Ask HN: Anyone else here struggle with the alcohol? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Anyone else here struggle with the alcohol?

116 pointsiamanonymous122 comments

Gents,

I thought it might be worthwhile and somewhat cathartic to ask this question here. I'm a long time, accomplished techie and a bit of a serial entrepreneur. I also wonder if I might be a bit of a functioning alcoholic.

I've been drinking regularly since my early teens. In the area of the country where I grew up it was about the only thing to do. I drank too much in high school, college, and grad school, and the initial stages of my PhD, all the while still managing to ace most of my coursework.

Fortunately, I married a very stubborn woman, and she's cut down my drinking substantially. However, I still drink at least 4 times a week, and each night on average 3-6 high alcohol beers.

Even still, I'm not a violent drunk or really a drunk in general. I have developed a pretty high tolerance, so the drinks I have just place me into a comfortable mood, not a stupor. I'm a loving, affectionate husband and father; I just find that alcohol takes the edge off my life. I've quit at times for periods of a month with no sort of withdrawal symptoms, so I don't believe I'm physically addicted. I've always had a bit of an addictive personality, so I think my dependence is largely psychological.

The problem is, my drinking is impulsive. I'm in a senior leadership role by day and I work on my entrepreneurial endeavors by night. I wake up most mornings telling myself it's going to be all work on my ideas when I get home that evening, but by 7 pm the stress of the day makes that beer (and couch time with the wife) so much more appealing.

I'm worried on too fronts: a., the things I'm not able to accomplish because I procrastinate through alcohol, and b., health problems.

Regaring a., how much could I have accomplished if I didn't impusively give in and drink a beer or six? I've had at least one project that's dragged on now for 3 months and I attribute at least some of that drag to beer. If I'm honest with myself, a number of my other projects have suffered because of this same drag on productivity. Hangovers and the general malaise the day after make it very difficult to keep up and focused at times.

Regarding b., my blood pressure has become borderline high over the last two years (I'm in my late 30s), and I am guessing that alcohol has a lot to do with it. If marijuana were to become legal, I'd definitely be open to switching to that, but as it is my wife is totally against it because of its legal status. I've used it in the past and found it to be a wonderful alternative to alcohol. Again, I'm not addicted to the feeling alcohol gives you, but to the edge it takes off my life.

Anyway, I'd love to hear from other HNers regarding insights or tips. I've read that substance abuse in general tends to be common in those with higher IQs, so I imagine there are at least a few of you who have been, or are here, with me.

View on HN

"by 7 pm the stress of the day makes that beer (and couch time with the wife) so much more appealing."

a) As soon as you get off work exercise. hit the driving range, swim, go to gym, run. Hire a trainer and pay in advance for 3 months so there's a penalty for not doing it. Exercise is the worst enemy of stress and alcohol.

b) Wake up early to work on your start-up projects, and flip your addiction to two cups of good coffee in the AM. It's much easier to be unproductive come evening, the old "Idle Hands Are The Devil's Tools" is especially true. Get up at 5am - you're not going to drink before work, and you're going to pass your ass out about 9 - 9:30 each night.

Neither sounds easy, but both are rewarding when you get over the preliminary hump of getting into a routine.

Before a), you need to get some counseling. Just getting exercise or trying to out-discipline an addiction isn't going to work.

And that's what you have, is an addiction. Your post and your comments showcase just about every trait of alcoholism.

It's also very important to note alcohol is one of the very few chemicals where withdraw can actually kill you. If you currently drink heavy and are thinking of quitting cold turkey or cutting it out from your day entirely definitely consult a doctor first.

I agree. Until you deal with the root issue, you're only going to replace one addiction with another (beer for weed). Why be addicted to anything, or what's the fundemental cause of your dependence on substance? That's the real question you need to answer.

Good idea...however, I already work out. I agree with you that it helps, but doesn't completely do it for me for some reason.

Exercising after alcohol consumption (during hangover phase) is flat-out dangerous. Not sure whether that is affected by tolerance, but chances are you are not getting the most out of your workout routine.

> Hire a trainer and pay in advance for 3 months so there's a penalty for not doing it.

Actually this is not a good motivator, find something you like, otherwise you end up with a 3 month (or a year :P) gym etc. pass and still not exercise. With this kind of forcing you might actually start hating exercise.

If you use alcohol to take the edge of off life then there is something wrong with your life. You're not an alcoholic you just abuse alcohol. My advice would be to see why you feel your life has an edge that needs smoothing.

For me, in the past, this has meant stopping work all together so I could get enough downtime for my brain to sort out wtf is going on. Things fall in to perspective over time. It took me about a month. If that's not for you, try and reduce your main job to 3-4 days a week on health grounds and use the rest of the time to sort yourself out.

You might want to consider volunteering at an alcohol abuse centre to help you realign your use of alcohol.

Remember, first and foremost it's your life, you've only got one of them so anyone/anything that isn't helping you get to where you want to be should be removed from you life.

Not necessarily. It's not gambling, video-games, or pot, alcohol is physically addictive and restructures the brain of an addict, making it (alcohol) a vital substance. Hence cold turkey quitting of alcohol can kill a person. Probably not in OP's case, I'm just saying that it's not as easy.

Yes you're right but the OP stated he's already stopped (a few times) with no physical withdrawal symptoms which leads me to conclude (and I think the OP already feels this) that they are not physically addicted.

Of course we'd all agree that the OP should probably seek medical support regardless of the rambling of a few people on the internet :)

Stopping or changing work for me is not an option currently. Far too many obligations. Have to pay for my family to live!

That's a real shame as it's likely to be the catalyst for your issues (that or your family). I managed to change a high stress job in to a walk in the park by reading Peopleware and finally understanding how work... works. You might want to [re]read that.

It's not going to help though if work isn't the catalyst. Maybe you expect too much of yourself and crumble under your own pressure, maybe you fear failure and alcohol is a convenient excuse, maybe you are heading toward a mental break down. Who knows?

This is gonna sound a bit silly but keeping a mood diary with data about alcohol consumption, mood swings etc might help you step away from the problem far enough to see it in all it's glory.

Finding a mechanism to step back and see the bigger picture often helps. If your family isn't the problem they could be your biggest help in this.

Good luck

Contrary to what dazzawazza says "taking the edge off life" is not what you are doing my friend. Even though you say that you have no problem going without for periods at a time realistically what that "feeling" is is you satisfying the craving your body has for alcohol - that unfortunately what an addiction is all about. The monkey on your back. Whether the amount of alcohol you consume is a problem for you depends on whether it is an on balance positive or negative in your life. If you've gotten as far as posting here it shows you have serious issues with your habit but if your life is not coming apart at the seems because of it then you are in control and not the substance. I would recommend going to AA meetings as corny as that may sound. You will quickly find out more about your relationship with alcohol from people who have gone further down a road you can imagine.

"by 7 pm the stress of the day makes that beer (and couch time with the wife) so much more appealing."

It sounds like you put off more work because you're burnt out. Don't feel bad about this. Everyone needs some down time. If you drink beer as part of that down time, don't worry about it, and don't blame the beer (it's the effect, not the cause). The only reason you should be worried about beer is if you mean to only relax for a little bit and then get back to work, and the beer keeps you relaxing longer than you want.

You probably are psychologically addicted. What you need to evaluate is whether you mind that you are addicted. Suppose you'd need to relax all night anyway, if you weren't drinking. Then beer after work is not necessarily a problem. If you have no other problems associated with alcohol, then who the hell cares if you're addicted?

