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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. :)

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.

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.

> 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'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.