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40 Days Without Booze

jdmoyer.com

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Re: 40 Days Without Booze

#151

Post by debt »

tjic wrote: post #61
reustle wrote: post #11

Great writeup. As someone who never drinks, and never has, it continues to sound like a drug to me and I want no part of it. That said, I still get questioned about my decision like I have 2 heads.

I never had a single drink for my first 40 years on the planet, and, yes, people absolutely look at you like you've got two heads. I started drinking (about once a week) two years ago. It's moderately nice from time to time, but I also think the decision to avoid it for twenty years of adulthood was a good one - I established who I am and what my coping mechanisms are for stress, and now it's a nice little social adj…

THIS. I quit drinking a few years ago and it was the hardest time of my life. Not because, I was having booze withdrawl, but because I didn't know how to be a person.

Most of my interactions with other people involved getting obliterated so I was never able to really by myself around other people.

First become a real person and develop a healthy coping mechanism for stress. THEN, maybe, think about getting your drink on.

If you drink too early in life and too often you might become a complete social retard like I did.

Re: 40 Days Without Booze

#152

Post by nrivadeneira »

Osmium wrote: post #138
nrivadeneira wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find that a hardcore workout works even better than alcohol. Not only do you get the same winding down effect in a short period of time (assuming you're really killing yourself and working to exhaustion in the gym), but you get a lot of additional benefits along with it: better focus, improved health, boosted confidence, and improved body composition. You wake up the next morning feeling a lot better about yourself…

> working to exhaustion in the gym I don't disagree, but when I've tried this I just find myself doubly exhausted: once (mentally) from the work, and again (physically) from the gym. Still agree that making time for the gym is really important though. But for me, it's not the answer to mental exhaustion but rather just part of a healthy lifestyle generally (personally, proper sleep hygiene is the only solution I've f…

I certainly agree with your comment about sleep. For me, I generally lump sleep in with my exercise because I've been strict about getting a minimum of 7 hours of preferably uninterrupted sleep in order to maximize recovery from exertion. The sleep and exercise combined work wonders to clear out the stress of the day. And while I feel exhausted after a workout, it's more of a calm, peaceful, and cleansing exhaustion.

Re: 40 Days Without Booze

#153

Post by Havoc »

antitrust wrote: post #95

I have learned distrust. I distrust anything that makes me feel good without having achieved something that merits that sensation. Alcohol is like being wrapped in a comforter. You are warm, the world is soft, and like a child, you trust in everything turning out alright. This has no relationship to the real world. While I have enjoyed alcohol many times, and both drunk to excess and been a social drinker, I find tha…

> you trust in everything turning out alright. This has no relationship to the real world.

I have tried the opposite: 100% serious balls to the wall control freak & pessimism and mistrust of "everything turning out alright". I'm sad to report that that approach is no good.

I'm starting to think a decent dose of naive "it'll turn out alright" is useful.

Re: 40 Days Without Booze

#154

Post by jgross206 »

rbehrends wrote: post #123
baddox wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's really not that difficult to use it responsibly in moderation. I wouldn't question your personal abstinence, but I would question anyone who broadly demonized alcohol.

While I'm not going to demonize alcohol, I also wouldn't downplay the harm. Alcohol is probably one of the nastier psychoactive substances known to man. Alcohol abuse is pretty common (an estimated number of 15 million Americans); it can create a physical dependence; there is a strong link between alcohol and violence (alcohol is normally classified as a depressant, but a significant minority of alcoholics become vio…

> ...alcohol is involved in the majority of car accidents.

This didn't sound right to me, so I did some digging and found:

"In 2010, 10,228 people were killed in alcohol-impaired driving crashes, accounting for nearly one-third (31%) of all traffic-related deaths in the United States."

http://www.cdc.gov/motorvehiclesafety/impaired_driving/impai...

