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I'd say my modal day is two beers. Having four or five standard drinks isn't uncommon, particularly if I'm dipping into barrel-proof whiskeys or barrel-aged stouts. On a football Sunday, I'll go quite a bit higher, maybe 8-10 standard drinks over the course of a day.
From stress score and sleep metrics, I see only a transient stress effect from a couple beers and no impact on sleep. Going up to four or five has a large stress score impact and adversely impacts sleep. The heavier days depend on timing and spacing of drinks. Even if I'm hungover, I'll get up and run in the morning, but the performance hit is large if I had ten drinks the previous day.
So maybe this is just a dose thing and I'm underestimating how much people are drinking when they say, "quitting drinking made me feel better". If I was slamming ten drinks a day, yeah, I'd be a lot better if I stopped.
I thought this might be the case, which is why I gave my numbers. I drink an unhealthy amount, so when I stop the effects tend to be easily noticeable. I'm also only in my early thirties. From everything I've seen and everyone I know, the effects of drinking get worse with age. I have mild-moderate hangovers these days, a decade ago I didn't really get hangovers at all. My friends that are a decade older get knocked out for a full day.
Quitting my current level of drinking in my forties seems like it would be extremely noticeable.
Here is where I say "Go fuck yourself, that horseshit about being the tough realist who knows the underbelly of life and the real grit and dirt is that same old 'tortured artist' bullshit which makes mediocre wannabe rockstars start a heroin habit because all the great artists are crazy in some way or druggies or drunks".
That's unkind, but the "non-drinkers are stuck up perfect guys" reeks of an excuse about "so what if I piss myself and vomit all down the front of myself, that's real life bitch". Next thing is a quote from Fight Club, right?
The non-drinkers are the ones mopping up the puke afterwards, they see plenty of shit and clean it up.
I drink, but I have to restrict myself because the way I drink I know it's bad for me, I don't make any "social connections", and there's alcoholism on both sides of the family for several generations back so very easy to get addicted and end up down that path. That's why I find the pretentiousness about seedy bars and the real side of life annoying. Drunks are drunks, they're not some cheap guru with the inside track on the reality of experience. They reek of shit and piss and vomit and stale booze and cigarette smoke, you're right about that.
What do you care what other people do or don't do for fun and enjoyment? If they don't nag you to stop drinking, why need you nag them to start?
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I think you nailed it with the "fog". It was hard for me to really gauge where my drinking was at for a long time, before I started having frank and honest talks with my doctor. I had friends that could finish a half bottle of whiskey in a night, and this would only result in them a semi functional drunk and a bit hungover the next day. I would look at them and be like 'thats insane, I don't drink that much' and think I'm fine. I don't know many of those friends that continue to do that, so maybe that should have been an answer in itself.
I find myself kinda agreeing with the take of either drink nothing, or drink enough to feel something. I don't like to be drunk, I do like to be a little buzzed. But I can see that the difference between me and a serious alcoholic is in that slight difference in preference. Having a drink without the buzz feels pointless to me. But to maintain that buzzed, or tipsy feeling over multiple hours is where the quantity comes in. Two to three drinks in the first hour to feel tipsy, and then one or two drinks every hour afterwards to maintain. Usually its on the 'more drinks' side of those numbers if I haven't recently gone without drinking for a few weeks, because my tolerance has gone up. So that easily ends up being 10 drinks over the course of 4-5 hours.
I do like the social lubricant aspects of alcohol. There are some sober people I know that don't seem to need any social lubricant, or if anything they get too lubed up from alcohol. To those people I feel like "you don't need to drink, but please let me drink around you so I can be on your level". I don't think I think any better of someone for throwing up from alcohol. If anything it downgrades my opinion of them. When I throw up I consider from alcohol its kind of a failure to me, it means I drank too much. But I'm also not really willing to hangout with people in the first place if I think they are stuckup.
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