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Comment by nkozyra | Hacker News Reader

> Because quitting alcohol is the cheapest, fastest, simplest way to acquire a major superpower and make my life drastically better.

This is a recipe for disappointment and one of the lies alcoholics themselves. "I'd be X if only I didn't drink!"

When they stop and they're not X it leads to a lot of "well, that didn't work" reasons to go back.

If you're dependent on alcohol and you stop, your life will be better. But sometimes those ways will be imperceptible or subtle. Expecting the clouds to open and to rise to the heights you deserve is an unrealistic expectation. It's amplified here without any irony.

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This was a bit of a shock to me one of the first times I took an extended break from alcohol. After a couple of days, when the fog clears, you find yourself sitting there and realize life is kinda dull now.

All that time you had been filling with alcohol now needs to be filled with something. Quitting alcohol didn’t magically fill the time with rainbows, unicorns, and success. You still must find it in yourself to go out and DO things that will bring you joy or success or whatever it is you seek. Quitting alcohol makes it significantly easier to pursue that. However, as you mention, the act of quitting alone is not the magic cure to suddenly finding happiness, success, or, in the author’s hope, a super power.

I'll have more opportunity to pursue my dreams... Dammit, what were my dreams again?

Hyperoptimizing your life to increase the margins for your capitalist overlords by fractions of a point.

Hah! I just happen to be a counter-example, but probably very privileged in being able to do so. I've given up on attempting to climb the ladder, I'm on course to retire comfortably so long as I can maintain finding work in similar roles for another 10-odd years.

Been through too much political BS in too many places to even have the ability to "care" about what happens anywhere up the chain from me. I'd have to luck into a company that's truly worthy of it to rekindle that particular heavily stomped fire.

you find yourself sitting there and realize life is kinda dull now.

That's sort of the epiphany about it all, no? You realize your life is dull, because you are a boring person.

Well, if drinking made your experience of life less dull, then it is less dull. Of course, it comes at a cost (short and long term).

Or you just realise that the world is indeed this dark place you thought it was in your deepest, darkest hangover depression...

That might be the reason that IQ is fairly strongly correlated with depression (and drug use). The less likely you are to believe in fairy tales and bullshit, the more you're forced to conclude that the universe is indeed cold and brutal - and worse, your place in it is absolutely infinitesimal.

I don’t think there is a true causal relationship though… I am fairly smart (IQ tested by a professional amounted to 147) and I am e very happy person. So are my parents that I would deem as smart as me! It’s about finding joy in the small things and accept the fact that at a cosmic scale we do not matter… and that’s fine!

[Citation needed] on the part where you said being smart makes you less likely to believe in bullshit. I know plenty of smart people who aren’t independent thinkers at all.

The super-power is the clarity you get from not being in an alcoholic fog. Clarity is a necessary but not sufficient condition for finding happiness*, success*, etc.

* of your own understanding.

Disagreed, I quit drinking when I was 18 and it was a super power. Not only I had now Saturday/Sunday morning where I was fresh, but when I did go out with my drinking friends and clubbing it felt like I had a super-brain (think the movie Limitless). The only problem is that, at least initially, it was harder talking to girls in the club, but I decided I'd overcome that myself over going back to drinking (and I did).

But to be fair I only drank once, maybe twice a week with friends (though not little), so I don't consider either me or my friends were` alcoholic. Also I had a new group of friends who didn't drink, so we instead did urban exploration. I did go back to drinking socially back in college when I was 20-something.

Now that I'm over 30, I miss more the non-drunk days than those I was drinking, though had great experiences in both.

I believe your misunderstood OP point...

> Also I had a new group of friends who didn't drink

You had an alternative... you had something better. Stopping alcohol won't give you an alternative to alcohol, it will merely allow for a better alternative to happens.

OP is warning people that it's not a given. Either change your expectation, or make sure that you are ready to do the efforts to find a better alternative.

I don’t know… for me it was the opposite… I started drinking in my late 20s and nothing changed (I am 36 now)…

I gave up alcohol almost entirely many years ago, primarily for health reasons. While the OP may be overselling it, at times it really does seem like a superpower.

If you're used to drinking in social situations, you may not realize how much mental capacity you (and the other drinkers) are leaving on the table. When you start being the soberest person in the room, you see everything with a lot more clarity than your inebriated peers. You could use this to your advantage in an adversarial setting, or just as a way to impress and charm people otherwise.

I did find that talking about not drinking made things more awkward in some situations. In that case, it's easier to "go with the flow." Indeed, I often will accept a drink and sip slowly, then dump the stuff when I go to the restroom, to avoid any awkward conversations. My favorite technique, back before the pandemic, was to order a seltzer water with lime at a bar. Most people never ask what you're drinking, and assume it's a boring vodka or gin and tonic.

