Ask HN: How did you stop drinking?

I think SO many people overlook this very fact. Most people don't need alcohol to have a good time however it's called a "social lubricant" for a reason.

Sometimes people just need a tiny push to become less self conscious or less introverted. Life is short. You can spend years trying to be healthy and perfect but you need to ask yourself whether you're happy while doing that. If the answer is "Yes" then great. If it's "No" then you should reevaluate your path.

> I’m not drinking

say

> I don’t drink

This is a small change in thinking that has a surprisingly large effect for a lot of people. Hope it helps

My anecdote, I've come to believe that alcohol, besides its short term and well known effects, also has some sort of mid-to-long term low-level psychedelic effects where it distorts your sense of reality as to think everything in a slightly more negative way, increasingly so the further you are from your last dosage, so that it makes itself relevant again as a relief from those symptoms.

I realized this after quitting for a long time, where my mood had significantly improved and i had a very beautiful daily routine, some days i would slip and have one beer or one wine when hanging out with friends (even though i didn't need it, mainly because my feelings of social anxiety had disappeared along with quitting alcohol and honestly i was having so much more fun being sober) thinking that it's fine and it won't do anything to me. Besides not enjoying its flavor at all anymore and getting annoyingly dizzy, the next days something had happened. I didn't experience the very same routine the same way. As if something bleak and dark was lurking in my psyche. I can't explain it but it was completely foreign to me at that point to feel like that so i noticed. Then i realized, oh this is how i used to feel all the time when i was consuming alcohol. Those feelings disappeared after 3 days of consuming a single beer and i was back to normal again, happy. Months later i would slip again, and the same process would repeat. 2-3 days of bleak gloom, then back to normal. That would happen a few times more as i don't really put too much pressure on myself, but now honestly i can't even smell it. A sip of wine or beer brings me disgust so there's nothing to it. I enjoy my nights out more, i dance more, i have more energy, i'm more social, people think i'm on cocaine or ecstasy and they're surprised when i tell them I've been only drinking club mate. Caffeine is a fantastic alternative. No weird paranoias, no weird drunk behavior, aware, not stupid, no dark days, no hangovers. Next day, feeling better than the night before.

Really, my opinion is that alcohol is the biggest scam that exists. It eats your life for nothing. No benefits. Only detriments. I have zero contacts left from the days i used to drink. Noone was my friend, they were addiction buddies with mostly bad behavior. The amount of experience that i'm able to digest with a bright head is so much more fulfilling and lasting that it's like i was a zombie back then and now i am alive. I can't express how lucky i am to have left that era and that self behind. It was trash compared to how i feel now. I strongly suggest that you get rid of it completely and forever.