This is a thread for ILXors ON THE WAGON (and for the Wagon Curious)

Jclc, is this the same Sinclair as Sinclair Method? (That is, take naltrexone when you drink so that drinking is un-fun and boring, and therefore you stop drinking because it isn't enjoyable anymore?)

I think so, I hadn't known of him before. but I have heard him make deeply unscientific claims to a credulous audience.

Huh. Yeah, I don't know who he is, but Google says he's a tenured professor of genetics at Harvard?

Heh, yeah, he totally seems like a snake oil guy, lol

Though tbf, the context of that reference is that that compound in wine is not effective in normal doses, which seems like a reasonable claim, even if he probably subsequently volunteers his special batch as the adequately dosed solution.

To clarify, are you no sugar people talking about processed sugars, or are you cutting out fruit etc. as well?

I've been having a dry October. Well, only since the 7th to be precise. And I'm also making an exception tomorrow for a work event where there will be drinks. I was having on average a glass of wine or two per night, which wasn't enough for me to feel hungover or anything, but I did find it to contribute to heartburn and bloating (sometimes in combination with too much food, to be fair) so it was more for that reason I was looking to take a break.

im trying to cut down on snake oil tbf

"To clarify, are you no sugar people talking about processed sugars, or are you cutting out fruit etc. as well? I’m not the worst processed sugar fiend, but I live on fruit and can’t imagine cutting it out"

i eat fruit! it is really really really sweet to me now. i did start out drinking more sugar-free drinks to kind of wean myself from drinks with sugar in them - that's why i started a sugar-free drink thread - but if you give up processed sugar they will taste insanely sweet. doesn't matter if its monkfruit/stevia/etc. i pretty much just drink spindrift bubbly water now and occasionally i will add a little fruit juice to it. i don't know. everyone will be different. i have had sugar a little. on special occasions. sometimes when i'm buying bread at the bakery i'll get a kinda-good-for-you-fancy-oat-cookie or something? but rarely. if i do have something i make sure its actually homemade or something baked. but its crazy how much less i eat in general since i stopped with junk sugar. processed stuff is obviously designed to make you keep eating so if you eat a lot of it you tend to eat a lot of everything. the junk trained me to. and since MOST processed food has a ton of sugar in it i don't eat that stuff and that takes away that binge eating jones. its kinda cool! bodies and brains are pretty cool. i'm just happier eating simple stuff now. i have been addicted to concord grapes since they are in stores now.
i just have to get off the wheat/chip/carb train. again, when i stopped with sugar i let myself go nuts with chips and bread. i started craving butter because its sweet. but that died down. i just know that i feel WAY better. the pandemic and after - oof - i just got so unhealthy. during the pandemic i was hiding food in my bedroom! from my kids! sweet stuff. chips. i got up to 260 pounds and i had never been that big. it was harder for me to walk. my feet hurt. i didn't want to move. i knew if i didn't do something it was just going to get worse. i stopped drinking last summer and that winter is when i just stuffed myself. makes sense. i hadn't been drinking a ton by then but i was obviously replacing something. it made me depressed. deciding to exercise made a big difference too. i got a stationary bike october of 2022. i still use it. i had NEVER exercised regularly before. unless lifting lots of heavy record crates counts. when i lived in philly i walked a ton. but that was years ago.
even little things can make a big difference. i have WAY more energy now.
it has to be said. i can eat my weight in junk food and sugar. i got that from my dad too. he STILL - even though we are cooking for him and getting him better stuff since he moved in with us - can eat a TON of sugar and candy. it's insane. he's 88! but i think it's the only thing he can taste.

i will put a bit of local maple sugar on my oatmeal sometimes. or local honey. they make them both right up the road. but not all the time. just a taste. even that feels healthier.

it is just really insane how much sugar is in so much food. i mean, i knew that. but yeesh. even, like, plain yogurts or things you don't even think of as being really sugary.

instead of leaning into microspecifics of moderate red wine being good for you (i have never heard of reservatrol and i doubt many ppl have tbh) i would probably rather go the other way and look at the macro lifestyle practices of the person who has a glass of red wine a day

i bet theyre dreadfully well behaved in a host of ways tbf

this is exactly correct, and this issue plagues all nutritional epidemiological research. people who drink in moderation are wealthier, exercise more, etc etc — and controlling for these other factors is more challenging than you’d think

there was an article someone posted on ILX a while ago arguing that alcohol had a big social benefit that was very important to mental health which in turn had some physical health benefits. I think there's some truth to that. like for one my wife and I would not be together if not for Jose Cuervo. that's just a fact. which means my kids wouldn't exist. also I think a motivation for a lot of people to stay looking fit is to look good at parties and social gatherings which sometimes involve a lot of alcohol. I mean if not for drinking a lot of people just wouldn't get together as often as they do

Life would be a lot more boring without alcohol, for me at least - but limiting consumption to a reasonable amount is a constant battle...

