Tracking my sleep (via Apple Watch + AutoSleep app) has helped me drink a lot less. It's very noticeable if I have more than one drink.
Does the AutoSleep add to your sleep tracking experience, compared to Apple's built-in Sleep app?
On why I gave up drinking in my early twenties
141–150 of 170 posts
Re: On why I gave up drinking in my early twenties
#142Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's in vogue because people are realizing they are actively consuming cancer juice... Much like cigarette users had to realize they are actively inhaling cancer smoke... You kind of act like people that don't drink can't go out, have non-alcoholic drinks, and still focus on eachother...
Not to defend alcohol, but by that logic, we should also be giving up on BBQ, cured meats, and stir fries, and yet I don't see very many people merrily throwing those away.
Gave already up on meat because it fuels climate change
Re: On why I gave up drinking in my early twenties
#143Quitting alcohol seems to be in vogue these days. I'd like to offer a counterpoint: I love to drink. By the government definition, I'm a very heavy drinker. I have 1 - 3 glasses of wine a night to relax after putting my child to bed. Of course, I do go many days without drinking when life gets in the way. But I certainly enjoy my night time ritual. But what I really love about drinking is socializing over drinks. No,…
As a sober alcoholic, coffee meets your requirements for a 1 on 1 convo. I like it for the same reasons! Your choice of days to meet is much more limited (people typically recuperate in a weekend morning, so each person really only has one day they can meet) but all it takes is one good 1 on 1 convo every few years to maintain a great friendship. In the same way that small amounts of alcohol act as a CNS stimulant, coffee boosts the convo too.
Re: On why I gave up drinking in my early twenties
#144Re: On why I gave up drinking in my early twenties
#145I never tried alcohol and never felt compelled to. As a kid I wondered what's happening with those drunk people I had a chance to see. So I read some books in library about alcohol (my mother was librarian, so that was my internet back then). It all just made sense and I decided that don't want to even try. I was asked to try alcohol by parents and relatives, I was ridiculed and insulted by classmates (drinking someh…
>I knew how it works I doubt that, given that you never tried it, nor drugs. No shame in not knowing, though. Benefits are definitely exaggerated, the addicts, when not on the thing, or on the way to their next hit of the thing, love to apologize for the thing. I'll be frank with my motivation to drink, it was to kill myself, and self-expression of that I'm so miserable that I'm killing myself. And getting drunk felt…
> I doubt that, given that you never tried it, nor drugs.
By knowing I mean "understanding". I.e. I understood the concept of addiction and realized that I'll probably "like" alcohol too.
Sorry to hear you had to experience that. I think there is a theory in psychology that explicitly asks this question - how to let people reach their maximum potential in wellbeing and flourish (which, of course, also means not wanting to kill themselves). It's a Self-Determination Theory (SDT) and it's a main theory in motivation, is very mature (70+ years and 1000+ studies and experiments) and all modern parenting/educational/sports systems take roots in SDT. For me it was a worlview changing theory, so I'd recommend to familiriaze with it.
Re: On why I gave up drinking in my early twenties
#146I never tried alcohol and never felt compelled to. As a kid I wondered what's happening with those drunk people I had a chance to see. So I read some books in library about alcohol (my mother was librarian, so that was my internet back then). It all just made sense and I decided that don't want to even try. I was asked to try alcohol by parents and relatives, I was ridiculed and insulted by classmates (drinking someh…
Where are you from and where do you live? My impression is the USA has the worst drinking culture. Many other places in the world have much better ones. UK pubs, Japanese izakayas. I had a pretty negative view of drinking growing up in the USA with MADD's messaging etc. Even though my parents drank socially it just seemed not worth. Then I moved abroad and my outlook changed Here's an interesting talk on some of the…
I'm from Ukraine, and as other post-soviet countries, Ukraine had all the typical soviet issues with alcohol consumption. It wasn't unusual to go to school in the early morning and see people (neigbours) vomiting at the street in a heavy hangover. My classmates (13-14 y.o.) were bragging how they were hospitalized with some acute form of gastritis from drinking too much vodka. That was how you gained popularity in a class. In (ex-)USSR countries there were no culture of healthy drinking whatsover.
