine with the discussion continuing organically, so to speak, here)

Weed and alcohol- classic, dud, somewhere in the middle?
any tips on quitting weed
Weed, depression and schizophrenia
34 Hours without weed
weed in the new era

I've just given up weed for Lent

xpost

I was indoctrinated early on into the alcohol-is-poison mindset by a stoner friend who I was in a band with. "Which one makes you feel worse in the morning?" was his refrain, in re booze vs. weed. I agreed he had a point. The recent studies have hammered it home, but I've always thought of alcohol as basically a mild toxin with longterm cumulative effects.

(And obv taken in sufficient quantities it can have very bad short-term effects too)

I found this a few years ago and think it's pretty darn good.. non-judgemental, non-dogmatic:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbKbq2IytC4

yup that is the struggle now, once you've had Drink #4 you're in a good spot and it's really hard not to think "ooh a 5th would make me feel even better" and at that point you just don't have the willpower to say no. worse this is when someone will bring up shots and you just go oh hell yeah

and yeah I identify with that KM quote too, always helps to take breaks here and there. the sense of euphoria is a lot more pronounced after a few days off

― frogbs, Thursday, February 2, 2023

At the point of the fourth drink I wonder, "Is this party breaking up soon? Please?" Exhaustion is as much the killer these days.

my mindset re: alcohol is that it's probably okay and maybe even mentally healthy to have one or two vices so long as you don't overdo it. when I started drinking my resolution was to give up soda. now that I'm older I think of it as a trade off for exercising and cutting out some unhealthy foods. not really sure where weed fits into all this.

I haven't tasted a soda of any kind in at least 15 years and avoid breads and sugar and carbs generally as much as I can; the nightly Negroni or martini is the reward.

I figure (most) everything fine in moderation, because really, you have to draw the line somewhere. Caffeine? Sugar? Alcohol? Fats? All the while we're getting older, you can't stop that, and while some get older than others, your body often has other plans for you no matter how you live your life. So might as well, you know, live a little.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kisr3daNRx0

I used to drink a twelve pack of soda a week. Sometimes, when eating a pizza, I'd finish one can and pop open another immediately. I've reduced it to one on the weekends as a treat (LaCroix helped a lot) and it's nice how the lack of it reinforces the habit of not drinking it more--now if I have a 16oz bottle of soda, I can only finish half, and save the rest for the following day.

I'm not even really tempted by soda, outside of an occasional Squirt at a taqueria, or a hangover Coke. But my teeth show the ravages of a soda childhood, I look like Jaws from the Bond films

lol yes soda is much more a forbidden vice for me than alcohol. I enjoy a fountain Coke in the right situation (diner, grilled cheese sandwich, fries) and allow myself a gas station Dr. Pepper on road trips, but we have it in the house only as mixers (ginger beer, mostly).

i gave up caffeine 20 years ago.
full on sweats/headaches/fever for a week.
one of the worst weeks of my life.

*Squirt is the soda that goes with any spirit, btw

Tequila in particular.

Joys of being an Aussie, the only soda I like (Dr. pepper) is ridiculously expensive. Really helps with the moderation (two cans a month?)

I drink soda water and lime like it’s going out of style.

:-o i'm glad that some of that resonated. i read it and it seems right, but also it's a perspective that i struggle to follow, myself. i have a problem with knowing what i should do, or having an idea of it, but then not following my own advice. so it's useful and very kind to hear that others think that it rings true; it helps to reinforce it.

i am also giving financial advice to a friend at this very moment, and it's good financial advice, and it's just funny and sad that with both drugs and money i feel like i can step back and i know what is a decent idea, but i have such a tough time carrying through with it. with money, i have drawn almost all of my retirement account over the last 2 years while PAINTING! while also being high as fuck 90% of the time (until the last month)! i feel like a guy with an oozing bullet hole wound giving advice about how to avoid getting shot, lol. but still, stepping back and trying to be a little more positive, it's good to know that somewhere in my head there are workable ideas

had my first real drinking escapade in weeks last night, I was just stressed out and moody and at a show and went hard, but I noticed my hangover is mild compared to usual.

