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Comment by DarknessFalls | Hacker News Reader

Ironically, during lockdown I had the longest streak of sobriety I've had in years. I'm a social drinker, and there were no social occasions or pressures to drink. I lost a good deal of weight and looked 15 years younger. Lockdown was a relatively peaceful time for me, so there were no stress triggers.

Now I'm trying to get back to that healthy modality, but there are more social events than ever.

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I've found switching every other drink for an Non-alcholic beer is working quite well. They're pretty tasty these days, and your hands are still busy with a drink.

Similarly, “Session” beers (4% and below I think) have helped me moderate—I don’t consume quickly enough to start getting buzzed so it never progresses past that. In fact I’ve been surprised to find that I forget about the session beer before I’m finished.

To be clear, if you really suffer from alcoholism don’t follow random advice from internet strangers on how to manage it - seek out qualified professionals.

For what it’s worth, this might be good advice for drinkers, but I don’t think it’s good advice for alcoholics (but again, please seek professional advice).

This sort of PSA feels very… inhumane - for lack of a softer word. Professional advise and all is great, but humans talking to other humans about the experiences, problems, and solutions is rarely a bad thing. And if the reader isn’t capable of thinking critically, then that’s a problem this sort of PSA won’t solve. Are you assuming the GP is extremely impressionable to the point they implement the advise of internet comments without any critical thinking whatsoever?

Sorry for the rant, but this is exactly the sort of almost-helpful comment that leads people to roll their eyes at appealing to the experts.

Sorry you disagree, and sorry I wasn’t blunt enough to say “the above advice is akin to enabling”, because I’m not qualified to make that assessment but I suspect it could be.

You cannot “life-hack” an addiction in this fashion. I mean, you’re welcome to - but I don’t think it will really help. Delaying the inevitable and all that.

> Are you assuming the GP is extremely impressionable to the point they implement the advise of internet comments without any critical thinking whatsoever?

I think that people with addiction often seek out advice that matches or re-affirms their priors and reduces cognitive dissonance they may be feeling, yeah. Just from personal experience with loved ones.

Just getting back to this as work has been busy. I think you're right that I should get professional treatment for alcohol use disorder. On the other hand, one of the things that is often recommended to begin tapering off alcohol is to switch to drinks with lower content or to alternate, as was suggested above. Rarely do they recommend stopping cold turkey. Both of your suggestions came from a place of wanting to be helpful toward another human, so I appreciate them.

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