Poll: Are you a drinker or a teetotaler?
From https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8339667 - are you a drinker or not.
Recently, I tried a "semi-dry July", where I told myself I would drink only once a week (with no limit on that day, i.e. binge drinking allowed). But when I got to that day, I felt only like having one beer or so, and same the following week.
Well, here's an amazing thing, shocking and totally counterintuitive: I felt much better while doing this than I did for years before that. My mental acuity went up noticeably, and was much longer lasting - I would wake up at 7am and feel mentally sharp within 15 minutes, and stay mentally sharp all the way to 10pm or so.
I was forced due to holidays and social circumstances to resume drinking in August. Well, now that the social circumstances and holidays are out of the way, I've gone back to not drinking. I'm still in the ramping up phase, and every day I feel better than the last.
I strongly recommend giving this a go to pretty much everyone on Hacker News: try going a month without alcohol, see how you feel.
Oh, I'll add that near the end of "semi-dry July", I had one instance where I had a couple of pints with a friend (social pressure!). I could feel that my brain was noticeably less sharp and my motivation was noticeably down compared to before. That lasted 2.5 days. TWO AND A HALF DAYS!
My conclusion: When you don't drink, it's as if you hired an extra one of you to work on your business. When you do, it's as if you fired that extra person. Are you resource-constrained? Stop drinking. You'll save money too - bonus!
I appreciated this part isn't the emphasis of your story, but I feel I should point out that the above approach is worse for your liver than having a couple of drinks everyday.
That aside, there's been a few studies (though I can't recall how scientific they were) which follows a group of drinkers who abstain for a month, and visa versa, to monitor the after effects drinking has on a persons cognitive abilities. Those studies also supported your anecdotes.
There's a time for everything. The key insight, to me, is to realise that I am way sharper on zero-alcohol, and that every time I make an exception it takes two and a half days to get back to normal.
The problem with both these is obviously what happens if you find you're not in control. Would you really admit it?
>Teetotalism refers to either the practice of, or the promotion of, complete personal abstinence from alcoholic beverages.
I mean, I kind of inferred, but this is my first time hearing the term.
Anyway, I only drink on special occasion or when I go out to a fancy restaurant. Other than that it's copious amounts of marijuana.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=509614 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8021822 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7594543
Search Google with "site:news.ycombinator.com marijuana ask hn" and variations thereof.
"After 1971 he also took amphetamines, despite the concern of his friends, one of whom (Ron Graham) bet him $500 that he could not stop taking the drug for a month.[17] Erdős won the bet, but complained that during his abstinence, mathematics had been set back by a month: "Before, when I looked at a piece of blank paper my mind was filled with ideas. Now all I see is a blank piece of paper." After he won the bet, he promptly resumed his amphetamine use."
> Erdős was a heavy user of many other stimulants (like coffee), but only started to use antidepressants and then amphetamines in 1971 when he was 58 after his mother died. He was already established as a first rate mathematician (he should have won the Fields Medal), and using amphetamines to work 19 hours a day was his way of coping with the death of his mother.
Interesting. I wonder if there are other words formed in this same way. (Can't think of any.)
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=a-alike
In any case, 'even alcohol can teach you some things" came up. It got me thinking. Most people experience (or semi-knowingly exhibit) reduced inhibition. If you're able to pay attention and observe, experiencing reduced inhibition has a side effect of shedding light on the existence and the nature of your inhibitions otherwise. It's interesting. It's not a 'nature of compassion' type of enlightenment, but potentially interesting nonetheless.
There's a resurgence of interest in psychedelic spiritual practices. The use of drugs in religious or cultural context is extremely ancient, possibly predating fully modern humans. But alcohol is also a part of that tradition. In fact, the use of alcohol in religious ceremony survives and is widespread in Christianity, Judaism and many other religions.
Ketamine is addictive and potentially harmful in several ways. Many are adamant that it's interesting and beneficial as well. I'm not sure those statements are competitive.
Context is limited to the associations you make and a lot of meaning is dependent on context. It's a fairly good approximation for perspective another cliche way of describing the effects. If feel like I should say "mind expanding" just for completion's sake.
Speaking of associations, I'm remembering years ago hearing some old recording of Christopher Hitchens furiously defending Salman Rushdie and even more furiously attacking the apologists and appeasers. He apologized for all the cliches he was forced to use. Freedom is indivisible. Fascism means War. etc.
Cliches are easy and cheap but sometimes they contain a simple version of an insight, hidden behind a kind of cliche blindness. There's a reason they keep getting rediscovered.
