I quit drinking for a year
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dynomight.net
Counter to OP's experience, I've actually found sweets to be more impactful than alcohol. That is to say eating dessert after dinner will impact my sleep more than a drink or two, and the periods where I lost weight have been more closely correlated with the periods where I was eating very few sweets.
Of course with both, the delta between low/moderate consumption and a baseline of zero consumption is low - it's the excessive consumption that causes trouble.
Like OP I found the daily ritual to be pretty easy after a couple weeks, but like OP I also missed the social aspect (and this is why I've sort of settled on the opinion that giving up drinking completely is not worth it, at least for me). If I felt like I was experiencing a step function improvement in life quality I'd keep it up... but for me it just hasn't been the silver bullet it's made out to be.
I'm not really one to label one food ingredient as the cause of all health problems, but if I had to choose one I would choose refined sugar long before alcohol.
I was waking up an hour or more before the alarm (so waking up <=6AM with 7AM alarm). And I thought my sleep was good - after all Fitbit sleep score was 80-85.
Then after stopping alcohol I started sleeping longer. Specifically waking up later, at least for the first few weeks.
Seemingly alcohol was causing earlier waking due to spiking cortisol too early.
While waking-up time took a few weeks to recalibrate. Already 2-3 days after stopping alcohol - Fitbit was showing clear improvements in actual sleep quality metrics - HRV was increasing and RHR/BR were decreasing.
And now my "bad nights" have Fitbit sleep score of ~85, and it's regularly 90+.
Lab results are night and day - e.g. CRP was 20 (>5 signals inflammation), just few weeks after stopping alcohol it was ~10 while I was having cold/fever, and now it's <1.
The biggest/hardest problem for me was that after stopping alcohol, my sweets intake increased, especially in the evening. I was doing almost no carbs during the day, and then in the evening ... I guess brain was lacking some easy dopamine that it would previously get from alcohol... I would crave sweets, ice cream ...etc.
It took almost 3 months to be able to stick with strict keto diet. I'm finally doing <=20 gram of carbs because from past experience - any higher and I have a hard time limiting carbs to say just 50 (which would still be low carb/keto).
I have noticed the early waking thing with alcohol, but for me that's never really an issue after a drink or two - only at higher consumption levels do I really have that problem (along with the bad dreams/nightmares that many have after drinking).
One other thing I've realized while experimenting with this is that I tend to be sleep better when I'm cooler - so anything that would raise my body temperature has a huge negative impact on sleep quality. This could be large amounts of alcohol, or it could be lots of sugar in the evenings, or a salty/starchy meal late in the day, etc. This seems to be a more important variable than anything else I've observed.
My sleep has gotten so much better. I really didn't realize that alcohol didn't affect just the night after I had a drink, but even the next one or two nights..
My bloodwork improved a lot as well. I had actually completely forgot I stopped drinking when I had it done, so when the doctor asked what I did to see such an improvement, I had no idea. I had gained weight during this period as well, so the alcohol had a bigger negative impact than the weight… though neither is ideal.
I've started not drinking at home as simple way to curb consumption without giving it up entirely.
Now I would love to tell you about all the amazing magical healthy benefits that have come with that, but unfortunately there are none. I feel no difference at all.
I say that as an occasional drinker. Some of my family loves to drink, nearly every evening. But I join them occasionally and just feel kinda bloated and bad, especially if it’s been a few weeks. Makes it harder to make other healthy choices
But yeah love the taste of beer so it is all about tradeoffs!
There are already plenty of studies available to be found.
However I have a rather large confound: Kids.
I'm sure that if I was drinking regularly still that I would feel much worse than I do today. But the effects of children are powerful enough to my system that they overrule any positive effects of this forced sobriety.
(To be clear: I'll have a drink every blue moon or so, but it's quite rare I get enough time off to enjoy anything like a buzz these days)
“I didn’t notice any changes, so I’m quitting for another year.”
Statistically you're still more likely to get cancer etc, but that's still a pretty low likelihood, hence... Complete abstinence may be healthiest, but is also unnecessary.
The interesting thing is, when I quit smoking (almost 20 years ago), I knew I must never touch a cigarette again. I think with alcohol, I could have some wine or beer occassionaly, I just don't feel the need for it anymore.
One cigarette is not a slippery slope, it's a vertical cliff drop.
I love booze in all its forms, but it doesn't have the same pull.
There are many people who would consciously love to stop drinking but can't find alternative to stop the storm in their heads. This could be caused by many things, from trauma to ADHD.
The best quote I heard about addiction is: "I only have control over my first drink".
