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

“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.

The genetics thing is really interesting. My mom's mother was a pill head who killed herself and her father was a drunk. From what I've been able to gather, at least 2 of her 3 siblings were/are alcoholics. Don't know about their kids because I've never met any of my cousins on that side.

Totally get the better not to start thing. In general, because of all the above, it's much much easier for me to abstain than it is to moderate.

I really love drinking but I don't think I have been drunk-drunk in decades. I don't do the weekend binges; never have. I prefer a steady trickle that leads to maybe a pleasant buzz.

Unfortunately the result of 30 years of that has been an almost superhuman tolerance. I don't know what it would take to get me hammered, and I don't want to, because it would be really bad for me. Lately I what I want to do is keep it to two glasses of wine when on a date with my wife, and Champagne at New Year's.

Like a lot of people, COVID was not kind to me.

i hear you about the tolerance. and now i just think: jesus, it makes me tired to think about how much i would need to drink to get really drunk.

my fave thing used to be coming home from work and making dinner and getting buzzed on beer and wine in the kitchen. it made me really happy. to cook for maria and the kids and listen to some tunes. as i got older i did learn to just call it a night after we ate. sometimes.

. In general, because of all the above, it's much much easier for me to abstain than it is to moderate.

I used to be a night owl and I’d stay up till 1 or 2 getting buzzed or more. Now lights out at 10:30 and I get up and ride my bike at 5 in the morning. I’m still trying to wrap my brain around who I am now. Started seeing a therapist to sort that out. Drinking through the pandemic and a lot of personal upheaval in the past few years has left me with a lot of processing that I never got around to.

To be clear, I am not on the wagon but it's something I think about often and will prob do at some point. Maybe. I know abstinence is easier just from times I've temporarily stopped but yeah. It's a very weird feeling. At times I've been angry, jealous, and sad about it. I will say I'm better at moderation than I ever have been but really that's more a statement about how much of an actual wreck I was in my 20s and I honestly think it's mostly because I just can't hack it anymore. Went out with some gen z coworkers last month and omg. I was reminded exactly how old I am the following morning.

Because I don't really drink at home or during the week, I didn't get caught in the pandemic drinking thing but completely understand how and why other people did.

Cow_Art, I can relate. I had to cut WAY back for health reasons, and I was not prepared to get hit with 50 years of trauma and depression and anxiety all at once, with no shock absorbers (so to speak).

I've said this before, but for my own survival I just had to start thinking of myself as someone who doesn't drink. It's a lot easier now than it was seven years ago.

One of my good friends wound up in rehab this time last year after spiralling following the death of a friend who he listened to od and die while on the phone w/ him. He is in AA and has almost a year sober now. Talking to him about it has been very interesting. I might go to some al-anon meetings for adult children of alcoholics. Could be interesting, I think.

Jimbeaux - that's very interesting. I remember years ago I couldn't imagine not smoking because I just identified as a smoker. I guess sort of similar.

And so a thread about sobriety turns into a discussion of the merits of various brands of edibles LOL

― immodesty blaise (jimbeaux)

i mean, "california sober" is a thing, although we call it "oregon sober" here because, uh, we're oregon. also known as "west coast sober".

xxp My mom has been involved with an organization for adult children of alcoholics for years, she's found it very helpful.

I've heard very good things from several people. Will report back if I wind up going.

"I couldn't imagine not smoking because I just identified as a smoker."

i really had to learn to mourn my smoking. like it was the loss of a person. just to deal with the emptiness and grief. it was really rough. but i think dealing with it as something that was...dead?...somehow made it easier over time.

I love bars but have to stop drinking. My strategy is to pivot to non alcoholic beers. Tried this successfully on Monday. Half the price and I stayed half as long. And of course was able to go home lucid and present.