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I'm in the same boat, but I know it's a problem.

Yes, I get everything done I need to and then some. I'm up by 7 every day of the week, I work efficiently 50, sometimes 60+ hours a week. I'm with my family nights and weekends. I exercise, I play basketball, I play music.

I'm 5 drinks in right now. I drink alone, every night after my wife and son are asleep. I'm usually working and drinking from 9 or 10 until 2 or 3 and then up a few hours later. I feel a little off for the first hour or so and then drink enough coffee to plow through the day. To be completely honest I think I've been drinking enough that getting a hangover would take a phenomenal amount of effort. I've acclimated to having booze every night. That's a problem. But it's not the big one.

The big deal is: alcohol is unequivocally bad for you long-term. If it doesn't kill you directly through fatty liver/cirrhosis it'll contribute to an early death through many, many forms of cancer, heart disease, dementia, etc. You won't find many doctors who will say that drinking is not bad for you. My doctor was shocked even though I lied about how much I drink. I lowballed it and my doctor said "whoa, that's too much"

It is a problem. A serious problem that is too often marginalized by alcohol's social role.

I don't know you and you don't know me, despite the fact that you say we're in the same boat, but it sounds to me like you're saying you really think it's time to start bailing. I hope by the same boat you just mean the same model, because if what you're saying is as true for me as it is for you, I'm going to sink, because honestly I don't feel like I'm gaining water.

I feel like I might have stretched the analogy too far, but here's the thing: What's the first step, again?

If you're happy, and if you honestly don't think you have a problem after some serious introspection, then you don't have a problem. You might have a diminished life span and you might have some health complications, but if the root cause of those things is you living your life the way you want to, maybe that's something you should have the choice to do.

> If you're happy, and if you honestly don't think you have a problem after some serious introspection, then you don't have a problem.

See here's where we disagree. Alcohol is extraordinarily addictive. I have begun to believe that I'm not living my life the "the way [I] want to," but am convinced through conditioning and social norms that this is the "good life" or whatever.

Nobody is living a "good life" with 6+ drinks a night, particularly in the way I do. Alone, at a laptop, working until 3 a.m. There's a difference between a casual/social drinker and a habitual drinker. The latter will - via addiction - attempt to justify our drinking.

And let me also say that you're right - we may be in the same boat but perhaps I'm at the bow and you're at the stern. For a long time I didn't even think about my drinking. I'd drink occasionally. Then semi-regularly. Then every day but I was 25 so who cares that's what we do. One day you wake up and you have a wife and family and you're still drinking like a college sophomore.

Again, all of this would be fine if I were just a functional alcoholic and that were the end of the repercussions. But this is physically destructive behavior. It's the kind of thing you don't really consider until you start to get a bit older.

I don't really want to offer unsolicited advice to a stranger on the Internet. That's not my place and it's not me.

But it sounds like you're telling me that you're not okay with your drinking, and maybe you haven't been for a while. It sounds to me like you're an inch away from saying "I have a problem with alcohol".

You should talk this over with someone close to you, whose advice you value.

My message is it's a very thin line. And one day you go from "this is fine" to "whoa, hold on." The longer you hang onto justifications for heavy drinking, the easier it is to cross that line.

You can offer any advice you like, my issue is no longer recognition of the problem. I'm working hard at fixing this.

My purpose in engaging is to let you know that often it's hard to recognize where you are on the spectrum. Your perfectly fine situation today may reveal itself to be less than ok in the near future. That's what happened with me.

Edit: and as you described, I can still drink 6-8-10 drinks until the early morning and be perfectly fine the next day. The effects of drinking are cumulative and not always easy to see on a daily basis, particularly when you get to the point where there's little acute effect from a night of drinking. I don't really get hangovers anymore, so it's easy to say "hey, it's fine, my life is going as it should and I feel ok."

This is by far the most reasonable and calm discussion I read in a long time on HN, and it's being had - of all people - by two self-declared alcoholics about alcoholism.

I wish you the best, you seem to be really cool people and I hope your life will be as good as you want it to be.

If you're ever in Melbourne, let me know. I'll buy you a beer, or your favourite non-alcoholic non-judgemental beverage of choice.