I couldn't find any data on non-fatal car accidents, but my intuition says that it would be a smaller proportion (i.e. alcohol-related accidents are more likely to be fatal).

Can you share your sources?

Re: 40 Days Without Booze

#155

Post by Havoc »

tomjen3 wrote: post #3

(I am reading this after two glasses of wine). Am I alone in thinking that he sounds like an addict? I mean, sure he didn't have a big issue sticking to his decision, but at the same time the list of changes is pretty significant.

Yeah there is definitely some kind of disconnect there. Those early morning awakenings...thats not 2 or 3 drinks.

Re: 40 Days Without Booze

#156

Post by foohbarbaz »

No problem for me: one beer either puts me to sleep or gives me sinus headache. Don't understand what people like about alcohol.

It's a pretty primitive drug too. Such a simple and small molecule, might just as well sniff glue, it seems to me.

Tobacco is so much fun in comparison. Quit that cold turkey many years ago. Still like it though.

Re: 40 Days Without Booze

#158

Post by enraged_camel »

Osmium wrote: post #138
nrivadeneira wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find that a hardcore workout works even better than alcohol. Not only do you get the same winding down effect in a short period of time (assuming you're really killing yourself and working to exhaustion in the gym), but you get a lot of additional benefits along with it: better focus, improved health, boosted confidence, and improved body composition. You wake up the next morning feeling a lot better about yourself…

> working to exhaustion in the gym I don't disagree, but when I've tried this I just find myself doubly exhausted: once (mentally) from the work, and again (physically) from the gym. Still agree that making time for the gym is really important though. But for me, it's not the answer to mental exhaustion but rather just part of a healthy lifestyle generally (personally, proper sleep hygiene is the only solution I've f…

>>I don't disagree, but when I've tried this I just find myself doubly exhausted: once (mentally) from the work, and again (physically) from the gym.

When you walk into the gym you need to stop thinking about work and start focusing on your workout. For me, this comes in the form of planning which exercises I'll be doing, how much weight I lifted the previous time for how many reps, and how much I can increment it. And then during the lifts, I focus on the mind-muscle connection to make sure my form is correct and I'm activating the right muscles.

Trust me, when you do it like this, it's incredibly relaxing from a mental perspective. I actually look at my gym sessions as meditation time.

Re: 40 Days Without Booze

#159

Post by antitrust »

Havoc wrote: post #153
antitrust wrote: post #95

I have learned distrust. I distrust anything that makes me feel good without having achieved something that merits that sensation. Alcohol is like being wrapped in a comforter. You are warm, the world is soft, and like a child, you trust in everything turning out alright. This has no relationship to the real world. While I have enjoyed alcohol many times, and both drunk to excess and been a social drinker, I find tha…

> you trust in everything turning out alright. This has no relationship to the real world. I have tried the opposite: 100% serious balls to the wall control freak & pessimism and mistrust of "everything turning out alright". I'm sad to report that that approach is no good. I'm starting to think a decent dose of naive "it'll turn out alright" is useful .

Another option is a middle path:

It will turn out, how it turns out.

Sounds tautological, but it preserves the idea that multiple real world forces determine the outcome, not wishing or feeling. That might save us from paranoia.

Re: 40 Days Without Booze

#160

Post by veidr »

munificent wrote: post #78
smsm42 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not "like a drug", it is a drug just like any other substances commonly called drugs. We just integrated it into our culture, and learned to live with it and accept the consequences of its use (on the societal level, personally it is still as capable of destroying lives as any other drug if abused). But it doesn't change neither chemistry nor biology nor physiology of what is happening. So if someone talks to y…

> if someone talks to you about dangers of such things as marijuana while sipping wine or beer - you're talking to either dangerously ignorant or dangerously dull person. Or maybe you're talking to someone smart enough to realize that just because a bunch of things are in the same category , that doesn't make them equivalent .

I think his point was that alcohol is far more harmful and dangerous than marijuana by virtually every sane metric.
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