Regarding health problems, high gravity beer is probably not the healthiest drink you could mix. Try switching to 1 or 2 (or 3, I guess) glasses of red wine. A different type of alcohol may cut around your tolerance for beer, so you'll drink less, and red wine in moderate amounts (I don't think 3 glasses is still considered moderate, but w/e) keeps being called healthy. You'll also cut out the massive calories that come with 3-6 high gravity beers. Alternatively, learn to mix drinks and start getting creative. :-)

Red wine is definitely the way to go, especially if you can find a brew-your-own wine shop (very common in Ontario) that makes a type you like. The reason you should do the brew your own route is that you don't add in any preservatives that many of the main wine manufacturing companies do and it is also about 1/3 to 1/4 the price.

As for drinking too much, sure man I drink more than one serving about 3-4 times a week, some weeks it is 0 some weeks it is 7, especially when I'm in a town where I have lots of old friends or family. It does take effort to make sure to do so responsibly and to take breaks. For example, I do 40 days once a year with absolutely 0 intake, even down to ordering a nonalcoholic becks at a after work meeting. I go up to the bartender and tell him discretely that when I order a becks to make sure it is in a glass, but to simply give me a non-alcoholic one. I've never been to a bar that didn't have some, so it must be pretty common. The reason I take a long break is to stop the slow evolution from 4 days a week to 4.2 to 4.4, etc. The reason that I'm careful is that my genius grandparent (8 languages, 4 engineering degrees + a masters, 3rd most powerful position in a medium world power, 10 instruments, etc) had to totally quit after he developed a problem and...

I like drinking, so I'm willing to be responsible about it and make sure to try to do red wine as often as possible and appropriate. I think that there are a lot of people like the OP reading this that are in the exact same position. They drink slightly more than what has been blessed as kosher by society and are afraid to come out and admit it because they don't want to be lumped in with actual holy-fuck-I-have-a-problem drunks. I don't get drunk when I drink 2 or 3 glasses of wine, I drink responsibly, and I don't do any drugs what-so-ever. Adulthood is good.

Oh and one last thing. Going to a bar with the workmates for the big game? Tell the bar tender this: "Every time I order a beer bring me a glass of water too, if you do this the whole night I'll tip you 20%." That trick will save your ass from doing anything embarrassing.

How long have you been doing the 40 days a year thing?

Going to do be starting the third 40 day set soon (Jan 2011)

Probably some of the best advice in this thread. I'm surprised by all the moralising and severe responses from other folks. (exercising with a hangover is very dangerous? Really? Please explain how)

hahahahahaha

I can imagine that exercising with a hangover would suck, but I don't know how it's dangerous....

Hangovers cause severe dehydration. It's an extreme case, but a British soldier died last year from a combination of a severe hangover and punitive exercise. Just fell over on the running track and didn't get back up.

Ok, but there's a big difference between "severe hangover and punitive exercise" and "ow I've got a headache, I'll still do at least a mile this morning".

Yes, and there's a difference between dying and causing yourself to feel shitty for a few days :-P

By your logic, I should also avoid drinking water, as it's possible to die from water intoxication.

It seems to me your answers are already in your post, maybe you are waiting for someone to say "No, you don't have to give it up, its not doing anything bad to/for you!"

My personal experience was similar, I suddenly realized that sometimes I was getting unhappy with clients because they were cutting into my drink-thirty time. I also binged once in awhile (aw, crap, it's 4:00am, I am going to have to stop watching movies, send out a few emails to reschedule this morning's appointments, and get some sleep!)

I stopped entirely, that being easier for me than moderation. It was not easy at first, as I considered a fine scotch/cognac very romantic. After a few months, the good news came for me: I was ten pounds lighter with no other dietary change, my gross sales doubled, my life goals started getting implemented, and because of that, my stress level dropped.

Smaller meal portions have taken another 15 pounds off (my Wii now says I am only 11 pounds over its idea of an ideal weight). Now I am adding in moderate exercise, which again is a stress reducer for me, as well as I expect to see more weight loss and muscle tone.

I am now getting ready to start hiring more help, and replace myself on up the org chart.

Your mileage may vary...

High functioning alcoholic here. 11 years sober now.

That's how I started, in my 20s. I quit for a few years, but didn't develop "good" habits, and went back to drinking. Got worse and worse. I managed to ship a bunch of product and do several start-ups, but it eventually caught up with me.

Frankly, if you're worried, try not drinking for a month (_Alcoholics Anonymous_ recommends a year). If you can't do it, you might have a problem. That's for you to decide.

If you are in trouble, then going to AA isn't a disaster, and it might save your butt. It might even be fun. (I've met executives and science fiction writers and a bunch of other interesting people). I suppose there's other stuff that works; I can't speak to that.

Whatever you decide, good luck.

I noticed if there is no beer in the house, usually I stop drinking.When I stop drinking sleep more and better and feel more creative. Is just a cycle that needs to be altered.

Additionally try picking some sort of substitute for the beer ritual, tea or taking a hot shower, something you already think of as relaxing that can mark the end of the stressful part of the day.

Edit: And whatever you do talk to your doc.

This is really good advice. I'm also prone to having a beer when I get home, which turns into two, and then I'm on the couch all night relaxing when I intended to work.

Tea, milk (which you'll probably want to drink if you're doing any heavy exercising, to gain weight), ice cold water, even wine have been good substitutes for me. I find that I am usually just very thirty, and if I can quench my thirst initially and have something to sip every few minutes, I no longer reach for a beer.

That said, whatever you choose has to be something that you find relaxing. If you find tea or wine to be a hassle and not relaxing, try something else.

I agree, especially with the tea part. I am a regular / heavy drinker in a very similar position to the OP, recently a friend stayed over and he drinks a LOT of tea, after two evenings with him I instinctively said "fancy a tea?" instead of "fancy a beer?". Also even two beers can screw with your sleep, that's why I try to only drink on weekends :)

To help with that, start by setting a monthly budget for beer, and hold yourself to it. The budget cap could be the method for weaning the habit down: start with $50, then progressively move it downward each month. Based on your post, a $50/month cap would run out quickly, so you'd have to start rationing. Once you can accept a rationed cap, it just an act of reducing it over time.

Otherwise a good idea, but setting the cap in terms of cash can introduce an incentive to buy the cheapest possible beer so that you can buy more of it. I would suggest capping the total volume of alcohol instead.

Yep, I did the same thing for drinking Cokes and it was easy to stop, even though I use to drink 2+ a day. You can still get a beer (or coke) when you go out, but when won't do it often if you are cheap like me.

couldn't agree more

Getting alcohol out of your life might be as simple as keeping it out of your life.

Try avoidance. Don't stock any alcohol in the house at all. No one is allowed to bring it into the house. Resist the urge to make a run to the store when you get home.

When it's sitting there it's easy to start drinking it impulsively. If you can avoid the cycle for a while (months) you won't miss it.

No matter what that voice in your head says you are not allowed to bring alcohol into your house. Not even for for special occasions. Not after you've been good for a while.

If you see yourself about to take alcohol into your house remind yourself that it's not harmless. If it does make it over the threshold then immediately pour it down the drain. Consider it a small price to pay.

Sometimes it's just habit. If you get in the habit of coming home, getting changed, and going for a run every day, then after a while you end up doing it without thinking. If you are in the habit of coming home, cracking a beer, and drinking it, you end up doing that without consciously thinking about it. TV can be the same way; how many sitcom reruns have you watched in the name of "unwinding"?

Try something else, be it exercise, a cup of tea, or reading. Change the tool that you use to smooth the edges.

Sometimes things in life ARE black and white. You either drink and suffer the consequences, or you don't.

You can spend as much time as you'd like rationalizing your addiction (which, based on your comments, you seem to be) but ultimately it comes down to a choice: Stop, or don't stop.

I speak from experience here. I quit smoking after smoking a pack a day for a decade. It took a long time, and it took alot of honesty with myself: Recognizing that I was rationalizing "just one more" because "I had a bad day" and that I couldn't quit because my lifestyle didn't accomodate it, etc etc.

Cut the crap and stop. If you can't stop on your own, turn to professional help.