The fact that you don't get hangovers is part of the problem. If you did, you wouldn't be able to drink and function the next day. Did you ever get hangovers?

Of course. Over time they got milder and now it's basically nothing.

I don't think this is unusual[1]

[1] http://www.the-alcoholism-guide.org/alcoholism-stages.html

>> Many at this alcoholism stage are able to drink a lot and not appear drunk at all.

>> Often those in the first stage do not get hangovers.

I had 2 uncles that were high functioning alcoholics, that would do the same as you, but drink substantially more (1-2 bottles of rye a day). By the time they were in their early 60s, both of them (they were brothers) had to have their legs amputated because of circulation issues related to alcohol consumption.

It can lead to more problems than you'd think.

I guess my first thought when I see people like this, especially people who can clearly do their job quite well, is don't you wonder what you could accomplish when you're not drunk?

> I guess my first thought when I see people like this, especially people who can clearly do their job quite well, is don't you wonder what you could accomplish when you're not drunk?

... and that says to me that you didn't absorb what those guys wrote. like, for example, this:

> If only for the fact that I didn't so much enjoy being drunk, with the knots in my brain unwound, feeling like I'm finally able to relax my consciousness with a drink like I relax my body with a massage.

therefore, the answer to "what you could accomplish when you're not drunk" might well be "a whole hell of a lot less than he's accomplishing right now."

Actually, I suspect those knots are thwarted ambition or unaddressed life problems or something else that could be fixed that alcohol is just anesthesizing.

It might still be rational. The costs of change on other people, like children, may make it not worthwhile, or the struggle to fulfill ambition might rationally be viewed as pointless. Just don't dismiss the knots as things that can only be treated with alcohol.

i'd be willing to bet you have some problems in your life. if not, you'd be the first person in the world who doesn't. so what's stopping you from solving them, right now? perhaps you are too cowardly?

see where this line of thought leads? i'd just as soon not go there.

Just to clarify -- although I was hoping it would be conveyed by the tone and the flavour of my original post -- I don't have life problems. I also don't have a struggle to fulfill ambition: I passed the goal I set for myself at fifteen as a highschool dropout, and I did so with flying colours.

I love my life. I don't know, really, what would improve it a whole lot. Perhaps winning the lottery would help, although I wouldn't bet on it -- I have a lovely partner, a comfortable home, enough money to spend on hobbies and travel and, yes, drinking -- I make art and I make infrastructure, and everything is great.

But I still drink.

Thank you for listening, and for thinking. No more, no less.

I could accomplish anything. Except, maybe, being an astronaut: I've aged myself out of that one.

But who cares? You might, but I don't. What I have accomplished and what I continue to accomplish and what I care about accomplishing is providing for my partner and for my life and for my hobbies and for the happiness of those I love.

I'm doing just fine in that department.

Doctors know you're lowballing the estimates, and they apply a nonlinear corrective factor to whatever number you tell them.

Not that this particularly changes anything, but they do know you're lying.

A favorite of mine from medical school... "two drinks a day!"

Oh yeah? What do you usually drink?

"A box of wine and a handle of whiskey."

Good post/username combination. :)

> My doctor was shocked even though I lied about how much I drink. I lowballed it and my doctor said "whoa, that's too much"

I believe they're obliged to react that way no matter what you say, as long as it's above their laughable "less than 4 standard drinks in a sitting" limit. Kind of the way a police officer will call you a dangerous lunatic for traveling 10km/h over the limit even on an empty road in perfect conditions where you could perfectly safely be traveling at double the speed.

If you have not done so already, (and for many others commenting on this thread), in your situation you might get a lot out looking up "The Sinclair Method"; "Dr. David Sinclair" and "Pharmacological Extinction". Some useful links below.

[1] http://www.thesinclairmethod.net/community/viewtopic.php?f=5... -

About The Sinclair Method and How It Works [2] http://www.centersite.net/poc/view_doc.php?type=doc&id=11132...

[3] http://www.cthreefoundation.org/about-the-sinclair-method.ht...

[4] http://cthreeeurope.com/the-5-steps-to-curing-alcoholism-exc...