Anyway.. Dude have you ever really listened to yellow submarine? I mean really listened? Dude...
Of course any set of definitions like this is going to put some in what they consider the wrong category. I drink a couple times a week, and avoid drinking at home unless I have guests around for that or a related event, but when I do drink there tends to be quite a bit involved. By the definitions here I'm a "regular drinker" but I think I better fit in the "heavy" category.
Drink Aware tells me that eight cans of Coors Light per week ( a baseline I chose ) is 12 units.
http://www.drinkaware.co.uk/understand-your-drinking/unit-ca...
The UK recommended limit for men is 21 units per week. So you'd be just over halfway there, which doesn't give much leeway for any social events.
If social drinking is part of that culture (outside of common meals, like dinner).
> SAMHSA defines heavy drinking as drinking 5 or more drinks on the same occasion on each of 5 or more days in the past 30 days.
According to the same source:
> moderate drinking is up to 1 drink per day for women and up to 2 drinks per day for men.
As a man who tends to drink one drink per day, I fall into "moderate," but I could actually drink twice as much as I do and still not be "heavy" by these definitions. Even ignoring technical definitions, I don't think I personally know anybody who would consider one drink a day to be "heavy" drinking.
I find this poll and its chosen terminology to be especially interesting given the recent discussion of an article about the health benefits of drinking daily[1].
[0] http://www.niaaa.nih.gov/alcohol-your-health/overview-alcoho...
I hope I don't have to make the case as to why reducing inhibitions and making everyone more relaxed enhances socialising?
I've not been ill through drink since a certain point in my early 20s when I was not in a fit mental state for a while (unless you count the occasion when I stupidly went out for a couple on an empty stomach after giving blood that afternoon). My body gives me advanced warning that I'm heading towards a state of having "had enough" and I have the good sense to listen to it even when quite "influenced", but I know people who do not seem so lucky.
People can react to alcohol (and other behaviour altering substances) quite differently, one rule does not fit all.
My biggest problem is that I eat and drink _very_ quickly. It is just a habit, my dad blames himself for inadvertently teaching us to eat and drink quickly.
This creates a problem because, while socializing, I can easily plow through a handful of cocktails before I feel the effects of any of them. Combine that with a not-great tolerance for alcohol, and I can be blacked-out before I knew what hit me.
I recognized this problem, and tried to correct it by drinking more slowly. But like I say elsewhere in this thread, I didn't _always_ remember to do that, and so would still have a "bad night" often enough that it came to affect my relationships.
Even if everyone had the same level of self control, some people would still tend towards teetotal behaviour, others would develop alcohol addiction.
There was a study proving a link to one specific gene in mice a while back:
http://www.ncl.ac.uk/press.office/press.release/item/a-gene-...
Human responses are more complex, but there's enough research to suggest a strong genetic component in problem drinking.
Also, I want a "Formerly heavy drinker, then teetotaller, now social drinker, but afraid of slipping into heavy drinking again so considering simply avoiding all that by teetotalling again" option. I bet it'd get more than a few votes.
I am clearly in the minority of people in the world. But I really have no idea why alcohol is so popular.
More to the point, I've never even sought out, uh, non-sobriety, certainly the world's most popular avocation. I am apparently a mutant, and I definitely feel weird about it. I grew up in LA with no religious background, so it was decidedly countercultural.
Although when I went to Harvey Mudd, there was a definite teetotaling contingent among the self-experimentalists. There, if you brought up the Super Bowl, some would simply say "Spectator sports don't interest me." It was like that.
There are the ones who don't drink and don't have a problem with other people drinking. The people who are genuinely in this group, you don't even notice they don't drink. Drinkers have no quarrel with this group.
The second group are very vocal about their disapproval and are constantly telling you you shouldn't drink etc. They are irritating but can be ignored.
The third group thinks they are part of group 1, but they are actually closer to group 2. They never overtly tell you anything bad, but you get the constant sense that they are looking down on you. Drinkers don't like this group because they feel like they are constantly being judged, but not in a direct way they can challenge.
The three can probably be summed up by their response to the question, "Would you like a beer?"
Group 1: "No thanks, could I have a glass of water?"
Group 2: "No thanks, I'd rather not destroy my liver."
Group 3: "No thanks, I don't drink."
Group 4: "I would love to but I can’t. I’ll just have a glass of water (or a near-beer) instead"
What you say sounds to me as if you've never tried chocolate (the good kind, not the sugary cheap one).
And yes, I've had gourmet chocolate; I'm not sure what that has to do with alcoholic drinks.