The worst part is that alcohol and drugs have a strong stigma, but for people who are suffering anything that can turn their mind off is viable, gambling, binge watching tv or playing video games. The latter are often overlooked and ignored by relatives.
A lifetime of masking leaves its mark on a nervous system, i.e.
And alcohol down regulates / takes the edge off
You might look into neurodiversity / trauma in your life (if you haven't done so already)
This takes a lot of processing power and constant vigilance in order to not drop the mask which is quite exhausting.
Here is one study looking at the connection between neurodiversity and substance use: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3965675/
My main wish is for non-alcoholic craft beer to become much more widespread and cheaper. In Australia alcohol is taxed at a ludicrous rate, but non-alcoholic drinks are not, however they often attract the same price - which is disappointing.
Unless it's a "0.0%" alcohol-free beer, and even then it might still contain a bit...
There are other drinks that have trace amounts of alcohol, such as kombucha which is regulated to stay under the 0.5% threshold. Fruit juices will also likely contain upwards of the same amount, depending on how much they're processed.
Some of the non-alcoholic beers are pretty good though and I am happy to drink them.
same with the NA whiskey i had.
phony negroni, however, is pretty solid.
It may have been easy for the author to quit, but it's a different story for the people who are addicted. The ones who are trying to quit are at least aware that they've got a problem. Many never even make it that far.
Who am I to tell you what to do? No one important. But I did recently discover I have colon cancer, perhaps related to my great fondness for beer. And now I'm awkwardly figuring out my final exit strategy. 0/5 stars not recommended.
Oh, and schedule that colonoscopy you've been putting off. Better to catch it early when more treatment options are on the table.
As for the final exit strategy, do what works for you and don't worry about others thinking you are being "selfish". You are the final arbiter.
Be well.
Oh and a DUI. Sleeping in a running car. I’m a jackass and an idiot.
I'm done drinking. Ideally my feet will be less numb and painful, my shoulder might stop hurting, the outer two fingers on my left hand might become un-numb, might even gain some weight.
My family is a bunch of alcoholics, "functional" if you believe in that sort of thing. I realized if nothing else, I need to break that cycle for my kids.
I'm so sorry to hear about your cancer diagnosis. I was (and am) terrified that I took ~20 years off my life up to this point, and it could be over any year now.
Alcoholism is no joke. I just wrote up a 17k letter to myself (with my spouse as the audience, not sure I'll ever show her, she hates me right now) about how I got to where I am. Reading it back and editing it has had me bawling for hours. I can't believe this thread popped up.
Care to share more how this happened?
Thanks for the kind words. I never considered myself an alcoholic. I drank beer on Fridays and Saturdays. I wouldn't consider it excessive, I didn't get drunk, but I also wouldn't consider it helpful in retrospect.
The kids. I have a 5mo child. And 2 older kids. This is the part I hate. I REALLY HATE. They shouldn't have to pay for my mistakes or my luck but they will. The thought of dying isn't scary. I'm good with it. But I HATE, HATE, HATE, that I'm going to leave my kids early and my poor wife to figure it all out.
I wish you a long and healthy path ahead without any remission. (I assume you're on the good side. I really hope so!) All the best to you!
I also noted that rates are appear to actually be decreasing. At least according to the National Cancer Institute. https://seer.cancer.gov/statfacts/html/colorect.html
These are very much the complete opposite of me. Life is like that.
On my ON years, I felt compelled to drink, every night I had at least a beer, if for no reason other than, I wanted to make the "most of it".
On my OFF years, I didn't feel the need to drink, and generally slept better, lost weight and was more focused.
Stopped drinking completely after that.
On a related note, “sequential analysis” is the keyword in stats for experimental designs that allow for stopping the experiment early in the face of clear results: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sequential_analysis#
I think what made it stick for me this time is cycling. If I want to be up and hit the road, even one drink the night before will totally derail that, so the calculation completely shifted.
Drinking is really fun, being up to no good until 7am on a bender is really fun, but I much prefer my early mornings with a coffee and cycling nowadays.
Whoa! That's not healthy at all... ;)
I've found non-alcoholic beers are actually pretty tasty these days, moreso the longer its been since having a real beer. They definitely scratch the itch to "have something" while out socializing. I don't miss the alcohol at all.
I do two weeks dry a quarter (versus dry January, which became silly once I moved to a ski town). My otherwise non-existent sweet tooth revs into first gear in the second week.
I've never gone for drinking, and it was deeply ingrained in the social and startup experience when I was younger. This could be a bit alienating at times (it's not fun being the only sober person at a party, and there's just no right way to refuse a kegstand invite from your boss).