Why Isn’t The Sinclair Method Used More Often and why have so few doctors in the US/UK heard of it?

[4] Best explanation: https://www.quora.com/Can-naltrexone-normalize-the-drinking-...

[5] https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/overcoming-addiction/20...

[6] https://www.addiction.com/expert-blogs/why-isnt-the-sinclair...

+1 for the Sinclair Method. After giving it a try 2 years ago, I went from a decade of 5-10 drinks a day down to 0, and have remained that there for the last year.

Unlike when I tried abstaining before, there isn't a constant craving or feeling like I'm off or not right.

With insurance, the pills cost me $5 for a month supply.

I can't recommend this method enough.

If you're in some way trying to deal with this problem (or open to trying yet again), I can highly recommend checking out the 'stopdrinking' subreddit. Or alternatively feel free to send me an email or something.

I'm sort of in the same camp. I don't drink every day, but when the mood hits it just makes everything more fun. My dad drank every day. The first thing he did when he got home from work was make a Manhattan and he had a glass with him until he went to bed. He was never aggressive, cruel, or unpleasant when he drank, just relaxed and happy. It definitely affected his health as he got older, and there was a period where he stopped. He ended up dying of liver cancer in his seventies, which was metastatic from lung cancer (he was a smoker until his fifties) but I'm sure the drinking didn't help matters.

Interestingly I've never used any other intoxicants. I've never smoked tobacco or weed, never used hallucinogenics or anything else. Booze is enough and I enjoy it. These days it's mostly whiskies in the 100+ proof range. Nice to have neat and just sip. I don't drink beer much anymore.

I think everyone makes decisions about what they like and don't like in life. Some people like to drink. So what. We all end up in the ground eventually.

Empathically, yes we all end up in the ground but the way there can make a big difference and you may only really regret it when it's too late to do something about it (general you, not you personally - occasional drinking is far less hazardous than being an alcoholic).

My father is now 76 and smoked, ate badly and did no excercise his whole life. He knew it was bad for him and started seeing the effects for decades, but had the same attitude as above.

Right now, and for the past several years, his life can be fairly described as "would have been better off dead" because of the health implications of such choices. I'm not exaggerating for the sake of argument, I would literally prefer to commit suicide if I was in that situation (he is no longer capable of doing that).

So yes everyone should make their own choices & you may end up like Churchill rather than my father, but seeing the effects first hand that there's a (likely) fate worse than death convinced me to never take that sort of attitude lightly.

A lot of people are replying to you talking about lifespan.

But I have read a ton of conflicting studies about this, and there are definitely some meta-studies which indicate it's rather difficult to drink enough to make your mortality worse than a non-drinker.

In other words for all cause mortality, moderate drinkers > heavy drinkers > teetotalers

Same with alcohol's affect on obesity. Counter intuitive.

I am skeptical of those studies, but in any event they exist and there's a lot of controversy here. I also agree one can very very easily be fooling themselves about a substance but the assumption that you are not self aware is ideology based.

Before we demonized substances there were countless examples of people who indulged heavily and seemed no more or less happy than their peers. I think our social standards are skewing the conversation and that's too bad.

Some people have a problem with alchohol. Some people really don't. And for all of them it's their determination to make for themselves and something I should have no opinion about. Like all life choices.

I humbly suggest others try taking the same attitude.

My grandparent post is talking about a man greater than I can ever expect to be, and all of the great things he achieved. Oh and also he drank his own volume in alcohol a week and smoked enough cigars to keep a tobacco plantation in business single-handedly.

Now I'm no Churchill, so I don't expect to make his political or tactical achievements, but maybe I can match him at the other things.

Some people survive a major car accident without wearing a seatbelt, that does not mean that it's a good idea to not wear your seatbelt.

> But I have read a ton of conflicting studies about this, and there are definitely some meta-studies which indicate it's rather difficult to drink enough to make your mortality worse than a non-drinker.

I'm extremely skeptical of this as it seems to obvious to me that drinking to excess is bad for the body. But I haven't done the research.

Do you have some links for evidence? I'm honestly curious.