This year so far I have not gotten wasted drunk, I will drink maybe once or twice a month and always in the company of others, I have had occasions where I managed to only have one drink (this is major for me), and I have turned down free alcohol.

Answering the age-old question, turn down for what?

it is just really insane how much sugar is in so much food.

I volunteer at a food pantry, and one day my task was to sort donated food into different categories, according to nutritional needs/guidelines. It was shocking how many at first glance healthy looking things were slotted into the third/worst category because of all the added sugars, or the spiked sodium.

“I realized how much I was using alcohol to self-medicate and to create a barrier between myself and the world, and between myself and the people in my life.”

I think (for me) it was mostly social. (That first pandemic year was another story, because it happened at home alone and was more tied to a general free floating doom/depression.)

These days I almost never drink. It’s a once every month or so thing. When I was in Seattle recently for a week I had … maybe 5-7 over the course of that week, which was a lot for me in a concentrated period of time. It’s just not enjoyable for its own sake - drunkenness, that is - and hasn’t been for decades now. A mild buzz with friends has an appeal, but I’ve noticed that in social situations where no one is drinking I’m fine with not drinking. Water or coffee or a lemonade will do nicely.

I'd like the Irish and britishes POV in here, especially the middle-agers. In Dublin a few months ago I noticed men and women who'd drop into the pub, drink a pint while reading the paper, pay, and leave. Americans...don't do that? We have such a mystique around spirits.

One factor is that beer over there is afaict often a lot lower in alcohol than beer here.

Right, but I refer to the ritual of drinking. The three cultures sure love drinking, but because of age limits we're all LET'S GET HAMMERED as if one pint/glass of wine/cocktail isn't enough or couldn't be incorporated into the routine.

we need to take it to XXXXXxxxxtreme!!!! #cravethewave

I am all about harm reduction lately. It's been really effective to just buy 1 or 2 those 19.2 oz cans instead of a 6-pack. Then I'm out and there isn't any more beer and I'm actually perfectly buzzed, to reason to have more. Folks have come over lately and I haven't had any in the fridge, which was previously unheard of.

― out-of-print LaserDisc edition (sleeve), Monday, October 23, 2023 3:41 PM (two days ago)

i'm a fan of these tallboys too for this reason, although there seems to be something of an arms race happening here - every can at the bodega is a double-blasted IPA clocking in at close to 10% ABV, i think there's one at like 13-14%. i think of them as new 40s.

Lots of ppl binge drink like crazy here. Don't let those casual drop-in pints fool you. IME attitudes towards alcohol aren't any healthier here than in the US. At all.

Ha, my sister lives in a British college town/city, and walking around in the morning you have to carefully avoid all the piles of vomit and chips, not to mention the amount of public urination I've encountered there; "LET'S GET HAMMERED" might just be a universal motto of youth. A pint over the paper might be the more mature/middle aged manifestation, like a glass of wine with lunch.

yeah i think we have -maybe- a pub culture that supports going for one ir two, an after work or lunch pint, but that's an additional option alongside ten pint sessions not replacing them by and large ime

if i count as a middle ager, yeah the days of weekly group sessions drop away with kids and moving out of town and all that.

ive had a couple of pints with the new neighbours over the past few years and theres no question of a pissup, its out at five home at eight four drinks max- im enjoying that

a lunch pint is a great civility btw I'll stand over that one

I had to do that when I lived near BU. Was not pleasant!

Some middle aged ppl still go p hard. We had a dept party a few weeks ago. I left at 10. The remaing people all 40 plus wound up ordering shots and champagne and getting kicked out at midnight. They all looked green the next day. I would have been dead.

Obv this is a generalization and could warrant a much longer discussion. There's a lot of differences between English and American drinking cultures but I would say they're both equally fucked.

I didn’t give up sugar, but I did stop eating desserts. No cookies, cake, popsicles, pastries, candy of any kind, all of which I was addicted to. I figure eliminating that would be enough. Too much work to look at the sugar content in other stuff.

isn't it even worse in very cold places? the excess drinking. but maybe that's just to stay alive in the snow. like in russia and the like.

ENBB otm

"I didn’t give up sugar, but I did stop eating desserts. No cookies, cake, popsicles, pastries, candy of any kind, all of which I was addicted to. I figure eliminating that would be enough. Too much work to look at the sugar content in other stuff."

do you notice how very sweet things are now? i feel like my taste buds grew back or something.

Yeah Scott lots of Scandinavian places have really high rates of alcoholism.

group drinking is its own subset sureky and hard to see a healthy version if it as a rule

"few quiet pints" group is a good group to have

lol this got published today: https://lithub.com/dwight-garner-on-the-long-history-of-writers-and-americas-greatest-invention-the-martini/

i'm a fan of these tallboys too for this reason, although there seems to be something of an arms race happening here - every can at the bodega is a double-blasted IPA clocking in at close to 10% ABV, i think there's one at like 13-14%. i think of them as new 40s.