Edit: Pack a day, not week.

Many things are black and white, but alcohol use isn't one of them.

There's a substantial body of medical evidence emerging (not to mention 10,000 years of recorded human experience) indicating that lower levels of alcohol consumption (~1 drink a day) aren't just safe, or merely "not so bad", but in fact -- when accompanied by certain eating habits -- can be quite good for you.

Yes and no. Yes, moderate alcohol consumption is fine for most people.

But a real alcoholic can't just stop at a few drinks. For them, it is a binary decision. It's very rare to find a former alcoholic who now drinks lightly or moderately. Most can only overcome it by quitting entirely.

There was even a study of this. Some, but very few, alcoholics have been able to stop at 'just a few'. But it turns out that after a decade members of that group either relapsed or became entirely abstinent. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12873238

So even if someone anecdotally knows a recovering alcoholic who can drink in moderation this is very likely to only be the case in the short term.

What that article says may be true for DSM III (or IV) alcoholics (which as a class may or may not include the OP).

My point is simply that in the general population[1], patterns of alcohol (mis)use seem to fall on a fairly wide spectrum, and are not simply a matter of "isa" or "!isa" alcoholic.

*[1] based on careful sampling and rigorous application of standard methodologies, i.e. "considering people I know."

I'll concede my blanket statement with respect to general alcohol use, but I'll argue that this man's specific case is pretty cut and dried.

There is alot of rationalization on his part throughout this thread, and speaking as someone who had a bonafide addiction and kicked it, I recognize what he's going through.

There are no two ways about it. Addiction is a problem with no tepid, dipping-your-toe-in-the-water approach to solving it.

Not alcohol consumption, necessarily. The benefit is cited most ofter for red wine specifically, which indicates the active ingredient is something else.

10 000 years of recorded human experience only tells you that minimal alcohol consumption is not catastrophically bad for you, not that it is "safe".

Not true, your total morbidity risk decreases if you consume any type of alcohol up to 2 drinks per day. I'm guessing it still isn't great for your mental health, though I'm not positive on that.

I believe the current thought is that it is good for your mental health. The stress relief extends your lifespan.

Source?

http://ije.oxfordjournals.org/content/34/1/199.full

Interesting, and I think I may have misread the conclusion (or your version thereof), to wit: it does not conclude that drinking up to 2 units per day is good, but that non-drinkers are worse off than people who drink up to 2 units per day - a figure which probably includes more than a few people who drink once every few days or even every few weeks (as opposed to none at all). It also does not differentiate within that group those who drink wine vs. other alcohols.

I hold the result inconclusive, then, on the subject of alcohol itself. Good info, though, thank you!

Are you fat? Alcoholic beverages can spike your BP, but being fat contributes more to high blood pressure. It seems hard to not be fat with that much beer drinking. Even at the low end of your stated range, you are gaining 20 pounds a year unless you're running marathons and not eating. Which I guess I wouldn't believe. The main difference between beer drunks and other types of drunks is that beer makes you hungry and it's almost impossible to not get fat.

I used to be sort of like you. I would have 2-3 pints a day 3 days a week. Over a few years this was enough to make me gain about 45 pounds. I developed high blood pressure.

I quit for a year and a half out of vanity and to save money. I lost 25 pounds without thinking about it and my blood pressure went back to 122/70. I then lost the rest of the weight through exercise and a restrictive diet.

Unfortunately I am single and live in NYC so my social life suffered a bit. The default thing to do is meet for drinks. If you're just drinking seltzer the girl tends to think you're either an alcoholic, rapist, or worse... a mormon.

I got into going to a popular craft beer bar just so I'd have a place to go and not seem like a teetotaling weirdo. Somewhat strangely, after 18 months off, I now find beer, even fancy beer, mostly disgusting. I'm not sure I could drink 2 pints if I tried. I find it hard to choke down a single pint. The ridiculous $12/beer movement is great for me, I can just get a single "cask" whatever-it-is and leave it sit there for the duration of the date.

The point I'm making is that I had drinking habits maybe a notch lower than yours but was able to reign it in to 1 or 2 beers a week, that I nurse over 2 hours.

All that said, being a drunk is not really compatible with success and 6 beers a night 4 times a week in your late 30s is being a drunk. Any drinking that gives you a hangover is bad behavior. And, definitely that much BEER is going to make you blimp out and worsen your high blood pressure. Either reign it in, and if you can't, you might need to stop completely.

In addition, the fact that you're reaching out anonymously to a hacker forum, and begun your post saying you cut down "substantially" to drinking 6 "high alcohol" beers a night 4 times a week seems to indicate you have a much worse problem than you want to admit. Everything you've written down sounds like textbook definition of functional alcoholism.

I hate to be HN's resident word Nazi, but you want to s/reign/rein/. "Reign" is roughly "to rule", where as "rein it in" is a reference to the reins used to make a horse stop.

I'm not fat, but I'm about 25 pounds over my ideal weight. On average, it's where I've been my adult life. I've lost all the way down to below my ideal weight, but I keep ending up here.

My bp is currently 140/85 or around there.

Sorry about being a bit misleading on the amount consumed. I would say that if I'm drinking "regular" beers, I on average would put away 4-6 a night, but with high gravity beers it'd be between 3 and 4.

I think the solution is to get up earlier and be creative before you go to work. Alcohol is not the problem, 8 hours of work is.

Talk to a medical doctor, not a counselor/AA/group therapy.

There are medicines which greatly treat the desire/need to drink, your doctor can suggest one which can help you change your life in the manner you'd wish to. They are far more effective than group based therapy.

Here are some: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcoholism#Medications

Topiramate in particular sounds to be compelling for you (and many others) as you can still drink like a normal person on it, however you feel the need/desire to much less.

Many alcoholics are self medicating depressives or various other things which are solved by medications much less harmful over the longterm than alcohol. The fact you're drinking to avoid something might put you in that category.

Are you an alcoholic? Eh, maybe. Who cares. Are you drinking more than you like? Yes. Go see the doc, get the meds if you and he thinks it a good idea, and reduce that to the level you find acceptable.

I'd love to try something that would take away the desire, but I'm very concerned that something like this would go on my medical record and taint me for life. I don't know where the doctor/patient confidentiality thing starts and ends here in the States. I know if they diagnose you with high blood pressure, that can be a stain for life and impact your insurance premiums, etc. I would fear that talking to them about substance abuse could lead to the same thing.

Not anymore since the health care law was passed. Pre-existing conditions aren't grounds for jack anything anymore come 2013, and aren't going to lock you out of insurance now. A little high blood pressure? Please that's a totally minor problem anyhow. However years of high blood pressure left untreated can severely damage your body or you might even stroke out!

Go to the doctor for your problems. Medical problems are best solved early. Then you often have non-medical solutions available too.

The law can still be repealed. Incoming Speaker John Boehner said (yesterday or today) it's a priority of his, and most, if not all, of the new Republican congressmembers promised to repeal the bill or parts of it.

OT, but I can't help myself. It's a priority of the GOP to bring health care repeal to a vote. That way they all get their Obamacare creds without having to actually fix anything.

If they want to actually repeal health care, they are going to have to wait until they have a Republican president, or a veto-proof majority, which won't happen until 2012 at the earliest. There may not be repeal momentum left at that point.

Slightly more on-topic, having things like this on your medical record is a concern, but I think keeping one's good health should always be more important than insurance details that may or may not make any difference.

Have a medical issue? There's a pill for that!

Why not try something natural first like counseling, exercise, meditation, etc? I'm sincerely curious why your immediate response is to use medication to solve the problem.

Non-medical treatments for alcohol have been around for a long time, and while often better than nothing, often radically change a persons life in sometimes invasive ways, not completely for the better. Their long term effectiveness is relatively low, partially for that reason.

