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Ask HN: How did you stop drinking?

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Re: Ask HN: How did you stop drinking?

#91

Post by cassonmars »

I used to put away a liter of vodka a night. I kept it up for years, accumulating a solid decade of heavy drinking. I was miserable. It was souring my relationship. The stress from work, personal life, and declining mental state of course made me feel even more compelled to drink. I was becoming a shell of my former self, and my dreams were becoming strictly that.

I had a confluence of events that changed my course:

1. I attended a tech conference where someone I personally knew who had went through rehab was hosting and speaking, and he was filled with a vivacity I hadn’t seen from him before.

2. My spouse gave me an ultimatum to quit or he’d be out the door. It wasn’t the first time he had said this, but I had a feeling it was probably going to be the last.

3. My progression in life was stalling. I couldn’t keep up commitments anymore, and I was starting to feel like I had already passed my peak.

So I quit. Cold Turkey. It was a dangerous, stupid thing to do, but I knew if I tried to taper off, I’d just slide back. The withdrawals were nightmarish, and I was lucky I didn’t die from it. But I pulled through, and then started to do some heavy soul searching for why I ever picked up the bottle — what was I escaping from? And I found those answers, and got to work — A real kind of personal work that most people will never have to put into themselves.

Since then, I have been a cofounder, jumped multiple levels in my career, and have been working towards several academic publications, on top of drastically improving my personal life. It’s been nearly five years since I put down the bottle. And every day I choose to never pick it up again.

Re: Ask HN: How did you stop drinking?

#92

Post by ibiza »

I stopped a couple years ago and really didn't intend to. The idea was to hit the pause button for a while, as my wine intake was becoming too regular. I had quit cigarettes long ago w/ a packaged plan. What I remember about it was that it came w/ a card on which you were told to list the things you'd gain, the benefits you'd reap, by quitting smoking.

So I made the same list for stopping drinking and it worked better than I expected. I won't tell you what was on my list, as it would sound preachy. I would recommend making your own list. Spend a few minutes on it & try to be exhaustive. If you frame your goal not as removing a negative but as gaining a set of positives, it may reorient your thinking & get you to your goal. It did in my case.

Re: Ask HN: How did you stop drinking?

#93

Post by casparvitch »

mbostleman wrote: post #73

I starting dating someone who was sober. For the first two years, I never drank around her - only if we were traveling apart. Then I just decided to quit altogether so that she wasn’t cast as the party pooper. It’s been three years since then and the first two were really hard. But in the last year, my addictive attraction has transitioned in to revulsion. I now feel pity for people who drink. I never saw this coming…

I had the same transition process from omnivore -> vegetarian and vegetarian -> vegan. It was hard at first, largely because of ingrained habit, but it gradually became revulsion as you describe. You have motivated me to try sobriety, thanks.

Re: Ask HN: How did you stop drinking?

#94

Post by rnkdsvja »

I wish you luck. One data point: my story. Not a recipe, but maybe something helpful.

I drank hard from high school through grad school and into mid life. I was high-performing and functional, and I am told that I was nicer when drunk than sober. I could never stop at 2 drinks. I tried and swore to stop many times. Never held.

One day 12 years ago, I had my last drink. It was a bender. The next morning I swore I'd stop, similar to many times before. I cannot explain why I stopped that time and not earlier. Day 1 sober was easy. Day 14 was hard, but I didn't go back. But I did count the days, and had pride in collecting sober days. It was an internal counter I had early on. I also knew that 1/2 measures wouldn't work. I would need to reset back to day 0 if I had even a sip or just one. I really didn't want to reset my counter. At some point I stopped counting days, and was counting weeks, and then months. Now I count years, and expect to count decades.

Slipping is not a character flaw, and it's not helpful to beat yourself up. Acknowledge it, sleep it off and move on. Quitting was not a matter of willpower. I did go cold turkey, but I cannot claim it's because I'm strong or anything special. I'm lucky. I believe my wiring changed that night, the balance never tilted back to where it was for me. Maybe the right combo of neurons got pruned. I don't know. I don't really know what was so different about that night for me, but that was it. And it absolutely was not willpower or mind over matter or anything like that. I just changed. And because of my experience, I believe the "willpower" argument is destructive and insulting. People who offer such advice don't understand. I'm lucky. I changed. That's it. My willpower had nothing to do with it.