One of the surprising outcomes of dry january and general aging... in some ways, I'm getting to know my long-time peers for the first time. More mixer events are providing non-alcoholic drinks as a first class item, and when we socialize, instead of pressuring me to do shots, we're sharing all the other stuff I enjoyed doing all along: trading favorite tea blends, day hikes, game nights, etc.
I've never met the author, but for anyone else considering this: Welcome, new old friend!
One thing that I'd miss is the taste though, I don't drink soda or sugary drinks, and I can't think of a replacement for the taste of good wine, beer or spirits. (there's good dealcoolized beers nowadays but it feels like cheating). Not that I guess one absolutely needs it, but is still part of the culinary experience. It's probably because I never looked though, is there anything non alcoholic that "grown ups" drink?
Also, I wouldn't consider NA beer cheating! For me, the ritual of social drinking was just as important as the taste. Drinking good NA beers with friends is a 95% solution.
This is the big one. Alcohol is the lubricant that makes many social activities function, for better or worse. I've reduced my alcohol intake to 2 drinks per session with about a drink per hour intake rate (slower as ABV increases). One big plus to doing this is that staying out super late isn't nearly as appealing.
Regardless, this article reads like the year I quit drinking caffineated coffee. A roaster here in Houston had an award winning decaf bean that was incredible enough for me to make that decision on the spot. It turns out that they won the WBC on that bean for a reason! It is outstandingly hard to get a good decaf pourover, assuming that the shop even does that. Most times, you're stuck with old espresso or nothing, more often than not.
I've introduced it back into my diet but have decaf days throughout the week so that caffeiene continues to "work" when I need it.
I have been doing no-soda januaries and septembers for 15 years now, as a way to avoid kidney stones, something my family has a number of cases of.
Everyone told this to reacted as if it was a novel concept and thought of doing it for smoking or coffee. I never heard of damp januaries before.
This means that at most, I tend to consume no more than 1-2 drinks per year, usually if I'm curious about how a particular beverage tastes and there's no alternative drinks available to have with my meal.
Every restaurant shoves alcohol menu in your face and your always being asked if you want a drink. Idk why I felt weird just having water for so long.
I think the only I miss about drinking is mostly being 20. Alcohol is a little painful now hangovers and heartburn and bloated feeling.
But Caffeine... oh man that is a tough one.
Naturally it's good that people who do have a problem can recognize it and stop it from affecting their life, but I feel like there has to be more people who are perfectly OK with irregular consumption of light amounts of alcohol as part of a social activity.
> It seems like it should be possible to reproduce this effect without alcohol.
It's a skill you have to train. Usually when you have one person in a group who sets the mood, and the rest see that person as a leader, they will follow. Observe how drunk people behave and replicate this whenever you meet your friends. I'm mostly friends with my coworkers so during lunch we talk about fun stuff while two tables over the CEO is giving a lecture about AI.
This honestly sounds like one of the posts from /r/LinkedInLunatics
1. The thought of slop everywhere is too much 2. I no longer need to be sober to build software
Problem is with you and not with alcohol, bud.
Sure alcohol is ingrained in society, sure Americans tried prohibition and all that but its not gloom and doom. Muslims who are about 2 billion choose not to consume alcohol and go about their lives without it.
They just do fine without it. How does that work for them? ?
I mean I have never consumed and never will so why is it that your society finds it acceptable?
Isnt tobabbo going down in consumption because it is being taxed shit out of?
Why can't you voluntarily try to influence your alcohol consumption by paying a "alcohol tax"?
There are benefits of not consuming alcohol, there are problems associated with alcohol, and people who try to convince alcohol is good for you are generally lying to themselves.
Alcohol is especially harmful for some people, but for others it almost always leads to a more enjoyable experience. I don't think those people would try to say it's good for them but they will say they like it, it's important to their social life, and it's no worse than junk food.
People have been drinking for thousands of years, and all that time there have been people who think its a bad idea.
For me personally I can't drink successfully, so I quit entirely about 17 years ago. The only thing I really miss is the occasional drink with co-workers, especially at long dinners. A long dinner at a restaurant - sober - with co-workers who are all drinking is a special kind of hell.
It's easier if you look at (say) Australian road traffic enforcement statistics; they have different rules than the US, have the "right" to check for DUI without having to make up a reason, and operate by funnelled road blocks that check everybody (or every second car, etc, depending on flow rates and breath check speeds).