Additionally, all of those take MUCH more time than the trip to the pharmacy once a month. As the person in question would like to have more time to do his entrepreneurial things...time seems to be important.

AA in particular, which is based around abstinence, changes your life a lot, especially friendships involving moderate social drinking.

The medical approaches clearly tell you the side effects up front. The non-medical ones do not. The medical approaches do not change your interaction with your co-workers, friends and other colleges significantly. Non-medical ones often do. Medical approaches are shown to have much higher long term success rates than non-medical approaches.

Exercise and meditation have their own benefits, however neither are things that people often take up in a lifelong manner, it's more likely to take them up for awhile then quit.

However counseling is a hugely mixed bag, especially group therapy.

Additionally, if there is an underlying problem (such as depression), solving that can completely remove the desire to drink at all.

I'm going to write openly as an alcoholic; one of those people you've been warned not to listen to. And no, I'm not going to do a remote diagnosis -- despite the misplaced enthusiasm of a few of our number, that's actually quite against the rules. In our world, addiction (to alcohol in particular) is entirely a matter for self-diagnosis.

In my case, that was easy. Take your estimated intake and multiply by eight, and don't skip a single day for six years. Add in the work-related consequences, the deaths of relationships, the physical damage to my heart, liver, vascular system (and the many, many mysterious injuries accumulated during periods of blackout) -- oh, and the sudden complete failure of my visual system one fine day in 1985, and the problem was as clear as the glass they make optical fibres out of. Getting out of the game with the degree of desperation I had to hand was actually fairly easy. If you can call the roller coaster ride of going sane when the only thing that had ever made sense was insanity easy...

And yet I know, and have known, a lot of people over the years whose drinking I would have considered normal, but whose lives were torn apart because of it. Believe it or not, they find it much harder to stay off the sauce, probably because the disincentive of the "remember when" isn't strong enough to outweigh the... um... I think the word that fits best here is ennui.

Are they clinically alcoholic? Probably not, at least in terms of th DSM. Our criteria are two simple tests: if you find that when you really want to quit you can't stay stopped, and if when you do drink you have little or no control over how much you drink, then you're welcome to join the party. But all of that is just about the booze (or beer, in your case and mine), and that is no more than an outward symptom. The actual physical addiction, the physical craving, can be broken after only a handful of days of detoxification.

No, the real issue is that there is something to life on the other side of the bottle cap that's better than what's on this side -- even given that we know what the other side looks, feels and smells like. Although other people might have seen alcohol as our problem, to us it was a solution -- the only solution we knew. When you distill the religious overtones out of a twelve step program (they all originated out of a pseudo-Christian revival movement, and we carry some unfortunate historical baggage because of it), what is left looks an awful lot like Dickens' A Christmas Carol. We face head-on the reality of our situation, resolve to fix as much of the damage we've done as possible, then get on with the task of finding joy and meaning in life. That's the whole program in a nutshell, whether the Bible-thumpers among us like it or not, and you don't need to be addicted to anything for something like that to turn a life around.

Try to see what the problem is. Alcohol is no more than an aid to procrastination -- the tendency toward avoidance would be there even if the beer was not. Find a way to let go of whatever's stuck in your craw. Sometimes just naming the demon is enough to remove its power. Often, it's a matter of voicing your feelings towards those who are pissing you off, doing so honestly but in a spirit of reconciliation. Then look at the good things you have at every opportunity available, smile to yourself, and share that smile with anyone you care about. Take nothing good for granted; treat it like the precious gift it is.

Sounds hokey, I know, but it pulled me back from the brink of death, and twenty-five years later, despite failed relationships and businesses, illness, deaths of loved ones, and my current condition, one that's robbed me of most of my intellectual capacity and mobility, I'm almost always the happiest guy in the room. I don't miss the drink. It seems it was only important to me when I wanted to hit the pause button on life. Once I learned that life is huge, I took the biggest bite I could out of its ass, and I'm still chewing.

One doesn't necessarily need a support group to make the transition from one life to the other. I needed a lot of help learning what it means to be a functioning human being, and that's what the meetings and the fellowship are all about. The book that started it all, though, was meant to be a self-help book, and a lot of people (certainly not the majority, nor even a mighty minority, but a significant number of people in absolute terms) have managed to make the turn alone.

Disclaimer: my function within the community for the last decade or so has been to deprogram folks who've made a religion out of a perfectly sound cognitive restructuring strategy. As an atheist, I had to mentally adjust the literature and jargon, but the core of the thing works, and for very well-understood reasons.

Can you explain more what you mean by deprogramming folks?

The full answer will not fit in this margin, but I'll give it a rough go. And I hope you'll forgive the delay -- my condition makes both typing and coherent language more difficult than I'd like.

When people come into any twelve step program (AA is the senoir sibling in a large family), the first thing that happens is what the Oxford Group called "deflation". Stated simply, it's an acknowledgement that whatever it is you've been doing to solve the problem isn't working, and that your next big brainstorm is unlikely to be any more successful than the last couple hundred approaches. In HackerSpeak, you are a Blub programmer trying to write elegant Lisp in Brainfuck, and nothing you are likely to do will result in anything other than smoke and shredded paper erupting violently from your virtual Turing machine. In the twelve step world, the wording is "we admitted we were powerless over $interfering_agent, that our lives had become unmanageable." There are dozens of helpful slogans along the lines of "let go and let God", and the Serenity Prayer ("God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.") of which nobody seems to remember more than the first clause. A lot is made of the concepts of powerlessness, surrender and acceptance, and in the early going these concepts are paramount to success.

Unfortunately for too many people, there is a tendency to become stuck in that mode. The first step is clearly written in the past tense, and the Big Book (the Scripture for those so inclined) promises that we will find the power we need to win the battle with the substance and ourselves. The problem is that the learned helplessness, something that was only meant as a means to relax and trust the process, becomes permanent. The Point (with an intentional capital "P") is that we are not God, that this universe wasn't created for our individual pleasure, that it won't bend itself to suit our will and, to paraphrase Marcus Aurelius, things will work out pretty much the way they're supposed to if we stop trying to play with all of the knobs and dials on the machine. Many turn to a god, or a similar concept, and deem that their "higher power", and having something omnipotent that you can almost imagine to trust in when times are darkest can be extremely comforting. Staying in that mode for too long, though, leads people to pray for results that they should be working towards. I have no particular quarrel with prayer as such -- I'm an atheist, but not from the Orthodox sect of atheists -- but every worthwhile prayer I've ever seen in any religion has as its petition, "give me the courage and strength to do the things I need to do." Powerless people who will never be able to manage their own lives pray for divine intervention to produce results for them.

The value of life is in participation. I have been in far too many church basements and community centre attics over the years filled with people who "do the readings", pray and meditate until the cows come home, and rarely have more than this to say when they share: "I've been sober for more than twenty years now, and it seems that every day is a little worse than the one before. I have to learn to 'turn it over' completely, and let God do for me the things I can't do for myself." Far be it from me to stand between a person and his voluntary exile into misery, but I do my best to stop the spread of the dysphoria.

I'm rarely anybody's first sponsor -- I guess I seem too far removed from the problem for people to believe that I've ever been where they are. I have been the second or third sponsor to a whole lot of people, though, and unlearning that helplessness is Job One. To an addict or alcoholic, sobriety is a whole new chance at life, and if all you're getting out of sobriety is sobriety, you are cheating yourself horribly. We all tried sobriety at points along the way before trying the program, and it was a miserable enough experience that we eventually went back to self-medication. Real recovery is in discovering who you are, accepting that person in lieu of the persona you were hoping to wear, and living the hell out of the life that person was supposed to have.