I agree. I found this, for example (http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-67...):

> Among 57 361 male smokers with no previous disease, the estimated 20-year risks of death at ages 35–54 years were 16% (95% CI 15–17) for those who reported consuming less than a bottle of vodka per week at baseline, 20% (18–22) for those consuming 1–2·9 bottles per week, and 35% (31–39) for those consuming three or more bottles per week

Maybe there are some confounders not controlled for, but the association seems to go in the expected direction.

> In other words for all cause mortality, moderate drinkers > heavy drinkers > teetotalers

I remember reading that a few of the more publicized studies with this conclusion failed to control for the fact that many (if not most) people with chronic and fatal illnesses had to quit drinking, and so pumped up the mortality rate for 'teetotalers'.

It doesn't seem like you have any behavioral problems with alcohol. Over an extended time span, you might face other issues [1].

Shorter life and a merry one vs. longer life and perhaps less enjoyment. A choice that merits thought and spirited discussion with friends.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcohol_and_cancer

I am statistically far more likely than others to face alcohol-related-health-problems. Also, through an accident of fate and genetics, diabetes. And a family history of pancreatic cancer means that I'll be sticking a gold star next to that entry on the list. I occasionally smoke, so throw a pinch o' lung cancer into the mix. I eat too much red meat, not enough vegetables, too many saturated fats, and all of the other things that add up to heart disease. I don't exercise enough, but the exercise I do is too high impact. I have been known to partake of illicit drugs on the odd occasion, so who knows what kind of back-yard horribly contaminated meth lab chemicals I'm putting into my body, and what they'll do. I ride a motorbike, so all of my organs, low value as they may be due to the combination of all of the aforementioned, might calamitously end up splattered over asphalt any day now.

Life is a calculated series of trade-offs. I've picked mine, and I'm really enjoying where they're taking me.

>Life is a calculated series of trade-offs. I've picked mine, and I'm really enjoying where they're taking me.

Everybody changes their tune when they get there.

Mistakes aren't always regrets.

> Everybody changes their tune when they get there.

I don't buy that.

I had a cousin who behaved and talked a lot like you. He got married, had kids, and got cancer. There's no way to know if it was from drinking, but it was liver cancer, and we have little-or-no cancer in our family. There are studies showing that even a single drink a day will increase the risk of some cancers.

The pain of watching someone you love die slowly, agonizingly from cancer is difficult to imagine. So is the pain of realizing it's happening to you and wishing you could've done things differently.

It sounds like you don't have anyone/anything to live for right now, but you never know if that will change.

This would all be moot if having 6+ drinks a day were the only way to be happy, but there are lots of options to choose from before settling on something harmful. Hopefully you have tried many others (or will try many others) before deciding that happiness requires an early death.

Hmm. Thought experiment: What if death were something to be celebrated?

well, isn't this the whole idea of christianity?

I came to peace with my death. It can come anytime. It might not come too soon ( I am a healthy beast at my 40's), but I am not afraid of it.

We live anyway furthe like a hologram through other's memories. And that is a thing to celebrate.

I'm not afraid of death (it's a closer possibility for me due to an incurable disease unrelated to lifestyle). I am however terrified of being horribly sick for years before dying.

Liver disease is commonly symptom-less until very late on. And to die from liver disease is just about the most unpleasant way to go. It's got to bring added pain to dying seeing the suffering it brings to loved ones, especially children. But to have on top of that the guilt that it could all have been so easily avoided must be intolerable. I have read accounts from many alcoholics saying how easy it was to give up alcohol once pain and death became real possibilities.

I have to say, this is one of the most self-aware breakdowns of personal choices and the cost/benefit of those choices I have seen — at least on an internet forum.

I've never been a drinker, too much of a problematic family history attached to the stuff. I think what made things harder for those with an issue in my family and those I know currently battling problem drinking is the dynamic of silence. Forget about whether a person has a "problem" with drinking, the most trouble seems to happen when people avoid considering or talking about their consumption and retreat into themselves. This leads to destroyed relationships, depression, and in some cases leads further down the rabbit hole of drink.

To the parent, whether or not you will face alcohol-related health problems remains to be seen. The fact that you have clearly thought about your drinking and how it connects to other parts of your life speaks volumes, to me at least. I wish more people would be open and willing to talk about matters like this.