― 龜, Wednesday, October 25, 2023 8:09 AM (eighteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

see this is the problem. I live right by a brewery. every single beer they make is amazing. but so many of them are 7-8%.

isn't it even worse in very cold places?

I learned when I was in Iceland that ... well, first I learned that beer was illegal until, like, 1989. But then I learned that they have really, really strict drunk driving laws, basically enough to bust you at one drink. This guy I met told me about the first time he visited Iceland, back in 2000 or so. He said he went to a local pub around 8:30 or 9 and it was absolutely dead, so dead he asked what was going on. They told him to go back to his hotel, take a nap, then come back around 11:30 or midnight. He did, and he said it was a madhouse. The Icelanders would basically assign one designated driver, then the rest would get absolutely smashed and eventually return to the car to be driven around raising hell until 6am.

Iceland, of course, is famously not really as cold as you might expect. But the tales of drinking I read out of, say, Russia are legion. Especially where, as with parts of Scandinavia, it's cold, the nights are long, and there's really nothing else to do.

Iceland, of course, is famously not really as cold as you might expect. But the tales of drinking I read out of, say, Russia are legion. Especially where, as with parts of Scandinavia, it's cold, the nights are long, and there's really nothing else to do.

The fact that there are people who can have two drinks and not immediately want another is genuinely amazing to me as someone who is genetically predisposed to alcoholism. I have no internal switch or mechanism that enables me to do this. The minute I have one sip, the only reaction my body has to alcohol is that it wants more. The only time this isn't true is, weirdly, when I'm exhausted.

Any control I have over it is because I don't want to end up like my mother. It's quite frightening tbh and makes me glad I was too scared to ever get into hard drugs. I know if it wasn't for that fear I 100% would have wound up a coke addict.

same. i mean i stayed away from heroin my whole life because i knew i would love it to death. i always loved pills.

when i was on wellbutrin it totally made drinking and the idea of drinking sickening to me. just in case anyone is curious about getting medicinal help. i figure people are just reading this thread as well as posting on it.

i kinda love every drug i've ever had! other than that bathtub mescaline in high school that time. and even then i took MORE of it a day or two later for the same horrible effect. brains are weird.

The fact that there are people who can have two drinks and not immediately want another is genuinely amazing to me as someone who is genetically predisposed to alcoholism.

Yeah, this. At home my brains switches off after two drinks. It's time to grade, finish a movie, mop the floor, etc.

I feel for you guys, that must be tough to manage/navigate. I definitely hit a max pretty quickly after a couple of drinks, when it shifts from feeling good to feeling bad. And in the rare instance I have too much to drink and wake up with anything close to a hangover, another drink is the last thing I want for a couple of days. Not too different from when I eat too much food and just think, ugh, what have I done? If I eat a huge dinner I'll likely skip at least breakfast but sometimes lunch as well the next day. Brains and bodies are weird, though I wonder how much of it is also, I dunno, reverse conditioning? Like I mentioned, didn't drink until I was an adult, and neither of my parents drank or smoked or did anything like that, so maybe my psychological/physiological default is *not* drinking?

i hear the genetic disposal as a fear but as far as i can tell ive never actually had that- my issues around the booze have always been very runnof the mill learned behaviours around peer groups tbh

and ive probably noted it but my parents split the functional/non functional drinker behaviours between them so

Some people don't have it even if their parents were addicts! I wish to God I didn't but I very very clearly do and, yes, it sucks.

You'd know if you did. I knew from the moment I first tried alcohol as a late teen that my reaction to it was very different to most of my friends.

i would say that anything i did too much of was self-medication as well as liking to be high. this will sound terrible but cigarettes really did help me! i had very bad ocd/physical tics as a teen and as soon as i started smoking at 19 they faded away. anxiety. stress. alcohol always made me feel better. i never went to doctors. or got any psych help. for decades. pretty common i know.

i always wanted to do drugs alone too. so sad! and, uh, maybe a warning sign. but i've been low-level depressed on and off since i was a little kid. and i had fun over the years drinking with friends but i was happiest with a bottle of wine or some (a lot) of beer in front of the t.v. or late at night all Yessed out on ilx.

haha, sorry you guys, i still need to find a therapist!

Weirdly, the genetics skipped a generation in my family. Both of my grandfathers were alcoholics; mom's dad died sober, dad's dad died in the throes of the DTs. Neither of my parents is a problem drinker, at all. Whereas I 100% identify with ENBB's posts. Much more often than not, I cannot stop at one or two. So, it's much, much better for me not to stop.

My brother shares these tendencies, but seems to be able to stop (or at least know when he's had too much). My sister almost never drinks, she's a regular but not daily weed user.

*Better for me not to start, obvs.