Where was I? Oh, yeah -- my job has been to tell people that they have permission to act. To be unapologetically themselves. To try again tomorrow if they fail today. To understand that they will never achieve the ideals they've set for themselves -- they are merely human, after all -- but knowing that does not mean that striving for those ideals is futile. (And if you're hearing a build-up to a familiar song from The Man of La Mancha in the back of your mind, you're following me exactly.) That's the gist of it. That's who I discovered I am, and what I discovered I was meant to be doing now that everything else is slowly slipping away from my grip. It keeps me alive in more than a metabolic sense -- there ain't nothin' like watching cold, dead eyes begin to sparkle with life to dry a dampened spirit.

Thank you for posting this.

I'll add: is this on a permanent webpage? If not, you should consider putting one up.

It's great advice (even to those of us that aren't addicted to alcohol but to other things).

I had exactly this struggle, although my daily consumption was slightly lower (2 to 5). I tried all the standard tips: exercise, nutrition, etc. Despite making me much healthier, these things never diminished my appetite for my nightly drinks, although I was able to abstain for weeks at a time. I also had a big appetite for caffeine, which I had no reason to believe was related. Surprisingly, what worked for me was getting an actual diagnosis of inattentive-based ADHD when I was 31, at the prodding of my girlfriend who recognized the condition, for which I now take a prescription time-release stimulant. A side effect I was not expecting was that my desire for caffeine and alcohol both dropped to near zero overnight. I do not recommend experimenting with this if it is not a condition you legitimately have, but for me these things were all clearly related.

How would I recognize it if I had it?

It sounds like you are trying to figure out if you have an addiction problem or a lifestyle problem.

So, decide not to drink alcohol for 4 weeks starting today. If you can't manage it, you will know the former is the problem. If you can, you will have made a great start to addressing the latter.

I've done this before with mostly success. However, once I've passed the 4 week mark, I slide back into old habits.

Since you have done it for four weeks, would you consider trying it for six months or even a year?

It sounds like we have similar work responsibilities. I too am married. Up until June of this year I would drink a few glasses of wine and/or cranberry and vodka each night “to relax”. In June I was asking myself why am I drinking several nights a week. I wondered what it would be like to never drink alcohol again. So I quit. The only exception was during a Caribbean cruise. I don’t regret drinking it then and may consider it for future vacations.

For me, I find myself as a leader at the office, at home and at church. Not having alcohol is also consistent with my new minimalist lifestyle and consistent with my mindset that I don’t need everything I want.

The part I miss drinking the most, I my lack of variety on beverages while eating dinner.

Best of luck to you, hopefully you will find out you are not addicted.

You seem to have the will power if you can hold off for 4 weeks.

Have you tried using a reward strategy like I would only drink and chill out after a couple of days when task X is finished? Gradually you can then reduce your drinking days from 4 per week to 1 (or zero).

IMO, it is very difficult to get off alcohol or any other addiction suddenly. It is more effective to tone it down gradually.

Using an addictive substance as a reward can be a great way to cement addiction, I suggest not doing it.

Hmm, perhaps it could. The strategy I was trying to suggest is to try and get progressively elongated stretches of time when the person would not have alcohol. It slowly can help wean off the addiction.

But at the end of the day, if it is not working for someone, (s)he would have to find another way.

is the sliding back due to the need to do "something to wind down" or to get some buzz. If former, cooking and gardening have proven to be therapeutic to me, if later, then it is addiction.

edit- spell

I read "The Easy Way to Stop Drinking" by Allen Carr. I had already stopped smoking after reading his smoking book. I haven't had a drink since summer of 08, and I have much a much better ability to do productive work, get up in the morning, etc. I think it's great you want to quit drinking.

For those who have never read the books, they encourage you to consider the reasons why you drink, the excuses you give yourself for not stopping, and what to expect when you quit. The alcohol book also criticizes AA, because AA is a belief system that says that you will never be a non-drinker, whereas Carr thinks that's bogus. I agree with that, in that I don't need meetings or anything, and I'm not constantly tempted. I simply don't want to drink anymore.

When I was a child is was normal in my family to drink alcohol when dinner or lunch, I'm Spaniard and we consume Sidra(cider) and wine and a little beer. Nothing high alcohol concentration like whiskey . It is normal for one person to drink a bottle of Sidra(750cubic centimeters, we use metric).

I didn't have any problems with that, I do a lot of exercise every day, but it affects your intellectual performance so I don't drink during the week. How? Alcohol is the byproduct of sugar metabolism, witch people in today society over consumes(it is better for the body to use fat and oils as energy fuel), the metabolism of alcohol itself is very hard by the body and creates a lot of byproducts itself difficult to eliminate, and with secondary effects like acidification of your blood, so your body has to generate cholesterol to protect your arteries...

Long story sort, drinking alcohol makes you want to rest, and that means your energy during the day to vanish. My personal advice is NOT TO TAKE DRUGS for controlling your mood whatever the drug, you should be able to control your mood with your brain witch is the number one manufacturer of natural drugs(without secondary effects).

If you are interested, there are a lot of videos on Internet about Sugar and Alcohol metabolism, and a lot of people that are "fighting" white sugar and alcohol, there is even some TED videos about it.

The fact that you ask the question, is a good indicator of a problem. That being said, this is a very complex subject, with a variety of solutions/paths. I myself stopped drinking 25 years ago,as I was less disciplined than you. For myself, I believe there was quite a bit of benefit/damage reduction from refraining from alcohol. Of course there are some negatives also, but I don't think for me that it was an option. Far more important, the practices I picked up to prevent me from drinking, have given me lasting benefits. The practice of daily personal evaluation, and corrective action, while not followed exhaustively has been an enormous benefit. I was introduced to meditation, and put on the path of continuous improvement, While these are just targets, it was a great starting point.

As I said at the beginning of my comment, the fact that you asked this question, shows you have awareness of a potential problem. I am not sure If I would be able to stop drinking if I had it as "under control" as you, but I think it is very commendable of you to be looking for answers. feel free to contact me anytime off list for any pointers, or references.

I disagree with the notion that simply asking the question is itself an indication of a problem. I can freak myself out about practically anything with almost no supporting evidence.

I would go one step further than that. It seems to be a common response here that simply asking these questions indicates he has a problem. I've noticed that "treatment" types tend to have that response to all people asking questions about their personal drug use. The obvious result of this is that fewer people seek advice. They'll learn the typical reaction is, 'if he's asking about it and he's thinking about it, he's probably an addict.' That answer isn't helpful and it isn't intelligent. There should be some measurable standards of addiction. How you feel about it shouldn't be one of them.

And some of us will quietly contemplate the problem to the nth degree, and when we finally ask for help you'd better believe it's very serious and we're about to lose it.

If drinking causes you problems then do not drink. This course of action is simple and cheap.

If not drinking causes you problems (physical withdrawal symptoms, mental distraction, emotional upset) then get help. This course of action involves other people, and may involve money.

What got my attention was that I twice got drunk and wrecked cars, and twice got drunk and got arrested for DWI. I stopped drinking. I could not bear the thought that I was so stupid or insane. I could not bear the thought of going to jail, losing my job, and losing my ability to support my father, who was hospitalized with cancer at that time. I wanted to die.

I went to the Employee Assistance Counselor where I worked. She said, "People who repeatedly get drunk and wreck cars and repeatedly get drunk and arrested are alcoholics. Alcoholics who don't want to drink go to AA." I went to Alcoholics Anonymous. That was 26 years ago. I have not had a drink (or killed myself) since. I still go to meetings.

I required very little counseling. Some people might need more. I did not go to in-patient treatment. Some people benefit from this.

Alcoholics Anonymous accepts contributions from members. Professional treatment may cost money.

I was addicted to smoking and was desperate to quit. I tried several methods and all of them failed. After several failed attempts , I really feared that I'd remain a smoker all my life. I was lucky to find the book 'The only way to stop smoking permanently' by Allen Carr and found it surprisingly easy to quit smoking after reading the book.