Sounds similar to my life for the past 10 odd years. Then one day, I woke up with that headache and blurry eyes, and said I can't do this again. I'll still have a drink a few times a year, for special occasions, but enough was enough. Hah. I quit drinking three years ago.

Good for you, man. You're clearly doing what you want to do and living your life how you want to live it, and as far as I'm concerned that's worth more than any faux sage advice that is going to be offered over the Internet.

Yeah, I don't think you're an alcoholic.

It might be because I come from a wet culture. Which is to say one where having a beer over lunch isn't (or wasn't) frowned upon. But 4 beers a day is completely manageable.

Doctors have been trying to tally up how many beers it takes until someone is an "alcoholic", but IMHO they're far off the mark. Because as it is, it's quite easy to tally up enough standard drinks to become a medically defined "alcoholic", or to enter some similar classification ("heavy drinker"?), without ever experiencing any clear behavioral or physiological issues (e.g. not diverting money from needs to drink, not being a nuisance to yourself or others, absence of seizures upon cessation of intake).

Even the idea of a "standard drink" is rather lousy: 4 shots of vodka doesn't equal 4 beers. The amount of alcohol per volume matters, and the higher the relative volume of alcohol, the faster it hits you and the more easily one might develop dependence.

In short, you're more or less fine. Unless you're downing a fifth of vodka every day, in which case you might want to cut down a bit.

Who said I only drank four beers a day? I said I exceeded that mark, I didn't say I aimed for it.

That said, the definition of a "standard drink" is, in the United States, any drink containing 14g of alcohol. And while neither you nor I nor anyone else who doesn't actually have a problem is picking drinks to drink based on how many grams of alcohol they contain, it's still a measure that's probably useful to know. At the very least so you can silently judge while frowning at yourself in a mirror late at night in a seedy bar.

To me, you're an alcoholic if when you stop you have physical withdrawal. If you need to drink rather than just enjoy drinking. There's probably a fairly wide grey area.

I've always felt that drinking was a choice not a compulsion. I can go a week with no booze and have no symptoms. But occasionally I get past that limit and my self control evaporates and I pay for it the next day.

Once I understood where my limits are (the day after my 21st birthday), I have never felt any desire to drink to the extent that I'm hung over the next morning. I mean, I'll happily get smashed with friends occasionally, but even then I drink until I'm drunk and happy, and then I stop drinking until either my buzz fades or it's time to go home. I don't really understand what drives people to keep drinking until they can't anymore. Maybe that's a good thing.

Good for you.

This is, to be honest, the best way to enjoy alcohol. It gives you the social-glue that you need to network, it gives you the social-relaxant that might deepen your interpersonal relationships, and it gives you all the fun and enjoyment you can get from drinking a good drink.

What you're missing by the way, with regards to your drinking, is a complete and utter disregard for consequences. Do you think, while I'm getting drunk, that I don't know what might happen? What I might say to people I love and what I might reveal that I wish I hadn't? Of course I know. I know and I don't care, or alternatively I know and I care and I want the truth to come out instead of burning a hole in the pit of my stomach, because what I want to put out there doesn't fit with the neat little jigsaw puzzle picture of society I have in my head.

Maybe it's right and maybe it's wrong, but it's me.

I find it keeps me from my best self. But I only notice the first day or two, and then it becomes the new normal.

My sleep is shallow, I stay up to late, I'm dehydrated, I become irritable when I'm not drinking. I do function. But not as well.

I became more aware of this when I started training, and now I can't ignore it.

Well, if you frequently go out with friends and "play video games" then you are probably a 20-something -- so it's difficult to imagine how this (accumulated) would hit you at 30 and 40, then things start to go south anyway...

Would it be pithy to tell you, simply, that you're wrong?

If it is, I'll expand: I'm thirty and change years old. I don't have children because I don't want them, because for all I know about myself I think I'd be a terrible parent, short tempered, lacking in patience, and yes, it has to be said, an alcoholic.

So how will this hit me at 30? Well, how it will hit me is a group of great friends, people who I love, who will join me at the bar and join me in good health and bad, misery and happiness, excitement and ennui. All of them are people I would trust with my life, my darkest secrets, and my greatest hopes and dreams.