It depends on the person.

Alcohol and hangovers really make some people feel incredibly terrible.

Other people are affected very little by moderate amounts.

Some people are marginally improved by alcohol.

The first sort of person actually can see a significant improvement in quite a short time, many others will notice basically nothing.

You have to repeat this over and over: drugs don't treat everybody the same.

I was drinking every night, feeling shitty in the morning and slowly crawling back to normal. I quit a year and change ago and I sleep better, feel better, think better. I should have quit twenty years ago. I imagine how much better I’d have done in school if I’d simply taken the time I used to spend drinking and got enough sleep instead.

When alcohol is hurting you cutting it out feels like being superhuman.

I experimented with quitting alcohol for January and I felt immediate results. Like, the first evening was different, I stayed up reading, and every day I felt significantly better in the morning and had far more “juice” left in my brain at night.

I didn’t make it all the way through the month though. A glass of wine at the end of a difficult day is just so … attractive, if not exactly effective.

Actually, I agree with the author. While writing a book, I needed all the productive time I could have so I stopped drinking too. I only drank once a week, but I could definitely notice that my brain was much sharper without having had alcohol the day before. Say that you drink once a week, then not drinking provides 2 to 4 hours of extra focus hours per week (if not more) which is a lot. Also, being the first to be running around and doing things on the day after a big party feels like a superpower too

The closest I've personally come to experience a superpower was regularly going to the gym for about 3 years, consistently, and doubling my strength in terms of lift numbers.

Even then, after you take into account the amount of time spent, the additional cost of nutrition, driving and even just the gym membership and apparel - that superpower had a pretty significant opportunity cost.

For me, it was worth it, but understandably, it is not for many people. I would imagine the same holds true for alcohol consumption.

I fully agree. Setting up regular exercise and goals is the most rewarding thing. It has been years since I have done much, but it had so many positive results. Someday when I have more time and stability I will start at it again.

One of the main results was far less drinking. Instead of a few beers most nights. It may just be enjoying a six pack over many hours, a few times a month.

I read it differently. This seems like someone who has not actually been dependent on alcohol, and now realizes that the downsides outweigh the so-called enjoyment. So, she'll simply give it up completely, and instantly do away with all the negatives.

I can very much relate. I drink only rarely, and overall enjoy it but then my head and body complain the next day, even after just one cocktail or glass of wine. Or, I'll have a tall beer at home and then notice I can't talk as clearly, in front of my kids. So it's just not worth it, and I'm debating just walking away completely. Instant win.

> So, she'll simply give it up completely, and instantly do away with all the negatives.

That is a very different thing than claiming you'll be granted a superpower. And again, people who do have dependency issues often use them as a crutch to avoid looking at other problems or root causes.

Alcohol isn't the one thing holding you back from writing the great American novel or becoming a 10x developer or learning Mandarin, and telling yourself that when you attempt to quit or limit is a very good way to find your way back to booze.

I don't know author's real meaning, but you may be reading too much into "superpower." I took it as: she doesn't drink so much to be dependent / alcoholic, but enough that it's fucking with her life (bad experiences, body damage, gateway to smoking again, etc). And she seems convinced that it'd be easy to give up. So that's the superpower: to be able to so easily erase negatives in her life.

It's like: I have alcoholic friends trying to give up drinking, and it's very difficult for them, meanwhile it's trivially easy for me not to drink (in fact, my body mostly dislikes alcohol.) From my friends' POV, I have a superpower they wish they possessed.

> But sometimes those ways will be imperceptible or subtle. Expecting the clouds to open and to rise to the heights you deserve is an unrealistic expectation. It's amplified here without any irony.

This is so true! It's subtle but real, at first. And then everything can change, or at least that's how it was for me. An entirely different life arose from that decision to quit.

As a side-note, I can't quite imagine parenting while drinking either. To think of that depressed hangover state while also taking care of a little one? No thank you.

Definitely matches my experience. Maybe it relates to the reasons why one drink - I did it because I felt like I was my real self when I was under the influence, and because drinking alcohol was the only conscious activity in my repertoire to ease my anxiety. So what was my experience of giving that up? A bunch of deep shit because I felt disconnected and anxious. Sure, at least I wasn't hungover, but instead of the usual highs and lows, it was a droning monotony of feeling like shit.

If I quit alcohol, or at least moderated it better, my Sunday mornings would be perceptibly improved and my calorie tracker would no longer say "24,000kj". In this sense I think the benefits are probably more noticeable for binge drinkers than day-to-day alcoholics.

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