All one needs to do to quit smoking (or any other substance dependence ) is to basically do nothing - just not have that next drag(or sip) ever. However, it cannot be done unless one reaches a mental state where that particular action not only seems the right thing to do, but it is also the easiest thing to do. Reaching this mental state is not a process, it won't take days or months. It happens in an instant when one knows exactly what one needs to know to reach and then be in that state forever. The book helped me reach that state.

It sounds like you are self medicating with alcohol, maybe because of an underlying anxiety issue.

In that case, I'd recommend switching to other anxiolytic drugs (e.g. Benzodiazepines), since your alcohol intake will sooner or later manifest itself as liver damage or worse.

First and foremost you need to get diagnosed correctly. See a psychiatrist, one who got his degree recently and is experienced in substance abuse issues.

Edit: There are a lot of recommendations here to exercise, diet, man up, keep the beer out of the house, etc. I think these miss the fact that we all have different mental predispositions. In other words, there is no universal solution, and each case needs to be diagnosed correctly first before a treatment is decided upon.

I've got a slightly different angle of approach to this than most others.

First, it sounds like a lot of people here are far more expert about alcoholism than I am, so I won't touch on that part, except to say it sounds like a legitimate concern that should be watched carefully.

To me it seems more important to look at what you're actually concerned about.

You're bothered that you want to relax (beer may not be the best method, but that's what you're using it for) and spend time with your wife.

It sounds like WORK is what you're more addicted to... or at least the idea of work. Now, I work a lot of hours myself between regular job and my own endeavors at home, and I won't ever try to say that's a bad thing in and of itself. But, assuming that your senior leadership role pays the bills comfortably (or at least your share of them, if your wife also works), what that means is that you're making a conscious choice that work and personal accomplishment is more important than comfort and relaxation and time with your family.

Be careful when you read that last sentence... I don't mean to suggest that you don't ACTUALLY spend enough time relaxing or being with your family; obviously I don't know enough of your life to judge that. But what I mean is that you BELIEVE you should be working rather than doing that, and so even when you are sitting on the couch with your wife and a beer, you're stressed out because you feel like you should be somewhere else. That stress leads to the need to drink, which leads to less ability to do the work, which leads to additional stress, which leads to additional need to drink, and so on.

I certainly understand the need to create something of your own outside of work, whether it's art or music or a business or a racecar or whatever. But maybe it would be better to take a vacation from that, and allow yourself some time where the only goal is to drink beer on the couch with your wife. If you set yourself a goal such as "For two weeks I don't WANT to do any entrepreneurial work at home", then you'll never feel like you're failing at something because this is designated time off. That in turn could take the edge off your stress level, which could reduce your need to drink, which could improve your productivity, and the cycle reverses itself.

Good luck with it!

I can relate to you however my drug of choice is caffeine. I have never been a beer/alcohol person.

Likewise I work on my entrepreneurial endeavors at night after my day job, and often times I am so burned out and tired from the day. I will drink something heavily caffeinated on the way home from work, with the hope that it will boost my focus and mental performance, but so many times I just want to crash when I get home. A number of times I've crashed right after drinking the large Red Bull (always sugar free).

A typical day for me is: working out in the morning, taking 3 scoops of jack3d before-hand (pre-workout caffeine-heavy supplement). Drink a Low Carb Rockstar when I get to work, get a double or triple espresso around 2pm, and a couple sodas throughout the day, then another Rockstar when I get home. If I'm still dragging, I will take a few more scoops of jack3d as well, just for mixing up the caffeine sources.

I think my mindset is so performance driven, but my body/mind feel so weary. The first few times I had 3-4 cans of Red Bull in one day I got ultra paranoid. Now it's like the stuff doesn't even affect me except for the expense. $10/day or more just on caffeinated beverages that are not providing me any benefit.

I find it extremely difficult to cut back, but I have to, because I consider it a negative addiction. For what it's worth I'm in my mid 30s, am extremely healthy, and my blood pressure is actually LOW.

Get it out of the house.

You're unlikely to ever get rid of that "it's late, just one beer to take the edge off" (that rapidly turns into 6) if it's just a trip to the fridge away. Having to actually go out to slowly poison yourself raises the bar high enough that you realize what you're doing, and makes not doing it far, far easier. It's much easier to control yourself on shopping trips than at the moment you really want that beer (this also applies to bad eating habits, drugs, etc.)

Get it out of the house.

While you did this anonymously, it takes a lot of courage and insight to just write this down. So many people go through life ignoring the problem and those are people who don't want to change.

It seems by asking for advice, you do want to change. And whether your consumption is above the norm or not, you are your own keeper. You have to ask yourself, "Do I want to change my life or am I happy the way things are?"

If you want to change, and drinking less is part of that change, simply cutting down isn't the way to do it. You'll always want more and that will lead to depression. You have to figure out WHY you want the booze. You've said it takes the edge off, so what exactly is that edge? Stress? Anxiety? Boredom? Emotional Pain? Once you find that out, you'll be set. It's not easy because it means being really honest with yourself, but that's the road to happiness.

Some people have suggested seeing a shrink, which can help. But short of that, you can always just write your thoughts out and see where it takes you. Ask yourself the question, "What is the edge I'm trying to take off?" and write freely, without thinking. Do this 15 minutes a day for a couple weeks and see where it takes you. Penzu (the journal I use) is great because you can set reminders to write. I have a premium account and just write via email into my journal. I would write on a pad or in my inbox but I wouldn't want my girlfriend to read it.

There are so many things in life to enjoy that one shouldn't need an escape all the time. If you're drinking because you're bored, start taking some risks, take up a hobby, do something adventurous. A life wasted in a bar is truly sad indeed.

I've found Everyday System's "Glass Ceiling" to be extremely helpful.

"So here's the system. For the rest of your life, without exception, you have a 2 drink a day maximum -- the glass ceiling. Period. No saving up, use it or lose it. No refills. No pouring yourself "mixed" drinks. DMV definition of a drink."

http://www.everydaysystems.com/glassceiling/

My SO knows I'm doing this, and her gentle reminders are the extra help I need.

Sometimes I go through heavy drinking periods (particularly around Christmas when I'm out with friends, family and clients) and sometimes I go through dry spells. There's no real pattern with it for me, but what I have noticed is that I put quite a bit of weight on in the past few years, partly through getting into real ale, then into cocktails, then I damaged my knee. Before I knew it I'd put on a fair amount of weight and couldn't exercise. To make matters worse I'm fairly social and generally run the cocktail bar at parties.

I'm not going to diagnose but my first guess would be that you might be used to a particular drinking pattern. When you step out of that pattern it feels odd. I certainly had this after drinking a glass of wine most evenings in front of the TV. It was part of my switch off from work ritual to separate work from home life. I changed my ritual and cut it out, although I do sometimes have a glass of red wine with an evening meal (but usually once every two weeks, if that).

Currently as I'm on a diet I'm not drinking, although I'm only following my diet during the week (at the weekends I eat and drink sensibly, but don't diet).

You need to decide what you want. If you want to give up alcohol completely then do it. You've managed periods before, and don't see the occasional drink as a failure - think of all the time you're not drinking and see if the time you get back is worth it.

If you want to manage your drinking more effectively then you need to work out in advance a system that works for you. This is harder than stopping drinking and you need to commit to it. I limit my calorie intake, so that kind of determines whether or not I can drink and how much. I also decide how much I'm going to drink before I go out on the weekend. This works for me. YMMV.

I am lucky to have alcoholic tendencies that are pronounced enough to be noticeable but weak enough to be manageable. Sometimes I drink more than I should. And then I do the same the next night and wonder why. If I do the same thing a third or fourth night in a week, I get really, really careful. My bedrock rule if I catch myself doing that is not to drink alone or, if I'm with someone, not to drink more than them. Luckily, when I detect a bad trend and stop indulging, I don't miss it. Not like I miss eating, certainly.

