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I quit drinking for a year

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Re: I quit drinking for a year

#81

Post by nunez »

> I did find not drinking to have one clear downside: It’s just not that much fun to hang out with people who are drinking if you are not drinking yours

This is the big one. Alcohol is the lubricant that makes many social activities function, for better or worse. I've reduced my alcohol intake to 2 drinks per session with about a drink per hour intake rate (slower as ABV increases). One big plus to doing this is that staying out super late isn't nearly as appealing.

Regardless, this article reads like the year I quit drinking caffineated coffee. A roaster here in Houston had an award winning decaf bean that was incredible enough for me to make that decision on the spot. It turns out that they won the WBC on that bean for a reason! It is outstandingly hard to get a good decaf pourover, assuming that the shop even does that. Most times, you're stuck with old espresso or nothing, more often than not.

I've introduced it back into my diet but have decaf days throughout the week so that caffeiene continues to "work" when I need it.

Re: I quit drinking for a year

#83

Post by nunez »

boyter wrote: post #24
chrysoprace wrote: post #17

I've found that nowadays I largely like it for the taste (which often surprises non-beer drinkers) and so I'm quite pleased that non-alcoholic options are becoming more widespread. My main wish is for non-alcoholic craft beer to become much more widespread and cheaper. In Australia alcohol is taxed at a ludicrous rate, but non-alcoholic drinks are not, however they often attract the same price - which is disappointin…

Id be ok with that if wine had the same taste. No alcohol free wine tastes even close, and none of them are good in their own right. Some of the non-alcoholic beers are pretty good though and I am happy to drink them.

i cannot wait for an actually drinkable NA wine of any vintage. the last one i had was horrible.

same with the NA whiskey i had.

phony negroni, however, is pretty solid.

Re: I quit drinking for a year

#84

Post by defrost »

esseph wrote: post #79
defrost wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> so it's very hard to tell how many of these are actual DUIs vs cops deciding to pull over a (usually black) It's easier if you look at (say) Australian road traffic enforcement statistics; they have different rules than the US, have the "right" to check for DUI without having to make up a reason, and operate by funnelled road blocks that check everybody (or every second car, etc, depending on flow rates and breath…

> They also 'verify' in the sense that any driver can challenge and get a "better than road side" test back at the station under supervision (blood tests with saved samples for court challenges, etc). Blood tests can not determine THC intoxication.

I'm not seeing the part where I said that.

DUI (in Australia) refers to "Driving under influence" and focuses on threshold detection rather than degree of impairment (although relying upon other studies that allege to correlate the two).

In the case of drug impairment, "better than roadside swabs" evidence for court challenges includes samples of urine, breath, hair, saliva or sweat.

Blood samples, rather than breath tests, are typically for alcohol.

Independent of roadside pass / fail on swabs for drug / alcohol levels Australian RTA can still ask drivers to complete an impairment test; assessing balance, coordination, and overall behaviour.

On challenge, this is something that can also be further assessed for court evidence; eg: are their perceptions of impairment because (various) medical conditions that cause slurred words, etc.

Re: I quit drinking for a year

#85

Post by techcode »

bkjelden wrote: post #41

Interesting, over the last 18 months or so I've dabbled with both quitting/aggressively cutting back on drinking as well as aggressively cutting back on sweets (some periods where I've been super dedicated and others where I'm not). Counter to OP's experience, I've actually found sweets to be more impactful than alcohol. That is to say eating dessert after dinner will impact my sleep more than a drink or two, and the…

How/what are you basing your "sweets/desert impacts my sleep more than a drink or two" on?

I was waking up an hour or more before the alarm (so waking up Then after stopping alcohol I started sleeping longer. Specifically waking up later, at least for the first few weeks.

Seemingly alcohol was causing earlier waking due to spiking cortisol too early.

While waking-up time took a few weeks to recalibrate. Already 2-3 days after stopping alcohol - Fitbit was showing clear improvements in actual sleep quality metrics - HRV was increasing and RHR/BR were decreasing.

And now my "bad nights" have Fitbit sleep score of ~85, and it's regularly 90+.

Lab results are night and day - e.g. CRP was 20 (>5 signals inflammation), just few weeks after stopping alcohol it was ~10 while I was having cold/fever, and now it's The biggest/hardest problem for me was that after stopping alcohol, my sweets intake increased, especially in the evening. I was doing almost no carbs during the day, and then in the evening ... I guess brain was lacking some easy dopamine that it would previously get from alcohol... I would crave sweets, ice cream ...etc.

It took almost 3 months to be able to stick with strict keto diet. I'm finally doing <=20 gram of carbs because from past experience - any higher and I have a hard time limiting carbs to say just 50 (which would still be low carb/keto).

Re: I quit drinking for a year

#86

Post by anal_reactor »

Life is short, do drugs. I quit all substances for three months, didn't do jack shit. I'm planning to see a psychiatrist in autumn for my chronic exhaustion and sleep problems, and just in case I get prescribed something that doesn't combine with substances, this summer I'm binging on weed and acid because fuck being sober.

> It seems like it should be possible to reproduce this effect without alcohol.

It's a skill you have to train. Usually when you have one person in a group who sets the mood, and the rest see that person as a leader, they will follow. Observe how drunk people behave and replicate this whenever you meet your friends. I'm mostly friends with my coworkers so during lunch we talk about fun stuff while two tables over the CEO is giving a lecture about AI.

Re: I quit drinking for a year

#87

Post by paologiacometti »

Heavy drinker from 20 to 40 now after some dry January years I only drink a beer or a couple of wine glass in the weekends (no exception) my overall energy and sleep increased by an order of magnitude. I will quit as a target next year. After quit smoking one of my best health decision so far

Re: I quit drinking for a year

#88

Post by caspper69 »

I quit for 9 years and went back to drinking. I do it once every few months now, just to have a beer or three with old friends. But I didn't get dragged back in, in fact, it's been 2 months since I drank again. Just had to learn to live my life without it.

Re: I quit drinking for a year

#90

Post by reverius42 »

mk89 wrote: post #29
esafak wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing that annoys me is that non-alcoholic beer is subject to age checks in the US. I assume it's because the programmers didn't create a separate group for them, so they ring up with the rest of the liquor, triggering a check? Maybe there's a good reason ('coz that's not one).

Most likely because even non-alcoholic beer still contains like 0.5% of alcohol. Unless it's a "0.0%" alcohol-free beer, and even then it might still contain a bit...

I think orange juice can be up to 0.5% alcohol, and they don't check ID for that.
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