Over time I discovered that habits matter a great deal. I discovered I needed to develop new ways to fill time since large blocks of weekends were no longer booked with me rendered mentally useless. I also had to develop new social skills, since I could no longer rely on the "nice" me. I also eventually realized how lucky I was that nothing really bad ever happened to me.

This is an issue with both mental and physical health implications. Asking for help is a good start.

Again, I wish you luck.

Re: Ask HN: How did you stop drinking?

#95

Post by scarecrowbob »

As I have gotten older, simply observing what you're observing has led me to massively cut back on drinking. So you're more or less doing the thing.

One thing I will say-- the "hating yourself for drinking" is probably more of a significant issue than occasionally drinking.

Like, we all do dumb stuff, ranging from leaving something on the stove too long to taking a shitty job. The ability to be compassionate towards ourselves when we do dumb stuff.

I've found that what the Buddhists call "loving kindness meditation", in which you first target other folks (who you agree deserve it) with your empathy, and then gradually learn to apply that same kindness to yourself has been very helpful in my own struggles with being a horrible fuckup (or, if you prefer, a normal human being).

It's okay to fail sometimes. You're human. Just keep trying to do your best and think about why you might have made choices contrary to how you generally understand yourself.

Re: Ask HN: How did you stop drinking?

#96

Post by albertsw »

We wanted to. That's step 1. Sounds like you're there.

What we did: Read This Naked Mind by Annie Grace [2], listen to Andrew Huberman's "What Alcohol Does to Your Body, Brain & Health" [1] The point is to wade through the material and let it brainwash you.

It's all about how it's bad and a tiny bit neuroscience on why you struggle. Also pointing out over and over how going sober is actually more relaxing, less stressful and how attractive the new habits in the same situations are. Alcohol just wasn't doing me any favours.

[1]: https://hubermanlab.com/what-alcohol-does-to-your-body-brain...

[2]: https://thisnakedmind.com/

Re: Ask HN: How did you stop drinking?

#97

Post by philliphaydon »

I had a daughter. My dad was a smoker and when he gave up smoking he took up drinking. Between him and My mum They drank a cask of wine every 2 days. One day my dad got drunk and threw a glass at my mum, then fell down the stairs cutting his leg open and stumbled to bed. The next morning he woke up with blood everywhere and went up stairs, asked my mum what happened to her face. He had no recollection of what happened. (He gave up drinking for a long time, now he might have a beer on the weekend after mowing the lawn but he doesn’t drink anymore)

I enjoyed drinking especially when I lived in australia. Start drinking at Friday noon, end up at the pub and casino.

When my wife got pregnant I more or less gave up drinking. I didn’t want to end up like my dad. After not drinking for the duration of the pregnancy I kinda lost the desire to drink.

I some times have a cider or beer. Only 1 and that’s it. I just drink soda or water. And don’t cave to any peer pressure because my daughters are more important to me than what someone else thinks.

Re: Ask HN: How did you stop drinking?

#99

Post by moltar »

rnkdsvja wrote: post #94

I wish you luck. One data point: my story. Not a recipe, but maybe something helpful. I drank hard from high school through grad school and into mid life. I was high-performing and functional, and I am told that I was nicer when drunk than sober. I could never stop at 2 drinks. I tried and swore to stop many times. Never held. One day 12 years ago, I had my last drink. It was a bender. The next morning I swore I'd st…

Amazingly my story is almost exactly like yours!

The only small difference in the end for me was to stop counting entirely at some point. I realized that at that point counting was almost counterproductive for me. I feel like counting sort of gives a negative hint to the psyche that I’m missing something from my life for N years now

Today I can’t even tell how many years it has been. It’s a bit of a blur. More than 15 probably. But I don’t miss it a single but.

Re: Ask HN: How did you stop drinking?

#100

Post by fernandohur »

There's a difference between not drinking and not being a drinker. If you are able to create an association in your mind between "me" and "not a drinker" it will make it easier over time to reject a drink, either when your friends or colleagues offer one or when you yourself offer one to you.

Do you want a drink? No, I'm not someone who drinks.

This technique is not specific to alcohol, I used it to stop smoking many years ago. I believe it has roots in Buddhism. The idea is to dissociate the "I" with the habit that you want to get rid of.

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