Speaking of drinking alone, is anyone else who lives alone really annoyed at the high price and crappy selection of half-bottles of wine? It's hard for me not to finish a bottle of wine when I open it. When I drink beer I typically have just one or two, but it's hard to stop halfway through a bottle of wine.

I'm also coming from part of the world where people just drink a little more than here.

So, I had the similar problem, and here is what I did:

- Exercise during the week and don't drink alcohol at all during the week. Exercise in the morning is preferable.

- On weekends, drink. But only if you exercised at least 3 times a week.

The same tendency is in me too, and too often, the same habit.

It _is_ addiction, to a small or large degree. I, substitute ample exercise, and also make note of the actual difference in my function and output and mood, sober vs. buzzed/hungover. That's a motivator, though/because my weakness is likely lifelong.

Some folks can have one or two drinks, once or twice a week. I've found (through ample experience) that I really can't; that level will always start creeping up, in good times or bad. I believe I'm just wired this way, and will always have to remain aware of it.

Whether it's nature or nurture, the result is the same, so I've learned to "hack" the situation to produce the desired outcome, to adapt as required.

I'm at the edge of burning out, and you're speaking out of my heart.

a) Eat healthy, lots of vegetables and fruits, drink lots of water, whole-grain stuff. makes you feel less like drinking beer. b) No beers at home. Buy your beers on the same day. c) In the evening go to work at a starbucks to do your side-projects. d) Once a year I make a detox month like you (no alcohol, ciggies, etc), my most productive month usually :) e) Not drinking at all is much easier then only limiting yourself. Maybe not drink at all the last week of a month? f) smoke it up! but careful, soon you'll be sipping beers while smoking joints. g) take a bath, makes you feel like 2-3 beers

My father was a high-functioning alcoholic when I was growing up. I didn't even find out about it until I was 20 or so. He just used booze, like you do, to take the edge off after a stressful day at work. He wasn't loud or belligerent or even noticeably drunk or anything like that.

Nonetheless, it had an impact on him, and his family and relationships, and it impacted me in ways that still have consequences to this day. He has difficulty forming relationships, and he has difficulties communicating even in the relationships that he has. He is not in touch with his feelings, which sounds like hippy-dippy bullshit, but it's a serious problem because those emotions are still there, unaddressed, and they affected his emotional health and his ability to be happy. And, as a result of growing up in a household that doesn't communicate well, and having a male role model who buries his emtions, I have difficulties communicating and forming relationships, and I tend not to deal with my emotions in a healthy manner. I've participated in recovery groups for adult children of alcoholics, and this is apparently what that program is designed to deal with, because that's what we all have--issues with personal communication, buried emotions.

My father lost his marriage, and I had a depressive breakdown in college. We also don't talk more than once every few months. He's dealt with his alcoholism by now, and he's sober and in recovery programs, and he's making progress in all those habits and patterns that normal healthy people have that he didn't. But that doesn't bring his marriage back, and that doesn't bring his relationship with his son (me) back.

So, my point is, just because you don't hurt people or say stupid shit and light your pants on fire when you're drunk, don't think that there aren't consequences. The stereotype of the drunk husband/father is the one who comes home and shoutsat /beats his wife and/or kids. However, you can be the polar opposite of that, and still have your relationship destroyed by your alcoholism. When you deal with your stress with beer, instead of using the support of your loving family, you're making emotional isolation a part of your family life. You're mentally checking-out (that's the point, right?), during the part of the day when you're supposed to be together, developing & strengthening your relationships. Don't think you can compensate for this by being overly affectionate. It doesn't work like that. Love isn't about displays. It's about personal interactions, living together and helping each other.

Speaking for myself, I've made progress in conquering my baggage because I have a wonderful supportive girlfriend who makes me be communicative and emotive. So, my advice which I'm pulling out of my ass as a random dude on the internet: take away the need to drink, and simultaneously work on rolling back the problems it may have caused, by talking to your wife about when you're stressed about work/life/etc instead of opening up a beer. It will take a long time and a lot of work on your part to make it work. Stay with it.

This is a brilliant piece of advice and as a person who has an alcoholic in the family I can fully sympathize with that.

If you're in a US state that allows it then get your medical card for marijuana. That would in fact be legal.

I've found weed to be a great alternative to alcohol and undeniably a lot less destructive and better for your health long term.

I agree with you totally here...if only I lived in a state where it was legal. :)

Go and read "The Thinking Person's Guide to Sobriety". It's an eye opener.

Sounds like you're compensating for a lack of sleep with alcohol. I notice that when I'm awake for really long stretches that only stimulants or depressants offer reward to the brain (I.e. Coffee, alcohol, no-doze, ambien, crack, etc). Once dependences (even though they may not be addictions) become a habit, it begins to affect moods and health in the long run. Mind you, I'm not a doctor... But I would prescribe more sleep and less drinking if I played one on TV. Har.

I've noticed that whenever I'm shutting off for any reason (depression, escape from stress, or simply lack of sleep) drinking beer perks me up and helps me stay functional the whole evening just like coffee does, but in a much more pleasant way. It's tough to abstain from a simple solution like that and just get the needed R&R instead. The downside is that the next day I'm almost as tired as if I had drunk coffee all evening and tossed and turned all night.

What real long term benefits does alcohol offer you? It sure makes you a deservice (affects health, possible addiction, etc).

Out of 6 billion people no one cares if you get sick, die or have possible alcohol problems. So it's your responsibility to take care of your life. So just grab it by the hornes and say "I think I've had too much alcohol so far. From this second on I will never drink again.". And then stop doing it. There's no middle ground. Its either you do it or you dont.

Can you relate to anything in these stories?

- http://www.granadahouse.org/people/letters_from_our_alum.htm...

- http://users.livejournal.com/kimya_dawson_/2007/12/27/

- http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2009/08/my_name_is_roger_and...

If you really want to stop drinking as much, get on a calorie-limited weight loss plan and be strict about the limit (i.e. bad choices == no food later in the day). When you start seeing your calorie limit being totally blown by 50% or more on the days you drink, or not being able to eat dinner because you had a few beers earlier in the day, you definitely start thinking twice about drinking so much.

> but by 7 pm the stress of the day makes that beer (and couch time with the wife) so much more appealing.

perhaps find a less stressful job or find a way to make what you have now less stressful? alcohol sounds like its your default coping mechanism for stress. as mentioned already, exercise will probably help, too, but it sounds like this might be treating the symptoms, not the problem.

You say you've built up a tolerance and it just makes you comfortable, so what is it about the drinking that's stopping you working?

Personally (I don't currently code except the odd snippet here and there) I find I can have a few whiskys without it impacting any work I decide to get done in the evening.

i'd like to note that you cannot actually develop a tolerance to alcohol. if you're a hardcore alcoholic (maybe the case for you!) you can condition your body to metabolize it slightly faster than normal people, but if you're a 0.100 your cognition is still just as impaired as anybody else's at a 0.100.

what you've done is gotten used to it, and learned to school your behaviors and reactions so that you've removed the more obvious signs of drunkenness. (for instance, you've probably learned to stand with your feet slightly further apart, so that you don't wobble or fall as much.)

so when you're home alone with your children and drunk, you're just as incompetent as any other drunk to care for them or get them emergency medical assistance if necessary.

Litmus Test: Quit your day job. If you spend your days drinking, you're an alcoholic and should enter rehab. If you spend your days working for your ideas, run with it. Otherwise, you're just a procrastinator and should enjoy a drink with the wife on the couch.

Ha, did you expect to get any more than get counseling ...or choose a different hobby (working out, playing sports), which is probably what your counselor will probably tell you when he agrees that you aren't an alcoholic.

