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The Zen of Drinking Alone

drunkard.com

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Re: The Zen of Drinking Alone

#241

Post by [deleted] »

coldtea wrote: post #118
delusional wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This magazine or blog or whatever seems to either be an elaborate joke or bait or something: >Are you guys for real? >Yes. While there is some satire involved, we believe to the very core of our >souls every word we write. >Who are you? >We are a group of functional alcoholics based primarily in Denver, CO. Included in our ranks are published novelists, filmmakers, English gentlemen, barflies, punk rock musicians, co…

> This magazine or blog or whatever seems to either be an elaborate joke or bait or something Or you know, part of the once respected in some circles tradition of self-destruction with style, before everybody started jogging and going vegan to live to 100 years old as a "productive" boring member of society...

[deleted]

Re: The Zen of Drinking Alone

#242

Post by archibaldJ »

ruined wrote: post #216
coldtea wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This magazine or blog or whatever seems to either be an elaborate joke or bait or something Or you know, part of the once respected in some circles tradition of self-destruction with style, before everybody started jogging and going vegan to live to 100 years old as a "productive" boring member of society...

but alcohol is so pedestrian. and socially acceptable. this is somehow even more pathetic than being a weed guy. style would require an edgier, more risque substance, and a narrative. but you'll never see it. i think even tweakers know better than to spend energy justifying choices to strangers

exactly; why not look forwards to new industries in 2100s like that of designer drugs and dance-theatres exploring the discourse of higher dimensional manifolds and the holistic feeling that is existence itself

It is for these that I'm giving up alchol for other things [1]

[1]: https://idp.nature.com/authorize?response_type=cookie&client...

Re: The Zen of Drinking Alone

#244

Post by pattle »

weird-eye-issue wrote: post #230
pattle wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah going to bars is pretty boring, it just doesn't achieve anything, plus it negatively affects your mental and physical health. It's like paying to slowly kill yourself. Perhaps they called you out because they're concerned about you.

The realistic alternative to going to a bar alone (as somebody who has gone to bars alone) is drinking alone at home. That isn't really any better for you because at least there is a decent chance to have some social interaction at a bar (unless you specifically avoid it). Thinking that somebody else at a bar calling him a loser is looking out for his best interest is a little ridiculous

I disagree

Re: The Zen of Drinking Alone

#245

Post by rendx »

mawadev wrote: post #239

Whenever I drink, it's all fun and I'm buzzed, feeling funny... Then it starts to make me melancholic. This feeling doesn't stop when the alcohol is out of my system a few days after. It takes me about 3-4 weeks to feel truly "normal" again... Can anyone relate to this or am I an alien?

No, sounds fairly typical when I compare it to my own experience and to those of my friends. Many of us used to be "social drinkers" in our youth but have basically slowly faded it out since, and each of us realized for themself how it can take a week or so to get back to "normal mood" after even a single drink.

Re: The Zen of Drinking Alone

#246

Post by SyzygistSix »

rainonmoon wrote: post #223
nefitty wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was sort of forced out of that identity by COVID lockdown and domestic imperatives. I used to be proud of how many cans I could pound in a session before I got kicked out of a bar. Now, if I or anyone else do that, it's a huge pain in the ass. I still don't trust people that have never been drunks, though. There's something about the forceful rejection of social norms involved in becoming an alcoholic that I find r…

Drinking is so normative that not drinking became the punk ethos via the hardcore scene, straight edge etc. Two of the most punk guys alive (Ian MacKaye and Henry Rollins) have been sober longer than some people in this thread have been alive. Getting blackout has more in common with hair metal so if your hero is Nikki Sixx, more power to you.

I found the straight-edge scene intellectually lightweight and often insufferable. Substance abuse is common among artists for a reason; many are psychonauts. Merely being a drinker does not a psychonaut make, but then again, Hemmingway wasn't just another drunk. Producing art is akin to shamanism.

Re: The Zen of Drinking Alone

#247

Post by SyzygistSix »

deepvibrations wrote: post #127
dijonman2 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some people just like to get fucked up. Better not to judge

Majority of people like to get fucked up to escape reality, especially alcohol. That's fine - but to suggest alcohol is a good way to understand yourself better is bs imo. There are far better ways/substances. Get drunk when you want to by all means, but don't try and paint it as 'good for yourself'. There are far better substances if you want to do some instrospection!

>but to suggest alcohol is a good way to understand yourself better is bs imo.

That's not what I got from the article. It seemed to me to say that alcohol could be used to get to know one's self better. Truly getting to know one's self isn't always safe. Nothing risked, nothing gained.

Re: The Zen of Drinking Alone

#248

Post by dagw »

nefitty wrote: post #238
rainonmoon wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Drinking is so normative that not drinking became the punk ethos via the hardcore scene, straight edge etc. Two of the most punk guys alive (Ian MacKaye and Henry Rollins) have been sober longer than some people in this thread have been alive. Getting blackout has more in common with hair metal so if your hero is Nikki Sixx, more power to you.

Haha I get that. I love MacKaye and Rollins. As I was growing up I found that "straight edge" and "hardcore Christian" overlapped too much for my comfort. I chalked it up to kids trying to exude a rebellious attitude within the safe confines of the Christian narrative. That didn't seem as authentic to me as the kids who started anarchist punk or satanic grind bands. Basically, there were some behaviors that served as…

As I was growing up I found that "straight edge" and "hardcore Christian" overlapped too much for my comfort.

While both "straight edge" and "hardcore Christian" would not drink I never found them to have much overlap or common ground beyond that. When I was growing up people who self-identified as "straight edge" where far more likely to involved in the far left, anarchist and/or anti fascist scene. I never knew someone who didn't drink for purely religious reasons to describe themselves as "straight edge".

Re: The Zen of Drinking Alone

#249

Post by SyzygistSix »

akprasad wrote: post #3

I wish I could source it, but I recall reading an anthropological study of drinking that mentioned that solo drinking is universally shunned across all cultures. There's also something perverse about associating this with Zen given that abstaining from intoxicants is the fifth precept ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_precepts#Fifth_precept ). I would never say there is no insight that could be gleaned from this -…

That doesn't surprise me. Going against cultural mores and breaking taboos has a long tradition among gnostics and explorers of our internal landscape. It's not a safe and stable life path but it can certainly be rewarding.

Re: The Zen of Drinking Alone

#250

Post by cbsmith »

SamPatt wrote: post #161
tempestn wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Totally does not work for me. It doesn't help that I figured out the "drinking calories" problem a long time ago and mostly drank water already. Cutting things out just seems to lead to eating more of others, because the problem isn't what food I eat.

It's harder, but the biggest trick was learning to pay attention to what my body was telling me, stop when it first gave me a sign to stop, don't start until it gave me a signal to start, and also... realizing that if you're obese (as opposed to an underweight person with an eating disorder), that maybe spending a part of your day feeling hungry is a sign that you are taking care of yourself. That sounds pretty simple too when you write it out like that, but my goodness just doing that is a so hard (yet effective).

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