I'm guessing when you stop getting ripped all the time, maybe the body has time to recover and then it's not so hard to rebound if you do it...every once in a while. that and getting in (better) shape

The road to excess, etc.

my brain wants to party like it's 2004, my body reminds me I'm 42

the latter usually wins!

Pro tip: electrolyte solution (like Pedialyte, not Gatorade) gets you hydrated and repaired faster than water

we actually have a bit of pedialyte for my dad since he's diabetic, I should just buy some for me as well

hahaha yep, when the kids were little we used to have it in the house all the time and it really does work

question is do you drink it before you go to bed or in the morning??? I know some people who swear by the "take 2 aspirin before bed" trick but I'm pretty sure that's really not good on your liver

I remember Lucozade being the UK equiv of pedialyte

Dunno about aspirin but I do know that Tylenol (acetominophen) is very bad for drunkards. Advil (ibuprofen) is okay.

I always try & remember to drink some dioralyte or similar before going to bed if I've been out and drunk lots. Definitely helps.

Our Dollar Tree down the street has something like generic pedialyte - never tried it, but it's a lot cheaper than the real deal

yea I mean when it comes to a hangover the main thing is dehydration right? the air has gotten incredibly dry this week and I'm waking up feeling hungover every day now

There was a place that opened in Hoboken offering intravenous rehydration as the ultimate hangover cure. It didn't last long, so I guess people aren't quite ready yet to get hooked up to an IV at some sketchy shop to cure a hangover, or maybe it was just bad timing because they opened right before Covid.

My 19 year old recently wrecked his car. I hope none of you get a call at 3:00 am like I did. It's a bit hazy, but I'm pretty sure he had a fair amount to drink. Oddly, the police seem not to have done a sobriety test. He's lucky to be alive, and I realized how lucky I was far more times than I deserved.

yeah, in there current, convenient era of Uber/Lyft just a phone tap away, I get annoyed by how many friends of mine still drive shithammered

Jesus I'm so sorry to hear that jimbeaux.

xpost I will be the first to admit that I was very very bad about driving when I shouldn't up until the time I almost got a DUI, and that even that incident didn't....completely solve the problem, so I solved it by making it impossible to drive home by Ubering to the venue if there's a remote chance of me having a lot to drink. if you can't trust yourself, take it out of the equation. but it's a hard lesson to learn.

did that last night, there was a time when I would have said "it's only 1 mile, what's potentially killing myself and other people"

It makes no sense, but then again, 19 year old males are not known for making sensible decisions.

If there's the slightest chance I'll drink more than two cocktails at night I Lyft/Uber home.

Yeah, I've found that if I just don't leave home with a vehicle, I won't be driving at all that night.. I'll either walk, take a bus, or get a ride home

(but I don't have a car, only honda motorbikes)

xpost some of the times I made bad decisions, I had a phone and could have Ubered home and didn't. intoxicated brain immediately says "ehh I can drive and no I don't want to pick up my car tomorrow" way too easily.

glad your son is ok and sorry that you had probably the scare of a lifetime.

It's not the first scare he's given me, and probably not the worst, but I am glad he's OK--more or less. He does have a broken left humerus.

when I was 17 a very dear friend of mine died when the drunk driver crashed the car into the side of a house, she was in the passenger seat and burned to death - the driver managed to get out and survived after he had a leg amputated. Also my best friend was killed by a drink driver when I was 8. That's one reason why I never got a driving license - I find it extremely easy to imagine what can go wrong.

Jesus Christ, calzino, that's horrible. I can see how you'd be scared off driving.

For all mirth made about self-driving cars.. once they perfect the technology, I think it'll be very good for society as a whole

We can ride around as fucked up as we please.