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Poll: Are you a drinker or a teetotaler?

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Poll: Are you a drinker or a teetotaler?

#31

Post by GuiA »

vincentmilliken wrote: post #11
colinramsay wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That seems like we need a follow up poll then - do you smoke weed! The discussion resulting from "do you smoke weed but not drink alcohol" might be interesting too?

Would be interesting to see a poll on smoking weed, I would say a lot of people who do smoke weed would not drink alcohol that often, if none at all.

They've been done before.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=509614 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8021822 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7594543

Search Google with "site:news.ycombinator.com marijuana ask hn" and variations thereof.

Re: Poll: Are you a drinker or a teetotaler?

#32

Post by swombat »

jacquesm wrote: post #23
lmm wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven't asked my friends to do any of those for >5 years, but I'll still have five or six drinks several times a month. It's very possible to learn where your limits are, and use alcohol to enhance your socialising without having to hit the bad stuff you've described.

How does it enhance your socializing?

It reduces inhibitions, makes you more relaxed, frequently more open, less judgemental. And, importantly, because people know you're drunk as well, it reduces their inhibitions around you as well, even if they're drinking less than you.

I hope I don't have to make the case as to why reducing inhibitions and making everyone more relaxed enhances socialising?

Re: Poll: Are you a drinker or a teetotaler?

#33

Post by grn »

danford wrote: post #4

Well I know I can't be the only person who had to look this up: >Teetotalism refers to either the practice of, or the promotion of, complete personal abstinence from alcoholic beverages. I mean, I kind of inferred, but this is my first time hearing the term. Anyway, I only drink on special occasion or when I go out to a fancy restaurant. Other than that it's copious amounts of marijuana.

I haven't seen the term before too. It's etymology is interesting: 1830s, from total, the reduplicated tee being an intensifier – “T-total” (see https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/teetotal).

Re: Poll: Are you a drinker or a teetotaler?

#34

Post by dspillett »

lmm wrote: post #12
untothebreach wrote: post #6

Wish there was a category for "Former drinker, now teetotaller". There are only so many times you can ask your friends to clean up your puke, talk the cops out of arresting you, and drag your passed-out-ass back to the hotel before you wake up and say, "maybe I shouldn't drink anymore"

I haven't asked my friends to do any of those for >5 years, but I'll still have five or six drinks several times a month. It's very possible to learn where your limits are, and use alcohol to enhance your socialising without having to hit the bad stuff you've described.

Some people really don't have that sort of self control after a little drink, so their only path to not being ill is to not have the first one.

I've not been ill through drink since a certain point in my early 20s when I was not in a fit mental state for a while (unless you count the occasion when I stupidly went out for a couple on an empty stomach after giving blood that afternoon). My body gives me advanced warning that I'm heading towards a state of having "had enough" and I have the good sense to listen to it even when quite "influenced", but I know people who do not seem so lucky.

People can react to alcohol (and other behaviour altering substances) quite differently, one rule does not fit all.

Re: Poll: Are you a drinker or a teetotaler?

#35

Post by swombat »

dspillett wrote: post #16
diggan wrote: post #3

I wouldn't say I'm a heavy drinker since I mostly drink one beer per day but since it's the only option for me, I guess I'm a heavy drinker according to this poll.

Usually in polls like this drinking without a stipulation of "just the one" infers "more than a unit or two of alcohol". It is rare that when I drink I just have the one. Of course any set of definitions like this is going to put some in what they consider the wrong category. I drink a couple times a week, and avoid drinking at home unless I have guests around for that or a related event, but when I do drink there te…

The term for that is "binge drinking", and it's supposed to be more unhealthy than regular drinking.

Re: Poll: Are you a drinker or a teetotaler?

#36

Post by untothebreach »

lmm wrote: post #12
untothebreach wrote: post #6

Wish there was a category for "Former drinker, now teetotaller". There are only so many times you can ask your friends to clean up your puke, talk the cops out of arresting you, and drag your passed-out-ass back to the hotel before you wake up and say, "maybe I shouldn't drink anymore"

I haven't asked my friends to do any of those for >5 years, but I'll still have five or six drinks several times a month. It's very possible to learn where your limits are, and use alcohol to enhance your socialising without having to hit the bad stuff you've described.

I got it to the point where it wouldn't happen _every_ time I drank, but I still messed up often enough that it started to affect my relationships. I just decided it wasn't worth it. I'm not an alcoholic, I never _needed_ to drink, I just have a really difficult time stopping when I should.

Re: Poll: Are you a drinker or a teetotaler?

#38

Post by vegancap »

swombat wrote: post #27
vegancap wrote: post #19

Every Friday and Saturday I usually have a mad one, then I don't touch it during the drop. I'm aware alcohol's the same as nicotine, it's an addictive substance, I know that's why I drink. I'd like to one day be teetotal. I did go 2 month previously as I worry about what it's doing to my health, and I have to admit drinking isn't the only factor that comes into these two nights a week... but I found my friends stoppe…

Why not make it explicit to your friends that they are welcome to drink even if you're not drinking? I was at a BBQ yesterday, everyone was pissed, I just drank water... that wasn't a problem. Just don't rub your non-drinking in people's faces, and let them drink as much as they want.

Well, they'd come to visit me on a Friday night for a drink, but when I wasn't drinking, they'd ring another friend that was going out for a drink if you see what I mean. I think they were afraid that if they came to me, they'd have to drink tea and watch youtube video's all night or something.

Re: Poll: Are you a drinker or a teetotaler?

#39

Post by NotOscarWilde »

raverbashing wrote: post #21
newaccountfool wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why leave it at that? Why not ask everyone if they do amphetamine daily or just once a week?

Ahem "After 1971 he also took amphetamines, despite the concern of his friends, one of whom (Ron Graham) bet him $500 that he could not stop taking the drug for a month.[17] Erdős won the bet, but complained that during his abstinence, mathematics had been set back by a month: "Before, when I looked at a piece of blank paper my mind was filled with ideas. Now all I see is a blank piece of paper." After he won the bet…

It's important to remember this, quoting from another HN comment [1]:

> Erdős was a heavy user of many other stimulants (like coffee), but only started to use antidepressants and then amphetamines in 1971 when he was 58 after his mother died. He was already established as a first rate mathematician (he should have won the Fields Medal), and using amphetamines to work 19 hours a day was his way of coping with the death of his mother.

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8316764

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