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The Zen of Drinking Alone

drunkard.com

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Re: The Zen of Drinking Alone

#161

Post by SamPatt »

tempestn wrote: post #139
okareaman wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm trying to apply what I know to food and failing. Now is the first time I've tried dieting and I have a lot more respect for the degree of difficulty. You're right, the issue is very similar

I've hypothesized that a unique problem with unhealthy eating habits compared to other addictions is that you have to eat. I would think at least with something like alcohol or nicotine, what you need to do as an addict is fairly simple (which of course is different from easy). But you can't just cut out food entirely, so it's a much more complex issue trying to eat in a healthy manner. Especially since even being to…

You can cut out entire categories of food or drink though. People drink way more calories than they realize. Drink water instead of soda.

It's definitely hard but the "just say no" approach can work. I do recommend taking it one at a time though. Once you've cut out one thing successfully, add another.

I lost 90 lbs with this approach.

Re: The Zen of Drinking Alone

#162

Post by avl999 »

Does anyone here enjoy coding after a few drinks? I don't do this often but on a Friday evening if I feel the fancy to work late and am working on a known problem space-- I pour myself a couple of shots on gin, mix with a bit of lemonade and code away.

I get a lot done in this state as I am purely churning out code rather than constantly second guessing myself, looking for a more optimal ways of doing it or refactoring the code I have written every few mins to improve class/package structure, variable names and so on. Obviously I would never merge to master after a session of intoxicated coding.

And this code looks better than you think on a Monday morning when sober.

Re: The Zen of Drinking Alone

#163

Post by taspeotis »

avl999 wrote: post #162

Does anyone here enjoy coding after a few drinks? I don't do this often but on a Friday evening if I feel the fancy to work late and am working on a known problem space-- I pour myself a couple of shots on gin, mix with a bit of lemonade and code away. I get a lot done in this state as I am purely churning out code rather than constantly second guessing myself, looking for a more optimal ways of doing it or refactori…

Ballmer Peak

Re: The Zen of Drinking Alone

#164

Post by hammock »

tempestn wrote: post #153
nexuist wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, one of the problems with alcohol and nicotine is that you also can't just cut them out entirely. Withdrawal symptoms are brutal and not compatible with modern 40 hour week jobs. Cutting out food, especially sugary ones, probably would bring about some subset of the same withdrawal symptoms...so the problems are more closely related than they appear, IMO (disclaimer that I have never been addicted to either so I…

I was mostly thinking over the longer term.

There is no long term when it comes to compulsions

Re: The Zen of Drinking Alone

#165

Post by d-yakovlev »

deepvibrations wrote: post #122
coldtea wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>* Drinking alone helps you understand yourself better. - No it doesn't. It distracts you from that endeavor. If you sit at a table with no TV or phone and do nothing, you will have a significantly more interesting and honest dialog with yourself if you are sober.* This pre-assumes you can have a honest dialog with yourself sober.

If you can't, then i don't think alcohol is the solution here tbh.

Sure, it's not a solution in and of itself. It's useful to destabilize you from well-rehearsed thought patterns, though - and if you manage to hit the Ballmer Peak of soggy introspection, maybe you can manage to make some progress.

Re: The Zen of Drinking Alone

#166

Post by hammock »

meristohm wrote: post #147
okareaman wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most "real [1]" alcoholics try over and over to stop like myself and Bill Wilson. The following story from the Big Book illustrates the problem [2] Yet he got drunk again. We asked him to tell us exactly how it happened. This is his story: "I came to work on Tuesday morning. I remember I felt irritated that I had to be a salesman for a concern I once owned. I had a few words with the boss, but nothing serious. Then I…

Thank you for elaborating. Seeing familiar information in another context, another story-wrapper, is helpful. All this resonates with me, though for other escapes than alcohol, and what finally tipped the scales to learning and practicing was The Blindboy Podcast, particularly the mental-health episodes where he covers CBT, transactional analysis, and how he handles anxiety. Thankfully for me, my family and personal…

Can you point me to the relevant episodes? I scrolled through and I'm not sure I'm going to find it with titles like "why i want to f Captain planet"

Re: The Zen of Drinking Alone

#168

Post by azalemeth »

kruptos wrote: post #101
empressplay wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gabapentin + Clonidine

What are you suggesting these medications be used for?

A recovering alcoholic can die from "not drinking" -- delirium tremens, the "shakes" that they get in the morning, are a physical manifestation of the transcriptional changes that have occurred in their brains as a result of being adapted to ethanol. The drugs mentioned all modulate neurotransmitters pharmacologically and are often part of the recovery process (the details are quite complex).

Re: The Zen of Drinking Alone

#170

Post by Merrill »

Drinking alone may be bad for your health and lead to alcoholism, but you are less likely to kill yourself in traffic, break some law, or damage your reputation and prospects. So it's much better than drinking with the wrong people.

That said, I think the piece overestimates the benefits of alcohol and underestimates the benefits of solitude.

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