Re: On why I gave up drinking in my early twenties
#147> Those nights with friends I had known for years felt no different now that I was sober. As I didn’t feel awkward or uncomfortable around them, and drinking together wasn’t the only activity or situation we saw each other during. Relationships with people who I only ever drank or partied with definitely started to fade away, but I never felt like I lost anything as a result of that. The nights where I was stinging f…
> Moderate to heavy drinkers seem to get stuck in a rut where it feels like everyone drinks as much, or more, alcohol than they do.
Well are they necessarily wrong? There's that "friendship paradox". Most people probably drink with people who drink more than them on average, since people who drink a lot presumably have more "drink with" relationships.
Re: On why I gave up drinking in my early twenties
#148Earlier quoted context omitted.
You're right. In post-soviet countries people generally drink to get intoxicated on purpose. In Europe and US, from my experience, drinking culture is much more healthy. I do have respect for that. Yet, if alcohol was invented today it would be clearly classified as worse drug then heroin, for example, and would be banned. Discussing that one country has more helthy heroin mass-consumption culture than another countr…
Alcohol and heroin are not even close in terms of danger and having had a friend who I lost to heroin it sounds odd that someone makes that comparison.
Sorry to hear that. But I actually see this comparison a lot in the literature.
Both heroin and alcohol are dangerous, but as alcohol is socially acceptable and widely available in a different forms, the perception of the danger differs. It's not a question for which drug we lose more people per year (alcohol is by far the clear winner here). It's a perception of these losses are different, and makes us believe that other drugs are more dangerous.
Re: On why I gave up drinking in my early twenties
#149Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The whole concept of using poisonous chemicals to alter your brain state was and still is very alien to me. I just don't get it. Willingly disrupt your body's functions on a cellular level hoping for something good, while all the scientific evidence points only to the bad? Still don't get it. So in the ancestral environment they fermented grain (first by accident, then on purpose) which became a means of preserving…
Unless the OP is also eating some sort of super healthy no sugar diet (maybe they are, but I doubt it) this is just rationalizing a decision made for other reasons. The reason people are annoyed by it isn't because they don't understand it, it's because he's condescending and self-righteous, it's moralizing. People make all sorts of things their identity and that's fine, but there's some sort of lack of curiosity tha…
> A candy bar isn't good for you
Oh it's very good for you, especially if low on glucose at the moment. Sugar is not bad per se. Glucose is the main molecule that transfers energy in your body, so we love sweet taste for a reason.
The problem with sugar is that we don't have a sensor that would say "hey, that was enough glucose intake, stop now". Historically there was no such concept as "too much food". Every molecule of glucose was meant to save you from death. That's why we love sweet taste so much.
The problem, of course, that we hijacked that pleasure response from glucose intake and started to pump sugar in our food like crazy. And discovered that it wreaks havoc on our metabolic fitness, health and lifespans, so now pushing back to limit sugar in our diets.
Bottom line, I try to balance my sugar intake (definitely not pouring it into the tea) and waiting for the non-invasive CGMs (Continious Glucose Monitors) to become mainstream, as they will be a game-changer for every person. In a way, the feedback loop between "food intake" and "what's happening to my body" is super slow now - 1-2 years (and is done using mirror in your bedroom). With CGMs it'll shorten to 1-2 minutes.
Re: On why I gave up drinking in my early twenties
#150> Those nights with friends I had known for years felt no different now that I was sober. As I didn’t feel awkward or uncomfortable around them, and drinking together wasn’t the only activity or situation we saw each other during. Relationships with people who I only ever drank or partied with definitely started to fade away, but I never felt like I lost anything as a result of that. The nights where I was stinging f…
I can say it helped me in my early 20's. I was "in my shell" up until I started going to bars and dance clubs once I hit about 21 to 22. Having just enough alcohol in me to not be shy helped build a social group, but it was still fun to go out even on nights that I would stick to soda or water. However depending on the bar I went to, some of them were more pleasant if I was drinking. When I was sober, I really couldn…
In our culture, we've created a space of less accountability around alcohol. We judge people less harshly for what they do under influence of alcohol. Mostly, it means you don't need to worry about mild social norm breaking, others (and yourself) will ascribe it partially to the alcohol rather than your inherent character.
Not all cultures have this. Cultures ascribe widely different attributes to alcohol. That's for another post, though.
I'm convinced this isn't a free lunch. This space of less self-control we've carved out, comes at the cost of MORE demands when we're sober. I think your shell, and mine as well, was in part a product of a culture where we, like Dr. Jekyll, sought to split off some sides of ourselves.