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Ask HN: How's your drinking problem?

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Re: Ask HN: How's your drinking problem?

#61

Post by koenigdavidmj »

I'm still convinced that alcohol just increases the intensity of emotions that are already there. If I'm in a good mood before drinking, I just laugh at everything. If I'm depressed before drinking, then I get really depressed after, so I don't do that. I've never gotten violent whilst drunk, and I'm convinced that only the people who do are those who are violent when sober (though maybe with a longer fuse).

Work-wise? We have Beer Friday. Not that many people actually go. Some people have a bottle of whisky at their desk, but they don't spend all day nursing it.

Re: Ask HN: How's your drinking problem?

#62

Post by trcollinson »

Anecdotal story ahead: I was at a conference where the keynote speaker was Yukihiro Matsumoto (aka Matz, the creator of the Ruby Programming Language). At the end of the day there was a open bar and a sort of sit and hack type event. Nothing particularly structured. Just a "hey I am working on this thing, come and pair with me if you would like." Matz was working on MRuby at the time and came in. Of course, being relatively well known in the community everyone wanted to pair with him. A lot of people noticed he did not have an alcoholic drink by him while he was hacking away and continually offered or brought him one trying to get him to join in.

Matz, on top of being a well known coder, is also a relatively well known Mormon, meaning he doesn't drink. He would just politely decline. But the people in the room were getting more and more insistent and later rude. Matz finally excused himself to go back to his hotel room. After he left the room filled with discussion around how Matz was judgemental, or how Matz was loosing touch with the Ruby culture. It was sad and disheartening. A lot of us lost a great opportunity to code with a brilliant person because he wouldn't bend to social pressures.

I don't drink but I have been in many environments where drinking is acceptable, encouraged, or even required. It's unfortunate. For me, the evidence shows that drinking copious amounts of alcohol is unhealthy, dangerous, and has very little practical value. Additionally, it can separate us as a community. I hope one day the drinking culture of the tech community will exit.

Re: Ask HN: How's your drinking problem?

#63

Post by DanBC »

mnglkhn2 wrote: post #5

One immediate question is when and what constitutes a drinking problem? When is it too much. There are some medical classifications stating that one glass of wine per day constitutes alcoholism. Is that true, or does it make any sense?

There are no classifications saying one glass a day is alcoholism.

There is low risk drinking, increased risk drinking, and high risk drinking. Alongside that you have dependant and non-dependant drinking (an addiction to alcohol).

To get a medically supervised withdrawal from alcohol in England a person meeds to be drinking 40 units per day. That's a litre of vodka at 40% ABV every day.

Low risk drinking is one or two drinks a day, with some days drink free.

Re: Ask HN: How's your drinking problem?

#64

Post by DanBC »

lnanek2 wrote: post #38

Never saw anyone with a drinking problem except my mother, honestly. She would get blind drunk and scream every afternoon. You do realize one drink a day is supposed to be healthy, right? Even coworkers who went to the bar ever night rarely did more than a couple, which had no bad effects and helped form networks. Maybe your problem is not drinking enough?

> You do realize one drink a day is supposed to be healthy,

That's a widely promoted myth heavily pushed after some shitty research was published.

Re: Ask HN: How's your drinking problem?

#65

Post by RickS »

logicrime wrote: post #36
RickS wrote: post #29

Quit altogether for 2 months as a diet experiment, with 2 expectations: 1) it would be socially frictive 2) I would lose some weight. Both were wrong. 1) Quitting had basically no social consequences. The friction of ordering a non-alcoholic drink at a bar is gone by the third time. Only one person gave me shit about it, and they were a friend-of-a-friend and easy to disregard. 2) It had almost no weight-loss effect,…

Have you stopped drinking altogether? Did you consider yourself someone with a 'problem' when you did your experiment? Did your findings change the ferocity with which you drink? Given that it was one of your original expectations of the experiment, do you think that social friction plays a major role when it comes to the frequency with which you drink? I find the idea of that type of experiment fascinating, perhaps…

I did for the 2 months, recently had a few and broke the streak. No kind of problem at all, although that's where everyone's mind goes when you say you quit cold turkey.

Findings didn't change that much, but the break itself changed the way I drink, I think. Previously it was somewhat of a social default to just go out with some friends over a beer in the absence of other events. Being conditioned not to do that, and instead stay in and have a quiet night at home has given some perspective. I felt like I got a slight time gain on the evenings, but nothing serious.