The sad truth of it all is that this is and has always been the way of the American hard-working male (this is my opinion, derived from being and working with said males).

You really have three choices (at least these are the ones I see to answer my alcohol problem):

1) Work less and suffer the innumerable consequences.

2) Move somewhere (read out of the U.S.) where working the hardest isn't the only metric of success and thus work less with fewer consequences.

3) Smoke anyway, which is what I do when I can ...considerably better than alcohol (do your research before you flame to all those passionate rule following types)

Why "Gents"? Are there no women on HN?

Watch, someone is going to tell me "Gents" is a gender-neutral term like "dude" and "guy"...

a. There are many other ways to procrastrinate, so I wouldn't blame the beers for that.

b. health problems: you do seem to drink beyond what we can describe as "moderate", so this is a real issue.

It sounds like you should look for other ways to relax in addition to alcohol. And then cut back a little.

Why not allow yourself one beer for every hour you work on your project in the evening?

Ha...not a bad idea!

dude, you are an alcohol addict. don't lie to yourself. my advice: go to AA meetings, that's the only hope for your problem. I'm also an addict to alcohol. I know what I'm telling you.

average 3-6 high alcohol beers

Seriously? That's nothing. On the other hand, if you're getting hangovers from 3-6 beers, you might have some sort of liver problem.

Not necessarily. The hangover is primarily a result of the first metabolite of ethanol, acetaldehyde. Some people (predominantly, but not exclusively, Asian and American aboriginal peoples) either lack or are deficient in the ability to produce the enzyme acetaldehyde dehydrogenase. That has two major effects: it encourages hangovers; and for those lucky enough to have the ability to metabolize acetaldehyde to an opioid analogue, it triggers the physical addiction cascade at a much lower level of intake. (Which, by the way, is why Antabuse is utterly ineffective in treating bafflingly hard-core alcoholics. It works by blocking acetaldehyde dehydrogenase, allowing toxic levels to build up in the system. It may bring on near-death hangover symptoms, but it also provides the fuel for an experience not entirely unlike mainlining heroin.)

"That's nothing." I very much disagree. "3-6 high alcohol beers" - do the math on the actual alcohol intake, on this.

The clinical def (of having a problem) is "more than two _drinks_ a day for men... more than four on a weekend binge..." or similar. The description is standardized and common.

Most people I find, who drink at the level of this fellow (something I've done, and could easily do again), are still deep in denial.

And yeah, you have to not only acknowledge your addiction, but also nail down what is about you, your genes, or your life, that drives you to seek that easy, frequent escape.

It's all about discipline.

I definitely enjoy drinking within certain limits, but I've also come to realize (after a career trajectory pretty similar to yours) that excessive substance (ab)use of any kind is basically incompatible with a serious, high-output lifestyle.

It all boils down to the fact that being highly productive is a choice that demands certain sacrifices; chiefly, the sheer amount of time you have to devote to it. And the fact that, health effects aside, the level of drinking you're describing cuts into your available time budget quite drastically.

In any case, 4 or more drinks night after night (or nearly so) sounds not just excessive, but distinctly unpleasant.

So as to practical suggestions: try to pick some hard, if not puritanical limits, and stick to them. Pick a magic number -- say 4 -- as your hard daily limit, then make a decision to keep to it. After this, I would try whittling down the down the "heavy" days (3 or more) to a more manageable level also, say no more than 1x a week. Then stick to that, also.

It's like any other optimization problem, in that sense: first make the problem quantifiable; the set a performance goal (40% volume reduction, say); keep it in place for a while; then do some A/B testing.

For me, what it came down to was that I realized that after a certain level (2-3 in one sitting, or thereabouts) I was getting virtually none of the "benefits" (such as they are) of stress reduction or general easing of mood, while the negatives just kept piling up disproportionately.

Another tip: if you must drink, try at least drinking better quality (if more expensive) stuff. The thing is, the cheaper stuff ends up upsetting your general metabolism (and mood) in a whole lot of ways, so you end up needing to consume more alcohol to counteract this. And wine (especially red wine) is a whole lot better for you than beer, in a whole bunch of ways.

Lastly: please don't consider switching to pot (nevermind the legal status). It's quite different from alcohol, and in my view, deeply insidious, in that it goads us into not just getting on a bit of a breeze, but totally baked, all the while conning us into thinking this isn't harmful.

And because it seems (at least superficially) to be so intellectually stimulating -- that is, it tricks us into thinking that we're having productive thoughts, when most of the time we're not, and even when we are, we find ourselves far less capable of sorting them out and putting them into action the next day (or for far longer than that).

Upshot being that for some reason, long-term potheads seem to be in an incredible amount of denial about the diminishing positive returns, and increasingly negative effects that accompany continued heavy use of their favorite substance. One of the key feature of alcohol (by contrast) is that even its biggest fans readily admit that its effects are largely deleterious (beyond a certain point), and seem to instinctively realize, at least intellectually, that it gets in the way of serious work (and sensitive social situations) -- and in general, whether they're able to put the brakes on it or not, is just plain bad for them on some level.

I used to have this problem. Just man up and cut down on your drinking significantly.

There is no magic cure, or solution or algorithm for this. This is within your self, that's why it's called self control. Start riding your bike to work. Don't give any excuses, I used to ride my bike for an hour and ride the train/bus for another hour every day. Each way.

It helps if it hurts something you care about. For example, I couldn't code after a long night of drinking, or even after a couple of beers. Since I cared about my code, I now drink maybe once a month and can control my drinking even while partying.

I also find it kind of sad how your wife seems to run some important aspects of your life. You shouldn't need her to 'regulate' you in any way. You are a self sustaining human being and should be able to function as such.

I don't see how this is an issue. As a mathematician I get most of my actual work done in some kind of intoxicated state. If I'm not intoxicated and working I'm on some other substance. My work doesn't suffer...

I think it's easy to see why it's an issue, the OP has expressed that it is causing concern and that it has an obvious effect on their goals.

Some people do thrive on a personally suitable level of intoxication, I used to find it far easier to work after a beer or more preferably a smoke.

That changed over the last couple of years and now even a small drink or smoke leaves me unable to work properly for at least a day afterward, and I had to change my habits.

To the OP I say you've hit the first step, you've realised that something you do is having a negative effect on your life, whichever way you choose to make a change let me just say it is worth it, and if you have a couple of people to share it with it wont be difficult.

I suggest that if you find somebody you can talk to frankly at the times you struggle just having a chance to whinge will make things easier.

And if you're physical health is suffering, as people said, go see the doc.

hu89

With regard to your health, you're probably better off taking Ativan than drinking alcohol to take the edge off. Talk to your doctor.

Cheers

That's terrible advice. Benzos make your anxiety vastly worse after the first six weeks or so of use, and they're vastly more addictive than alcohol or just about any other drug, legal or illegal. When you try to get off them you can have physical withdrawal symptoms for up to a year, e.g. not being able to sleep, anxiety so severe you can't go outside, etc. Plus they significantly raise your risk of committing suicide, and they are one of the most common drugs seen in people brought to the E.R. for overdoses. Plus if you go to your doctor and ask for them you will likely be put on a watch list for drug abusers, meaning you will have extreme difficulty getting any prescription medications in the future even if you're in extreme pain.

Umm, it's one thing to have an existing substance problem to help soften life's blows; it's another to sit down and think to one's self. "Gosh, I'm facing so many problems. I should start taking substance X to deal with them!"

Especially considering the extent to which (so-called) anti-depressants and anti-anxiety drugs are being recognized for what they always have been -- a pseudo-scientific, market-driven fad (for the vast majority of cases which the companies making them have touted them as being useful for).

In any case he almost certainly doesn't need to go on pills -- and by definition, if he doesn't need them (and very, very few people do) he shouldn't start experimenting with them.

Please see also:

   http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1618725

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