They also 'verify' in the sense that any driver can challenge and get a "better than road side" test back at the station under supervision (blood tests with saved samples for court challenges, etc).
Blood tests can not determine THC intoxication.
DUI (in Australia) refers to "Driving under influence" and focuses on threshold detection rather than degree of impairment (although relying upon other studies that allege to correlate the two).
In the case of drug impairment, "better than roadside swabs" evidence for court challenges includes samples of urine, breath, hair, saliva or sweat.
Blood samples, rather than breath tests, are typically for alcohol.
Independent of roadside pass / fail on swabs for drug / alcohol levels Australian RTA can still ask drivers to complete an impairment test; assessing balance, coordination, and overall behaviour.
On challenge, this is something that can also be further assessed for court evidence; eg: are their perceptions of impairment because (various) medical conditions that cause slurred words, etc.
> I mean I have never consumed and never will so why is it that your society finds it acceptable?
Well, there are many societies across the planet and as a general rule their behaviours and norms are not predicated upon your personal choices and decisions.
eg: Australian society is largely indifferent to the fact that my father, a decorated service veteran, is and has been a lifelong teetotaller for 90 years.
> Isn't tobacco usage going down in consumption because it is being taxed shit out of?
Yes / no / not really - it's more complex than that. The Australian experience is that public health education policy promoting health, the downsides of tobacco, and requiring cigarette packs to display graphic images of diseased organs coupled with increased tobacco consumption taxes worked together to reduce tobacco use ... But ..
eventually, as tobacco taxes continued to increase (probably a bad idea IMHO) the incentives for criminal sidestepping and black market tobacco increased and Australia now has a new class of criminals that are considerably more violent than before. Hand in hand with that vaping has somehow sidestepped being associated with ciggies, and younger people are back to seeing these 'forbidden' things as desirable.
> Why can't you voluntarily try to influence your alcohol consumption by paying a "alcohol tax"?
Assuming by "you" you mean a country influencing it's population, I guess?
There are alcohol taxes in many countries, also penalties for drink driving, business restrictions on being drunk at work, etc.
Australians as a whole consume less alcohol than many non Australians imagine - sure there are people that drink a lot, but not as many (per capita) as once were, nor as much volume wise per person as they used to, and they do enjoy playing up myths about Australia.
I’m not sure it will be possible for you to receive an answer that would satisfy, given that latter statement.
I’ll say as someone that rarely drinks for the past 15 years that I enjoy two things about it: the flavor (I like beers, wine, scotch, bourbon, gin, tequila and various liqueurs) and the sense of profundity you get when slightly inebriated: conversations with friends, live music, many things become enhanced.
Of course it’s only an altered state of perception but all of life is perception, so it’s no less real than any other mental state.
However it comes with a lot of downsides and many people get taken in way too far by it, to the point that what little enjoyment it might have given them at one time is long gone.
I simply couldn’t deal with the slightest hangover any more, I’d have things I’d want to do after getting home from a party or dinner with wine, or the next morning, and wanted a clear head. So I stopped.
Now, on the rare occasion I want a beer, about 50% of the time it’s a nonalcoholic one, which still has a small amount of alcohol, and I still feel slightly inebriated. Or if I have a real beer and want another to sip on, I’ll follow it up with nonalcoholic ones.
Tobacco in Australia has been taxed to the point we have a huge black market for it now. You would have thought people would have learnt from prohibition.
You cannot police morals.
Like what amount of reasonable people from a moderately developed non-muslim country would ever want to live in a Muslim country?
Are people that come to western nations from Muslim countries able to succeed and function as well as people from other, even worse off countries?
Wikipedia offers a list of counties by alcohol consumption. Given the opportunity to roll the dice for a new home would you rather the list of choices be made from the Top 50 or the Bottom 50?
Muslims drink like camels. Many Christian denominations don't drink either (I had never been anywhere near an alcoholic drink until adulthood!) but there are always going to be plenty of people in the congregation who quietly partake in a few drinks at home.
> Why can't you voluntarily try to influence your alcohol consumption by paying a "alcohol tax"?
Gujarat in India is a dry state. UP has an alcohol tax of 69%. Hasn't stopped people at all, in fact such rules have backfired - loopholes, alcohol tourism, illicit production causing all sorts of havoc.
> I mean I have never consumed and never will so why is it that your society finds it acceptable?
Neither have I. But the problem lies exactly where you're heading. I've had a ton more pressure to drink in India where teetotalism is considered ideal, than in the western world where drinking is considered a lot more acceptable. Funnily enough, the more "taboo" or "socially less acceptable" something is, the more the people who partake also force you to do it.