And you know where I meet them? I meet them at the bar.

The word 'alcoholic' gets tossed around a lot without ever seeming to be defined. Some people seem to define it as 'someone who regularly has more than the recommended 4 standard drinks in one sitting' and some define it as 'someone who is destroying their life and health because they cannot stop drinking'.

The definition I tend to use is just 'someone who is unable to stop drinking if they choose to'. But then, I'm like you - I can choose not to drink if I want to, but I enjoy the way alcohol makes me feel, so I keep doing it (although far less than I used to).

Have you actually tried to stay sober for 12 months? I know for a fact that many alcoholics think they choose to drink, when in reality they have become so addicted that they cannot stop even if they tried.

This. I tried to convince my buddies on the "block" to stay away from it, and they were ready, but in 2 days it all came back, because "it's not funny, how do we hang out?" When they don't have money to drink enough, it's silent funeral of time.

I'm not sobriety prophet. I drink on occasion, but every time I regret that stupid state.

My alcoholic friends of all ages are all good guys, and I wish I could discuss with them on some complex themes, but after two hours of consumption they turn into repeating the same primitive shit again and again, abusing me as free psychoanalytic or bad comedy listener. They think they're nice and interesting in that state, but the pattern is clearly seen just after few times. And I'm with them for decades. Alcohol addiction makes you think you're nothing without it, but the fact seems to be the opposite in my anecdotal experience.

That's sort of arbitrary. "Bet you can't stay sober for 40 years."

Also reminds me of Erdős and amphetamines: "(Ron Graham) bet him $500 that he could not stop taking the drug for a month. Erdős won the bet, but complained that during his abstinence, mathematics had been set back by a month." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Erdős#Personality

12 months is long enough that you get beyond withdrawals and habit of drinking, and start to settle into a new life without alcohol. It's long enough that you go through all holidays and occations where you normally rely on drinking. It's harder than most people believe.

Have you ever gone twelve months drinking and eating only the exact, blandest food required to sustain your life?

Have you ever gone twelve months spending time doing anything other than your favourite activity?

Have you ever gone twelve months spending time with people who aren't your friends, when you would rather be elsewhere?

Of course, physically and mentally, I could go without alcohol, in the same way that I could go without doing those other things. Will I, though? Would that be a good life choice? Will any of them make me better people who enjoys life more and more fully than otherwise?

Probably not.

You're free to do what you find correct. I've experienced first hand what relatives with alcohol abuse means. It's not good, even when you're "functional". Sooner or later the liver gives up, or dementia sets in, usually before 50 - it's ugly and I wouldn't wish it for anyone.

No, but I can go a couple of weeks easily and in the past I've gone a couple of months with no real effort. Two months is far past any possible physical addiction and the habit is pretty much gone. I chose to start drinking again because I enjoy it.

As an equivalent challenge, there are significant health benefits to going vegetarian. Have you tried to go completely meat-free for 12 months? Maybe you think you choose to eat meat, but in reality you're so addicted to it that you can't stop. Are you going to quit eating meat for a year just to prove a point to an internet stranger?

Thats a fair point, and good for you. I simply asked to provoke a bit of an answer. Several of my near relatives have died from a life long abuse of alcohol, and each and every one claimed they could stop cold turkey. Yet, neither did when they got fired, or missed a plane to vacation, or one of many other things that, caused by drinking, had a profound negative impact on their life.

I have gone meat free for a month, but the constant hassel of getting enough protein for myself, and double cooking because I'm not going to impose it on the rest of my family, was too much. I am now eating less meat now as a result though.

Can I ask how old you are? Non-judgmental, I totally identify with you.

Thirty. Old enough that by now I should probably know better, but old enough to know that if I haven't learned by now, I probably never will.

Having experienced how long term drinking causes liver failure and dementia on two seperate occations, it will become a problem sooner rather than later, and it will be ugly.

Everyone has an innate capacity for mental/physical stress where they can still operate, it just sounds like you are using your margin on boozing. Maybe try powerlifting or running marathons and see if you reach a breaking point where the drink has to go if you want to grow? Or maybe try sleeping less and starting a company?