Friction previously played a role. Especially in my early valley days when I was an intern, or in college, or as a contractor (negotiation/business things are hugely greased by alcohol), but now that I'm full time at more quiet company where drinking isn't embedded in the culture, the social friction aspect is basically gone. It's a per-social-circle thing for sure.

Unfortunately I did no detailed documentation. The stuff I'd want to measure would require months of prep/control gathering (eg: how do I use my post-work time before and during experiment)

Most interesting part of the whole thing was how uninteresting it was. There's the idea that drinking is socially necessary and horrible for your health. The idea that it's so meaningless is a little weird.

Re: Ask HN: How's your drinking problem?

#67

Post by vijayr »

joesmo wrote: post #54
noahlt wrote: post #8

At the time of writing this comment, there is just one comment on this thread complaining about the amount of alcohol in company outings. That comment has been downvoted and is now marked [dead]. The question isn't about each individual's drinking problem. The question is about tech culture's drinking problem. And there's the answer: denial.

Last job interview I went to in SF, I was offered whiskey and felt extremely pressured to drink it, mostly because I wanted the job. I've only worked at one place (out of over a dozen or more) in SV/SF that didn't have alcohol on hand and didn't drink in the office. I don't care if people drink, but when you're pushing it onto your employees and former employees, it's a huge problem, and most companies in SV/SF are b…

Same with being vegetarian/vegan. The amount of jokes ("ah,rabbit food" pointing to the salad) gets old and annoying fast. I never understood why people can't just concentrate on their own food/drinks instead of others.

Re: Ask HN: How's your drinking problem?

#68

Post by 0xffffabcd »

divan wrote: post #52

Do not drink at all. Literally never tried alcohol at all and never wanted to. PS. I hope there are more people like me over there :)

Same thing here. Never had a drink primarily due to my religion but even if it wasn't religious, the idea of losing control over what I might say or do scares me to no end. This is the reason why I don't drink/get high.

Re: Ask HN: How's your drinking problem?

#69

Post by thebign »

Posting on a throwaway because I like lurking but this topic hits close to home.

Recently I decided to stop drinking in solidarity with a family member who has been struggling with alcohol dependency along with mental health issues. Alcohol withdrawal is particularly brutal due to tremors which can result in death alongside a plethora of other issue. It's been a very difficult time because he has refused to seek help and has lashed out against us. I worry that he is going to end up isolating himself and end up on the streets.

If you or a family member has difficulty with drugs or alcohol remember that there are many ways to get help and there is more to life than the bottom of the bottle.

Re: Ask HN: How's your drinking problem?

#70

Post by kstenerud »

There's a trick to drinking properly.

Unfortunately, the USA has a culture of binge drinking, which is the absolute WRONG way to drink. I actually think it's better to be introduced to alcohol as a child (as I was), in normal social situations rather than "let's get wasted!" throw-off-all-restraint parties (which are pretty stupid in general).

Anyway, the trick is multipart:

1. Eat before you drink. Drinking on an empty stomach causes the alcohol to enter your bloodstream MUCH quicker, which makes it harder to gauge your level of inebriation as you drink (it throws off the lag time).

2. Ride the wave. This takes a few tries to get right, but your level of mental alertness has a bit of a cliff at a certain blood-alcohol level (the fuzzy feeling). The trick is to learn to recognize when this effect is coming on and then back off on drinking until your alertness level returns, keeping in mind that there's a lag time from when you drink to when it actually enters the blood. This is also a good reason to be careful about what kinds of drinks you are drinking, and how fast. Nothing sucks more than slamming something back and then a few minutes later realizing that you can't even stand up. With practice, you can remain perched on the crest of this wave and be the happy drunk all night.

3. Drink lots of water. Drinking it interspersed with your alcohol consumption is best, but be absolutely SURE to consume a LARGE amount of water before going to bed, depending on how much you've drunk that night. If I've consumed more than 3 stiff drinks, I try to consume 1.5L to 2L of water before going to bed. Even better is coconut water since it replenishes lost electrolytes. I've only ever had one hangover in my life (the one time I DIDN'T do this), and it was enough to fix my discipline in this area. Yes, you wake up a lot to go to the bathroom, but that's better than feeling like shit the next day.

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