I highly recommend Alcohol Explained by William Porter: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25374689-alcohol-explain...
It helped me a lot.
Ask HN: How did you stop drinking?
321–330 of 600 posts
Re: Ask HN: How did you stop drinking?
#322I quit cold turkey a couple of years ago. I don't miss it, it takes zero willpower, and I am not tempted to ever drink again. And yet my drinking was out of control.
The secret is Allen Carr's Easy Way. I needed a simple perspective shift.
Re: Ask HN: How did you stop drinking?
#323Re: Ask HN: How did you stop drinking?
#324I don’t think I can give any answer to you actual question, but 12 packs over one weekend can easily be reduced. Next time don’t buy a 12 pack, maybe buy a 6 pack or a single larger bottle/can. For myself having more then 2 beers make me feel bad the same way you described, but if I have just 1 beer, it doesn’t feel too bad afterwards
Re: Ask HN: How did you stop drinking?
#325Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ultimately, pleasures and hardships fade, what remains at the end is what we accomplished and what we regret. That is, the very memories I'm suggesting you use to evaluate your habits. You had a good time at a party once. Great. Are you really still enjoying that good time? Not likely. You climbed a mountain another time. You were tired and it was very difficult. Are you still exhausted months later? Not likely. But…
I'm a little over a week without alcohol, but I drank every day because I have a lot of difficulty winding down and relaxing. I still do, but I've made the personal decision to prioritize my physical health. How do you square this advice with people who drink because the alternative is highly stressful evenings? Evaluating the history, I can see that drinking _eventually_ led to poorer health, but over the course of…
That's sort of a false dichotomy. The options aren't
1. Drink alcohol to calm down
2. Stay anxious and stressed
The options are more like
1. Drink alcohol to calm down and impair your sleep ensuring you'll get stressed more often and need to have a glass of calming juice again soon
2. Wear yourself out at the gym to calm down and improve your cortisol regulation and reduce the need to calm down
3. See a therapist and learn better stress coping strategies and reduce the need to calm down
4. Remove stressors from your life and reduce the need to calm down
5. Eat healthier and sleep better and improve your cortisol regulation and reduce the need to calm down
...
N. Stay anxious and stressed
Re: Ask HN: How did you stop drinking?
#326I've cut back by switching to non-alcohol beer. I've found that I enjoy the taste of beer, but I don't enjoy how shitty alcohol makes me feel. NA beer tends to solve that for me. Lots of good options coming out. * Just the Hazy by Sam Adams is top tier. * Athletic brewing is solely NA beer - lots of different varieties. * Heineken 0.0 is great * O'Douls amber is surprisingly passable as well I suspect the options wil…
I used to drink a lot of beer. I went to the pub regularly, beer festivals every year, always had bottled beer in the house and did home brew. Oddly, since going teetotal a few years ago I can't stand the smell or taste of beer any more. Even walking past a pub sometimes I find the smell revolting. I'm not sure if I've "unacquired" the taste or maybe I just associate that smell/taste with being out, drunk and feeling…
since going teetotal a few years ago I can't stand the smell or taste of beer any more. Even walking past a pub sometimes I find the smell revolting
I've had the same issue with cigarette smoke since I quit ~20 years ago. The smell is awful and I seem to be hyper-sensitive to it if someone is smoking even remotely nearby.
Re: Ask HN: How did you stop drinking?
#327I've found it easy to stop a great deal of such behaviors by examining not what they promise to deliver, but what they actually brought. I.e. don't look forward, look backward when making decisions. Alcohol promises a great time. Alcohol delivers a hangover and regrets. Junk food promises a great time. Junk food delivers poor health and regrets. Going to the gym promises hardship and struggle. It delivers health. I'v…
Have you actually had problems with addiction? This sounds like someone who just liked drinking once in a while, and then decided not to.
Actual addiction is much more pernicious, your long-term reasoning faculties are suspended and short-term takes over. "I know this hurts me long term, but one drink isn't that big a deal".
I wish addiction could be kicked with "I thought about it and decided it wasn't good for me, so I stopped", but I don't think it can.
Re: Ask HN: How did you stop drinking?
#328Earlier quoted context omitted.
Alcohol promises a great time. Alcohol delivers a hangover and regrets Sure, but simply ignoring the time in between where alcohol effectively does deliver a great time, and which is for many people the addictive aspect of it, isn't exactly easy. Or at least not quite as easy as downplaying the hangover and regrets, as addicts often do. And since your core advice is basically not to misjudge, it's extra weird to me t…
Ultimately, pleasures and hardships fade, what remains at the end is what we accomplished and what we regret. That is, the very memories I'm suggesting you use to evaluate your habits. You had a good time at a party once. Great. Are you really still enjoying that good time? Not likely. You climbed a mountain another time. You were tired and it was very difficult. Are you still exhausted months later? Not likely. But…
I remember injuries from exercising and other things involving exercise because they lasted months or forever.
You’re acting as if exercise never has any drawbacks - like the other commenter said. It definitely does. Getting injured is part of it and is a routine issue for many people - you try to avoid it but it just happens.
I’ve had issues with my patella tracking for years now. My fingers don’t act the same cause of a minor incident while skiing. I’ve got wrists that make funny noises and aren’t as strong because I nearly broke both (but only broke 1) while playing ultimate 15 years ago.
Do you think I forget that shit? I don’t cause I have to live with it everyday.
Re: Ask HN: How did you stop drinking?
#329I've found it easy to stop a great deal of such behaviors by examining not what they promise to deliver, but what they actually brought. I.e. don't look forward, look backward when making decisions. Alcohol promises a great time. Alcohol delivers a hangover and regrets. Junk food promises a great time. Junk food delivers poor health and regrets. Going to the gym promises hardship and struggle. It delivers health. I'v…
Have you actually had problems with addiction? This sounds like someone who just liked drinking once in a while, and then decided not to. Actual addiction is much more pernicious, your long-term reasoning faculties are suspended and short-term takes over. "I know this hurts me long term, but one drink isn't that big a deal". I wish addiction could be kicked with "I thought about it and decided it wasn't good for me,…
I've quit a multi-year smoking habit.
I'm not saying it is easy, but re-programming your thinking by interrogating your assumptions is very much possible (and essentially the core mechanic in cognitive behavioral therapy).
It's also important to note that if I examine how you think, that basically does nothing. You need to do it yourself, earnestly, if it's to have an effect.
Re: Ask HN: How did you stop drinking?
#330We sound similar, except for the 12 pack in a weekend thing. I don't drink much, but I enjoy it when I do. When I drink, it's one drink. Maybe two if I'm feeling extra spicy that day. I enjoy the ritual of the drink. I enjoy the little buzz I get. I enjoy socializing with my fellow drinkers. I DO NOT enjoy how it makes me feel an hour later... that night... the next day. I can tell that something isn't right almost immediately and that steals the joy from the ritual.
So, I just remember that when I want to have a drink. It's going to make me groggy. It's going to make me snore... which annoys my partner. It's going to make me wake up "foggy". Sometimes, particularly when I don't have any responsibilities the next day, or I'm away from my partner, I decide that it's okay, and I'll have a drink. Most times, I won't. I'll have something else instead. Try a virgin drink or a non-alcoholic beer. There's lots of tasty options that don't come with the negative side effects. My go-to is just tonic water with lemon/lime. I don't even miss the vodka/gin that's supposed to be in there. Have them add a splash of dry vermouth or bitters for a little extra special something.
I have found, in the situations where I took control of my desire and rejected the "need" for a drink, I have felt an even better "buzz" from that decision than I would the drink!