You say suffer, and you say pain tolerance, but really none of what I said is about suffering or pain.

The beer I drink, tonight, isn't going to hurt me. The gin the next day isn't, by itself, the cause of any real harm.

The cumulative twenty some years of drinking too much? That's the kicker. That's the one that's going to get me. Maybe. Maybe it won't. Maybe fuck what the actuarials say. Maybe I'll beat the odds.

Maybe, though, maybe I won't make it, and maybe I'll die young with all my dreams unfulfilled, a sad shrunken wreck of a man that achieved nothing.

Maybe all of those things are totally possible with and without the alcohol and life is all just one big shitshow that I enjoy living exactly how it is.

I'm not a fatalist. I'd just rather be an alcoholic than a power lifter.

Do you drink in the mornings and during the day as well or only binge drink on a nightly basis?

I know plenty of people in the industry with a work hard / play hard mindset that are like that but all the ones I know personally moved on when it being impractical (generally when they started having kids).

This is not meant as a smart-ass comment but I think that you should go to an AA meeting and tell them your story. If I was to guess I'd say it would resonate with at least someone there. You need to talk to people who've been there, done that.

I'm not going to go to an AA meeting. I don't need to go to an AA meeting. I'm glad you're the kind of guy who is looking to give people advice so that they can be their best, but this isn't one of those situations where you can be right. Or even wrong. It's not the sort of situation where having a ten second insight into someone's life gives you the ability to judge, and it's not the sort of situation where anything you say is going to have anything of value to me.

All of that sounds kinda harsh and I really don't mean to be too much of a jerk about it, but I really do mean to be a tiny bit of a jerk about it.

Of course my story will resonate with someone else at an AA meeting. It resonated with a number of people here, who aren't at AA, and it will resonate with a number of people who have never had a drink in their life.

That's all cool, it's all great, and except for the people at AA who are struggling it's all very low impact to their life.

Things are problems when they cause issues. Things that don't cause issues aren't problems, they're just things. Sometimes they're beautiful and sometimes they're sad and sometimes you won't understand them at all, but that doesn't mean that they need to change. Sometimes what I like isn't what you like.

And that should be okay.

It's all fun and games until your body screams to stop, you can't go on drinking like that for ever, it does have it's consequences.

Drugs and Alcohol is how i want to spend my retirement.

I had a similar habit and discovered I was self medicating for ADD/bipolar disorder.

Man, that sucks. Like really sucks. Not that you were self medicating -- that's probably, like, not the worst thing you could have done, all things considered -- but that you have ADD & bipolar.

I hope that, despite the setbacks you may have faced and despite the fact that alcohol may have been a crutch for you, you've landed on your feet.

Thank you for replying and sharing the tiny sliver of insight into your life. It might not mean a whole lot to you but it means a whole lot to me. I'm not bipolar, I don't have ADD or depression or any number of those other things that alcohol might be a mask for: I just really like drinking.

But I hope that if anyone else reads this recognises that something might be wrong, it helps.

I suppose I shouldn't encourage you but I thought that was lovely.

From the bottom of my heart, thank you.

I'll come clean: A lot of what I've been writing in this thread has been practice for writing in general. None of it is untrue, none of it is exaggerated, and none of it is even different in tone to how I live my life. It's all there, laid bare, heart on my sleeve but written in a way that people will find engaging.

Why? Because I want to practice writing. Because I want what I write to be enjoyed. Because everything I write on the Internet, now and previously, has been the sort of hum-drum okay I've argued with you online garbage that every man and his dog has written.

And I want to be better than that.

I want to be better than that in the way that makes people think, or the way that makes people smile, or the way that makes people sad. I'm not trying to achieve any of those things, in and of themselves, I'm just trying to tell my story in a way that other people might end up commiserating, or empathising, or sympathising, or whatever it is that people do when they read something like this.

All of that said, though, to be honest I don't give a fuck what you think. Despite the fact that if I knew you I might love you, I don't know you, and so I don't. What you think, as an Internet guy, doesn't really make an impact to my life, except in the sort of butterfly-winged chaos theory sort of way.

So, y'know. You're great. Thanks for the compliment, but I don't care. Cognitive dissonance is a bitch.