Well, I hated drunks, hated drunk driving, hated so many things about it... So I found a group of kids who knew how to have fun without it, and even after most of them started drinking (later than average), I still abstained.
Anyway, to the point... In my early 20's, I opened up a little, learned my limits, learned my preferences (I really don't like beer, but hard cider and mixed drinks are great - I like sour drinks like Margaritas and Whiskey Sours), etc... And that's when I learned the benefits of light usage. I enjoyed myself a lot more and found my altered state of mind liberating to a degree (less social inhibition, but I also feel like I can think clearer/faster when I am just a little tipsy).
If you believe you could be an alcoholic, then don't start... But otherwise, I'd recommend you break down some of those barriers you have against it - keep to a goal of only drinking once a month, and only 2 beers/ciders or one mixed drink until you are comfortable/stable.
Last - To the person who said they've only tried Bud Light - no wonder you don't like to drink... lol... Not exactly the cream-of-the-crop.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSm7BcQHWXk
Which may also the best 3-minute video on youtube ever.
Just don't rub your non-drinking in people's faces, and let them drink as much as they want.
Not drinking doesn't mean you can't have a well stocked drinks cabinet/fridge!
Frankly I don't think it leads to much productivity, but there may be some social benefits. That said, me + beer + code = some cleanup the next morning.
I love beer and beer only, and leading the dev half of a startup + a new baby has really deprioritized that in my life. I drink on Friday and Saturday nights exclusively, no more than 4 drinks and always at home. Even then I feel a bit rough, grumpy and unproductive the following day.
I think that while age may play a role in this - the proverbial "I can't drink like when I was in my 20s" - I think it's more a matter of the amount of responsibilities and how that translates into recovery time. When I was 24, I could spend a whole Saturday and Sunday doing nothing but recovering from a hangover. If I did that today I'd spend months recovering from a divorce and a collapsed business.
Ultimately, my experience switching from casual drinking to limited drinking has cemented the fact that alcohol is generally bad for a human that needs to get things done every day. This a bummer for me because I'd otherwise be fine drinking 3 good beers a night.
As I was saying, I am alcohol abstinent for about two weeks. I had been a daily drinker before, mainly beer, living in Belgium. I am not Belgian myself but I totally love Belgian beers. I tried them all. It's maybe the #1 reason to live here. There are several motives why I started this teetotaler challenge: I sometimes put myself to such challenges just to make my strong will stronger, I want to get healthier (this is debatable I know), and my wife said I couldn't do it :P
The thing is that my sleep pattern changed since I started this. I am waking up very early and tired around 6:30, though my alarm is set at 8:30. I turn in not very late, around 23:00. And I am tired most of the time. There might be other reasons for it (excited about my start-up and still doing the 9 to 5 as a contractor), but I'm wondering if any of you guys experienced this when you gave up alcohol.
Also, it matters when you drink it. I drink very late in the evening, definitely after dinner, and way past I finished working. Some people drink in the morning or at lunch.
What I found interesting in my family is that, we all enjoy drinking and insist on having a couple of drinks whenever we meet up. I also think that because of the relaxed nature about it, it has contributed to my lack of desire to drink all the time. But then I have friends who drink like there is no tomorrow and their parents/family strictly practice teetotalism.
Something I try to live by: everything in moderation is fine. If I had a long week, its always nice to get out your favourite whiskey and have a glass with a mixer. It relaxing, the same way going to gym, playing on your gaming console,walking or meditating is relaxing.
Of course, only you have enough data to analyze wether the drinking toll will be a net positive or negative on your life, but I'm inclined to believe not drinking is favoured since the fun outta drinking is largely replaceable while your brain isn't.
There is a reason why I said everything in moderation, because we don't live in a perfect world where everything can be performed to perfection. I am not defending or promoting the use of alcohol but looking at the problem at hand, alcohol gets a bad reputation because its abused.
If people on HN see beauty in things that only shows with deep intellectual effort, then why has this topic been voted up? Surly it is somewhat interesting to the intellectual minds in this community.
Volume/time is probably a more accurate benchmark.
Beer is probably my second best drink, right after water. Too bad I can't drink it anymore.
I also don't do any drugs so no weed for me.
Current UK advice for men is two to three units max per day with some days drink free and don't binge.
A 330ml bottle of beer five days a week is well within those levels and would not be seen by most people in the UK as heavy or problem drinking.
It does get a bit trickier when you talk about glasses of wine. People have less idea of how much alcohol is in their glass, and small errors mulity over a week.