The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:
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Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.
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Updates to let us know how you are doing. This provides valuable feedback on past advice / encouragement and will hopefully make people feel a little more motivated to follow through. If you want to be reminded to post your update, see the post titled 'update reminders', below.
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Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.
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Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).
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So just a quick note - I quit drinking alcohol daily, and my life has improved drastically. I would never have called myself an alcoholic, but I did like to have a few beers and/or a glass or two of whisky after the work day.
I quit drinking daily mostly on a lark, and partly because I was trying to cut back on expenses. I'm shocked at how many benefits I've seen.
It's far easier to write. Focusing in general comes to me much more easily, even things like focusing at work which I found difficult.
I've lost about 10 pounds and gotten to my goal weight without any outside effort (in fact I feel like I eat more to compensate for not drinking) but still.
On top of that, I'm much better able to regulate and feel my emotions. Despite not getting drunk very often, alcohol apparently still had a large numbing effect on me.
For any other casual drinkers who are thinking of stopping, I'd recommend it. I still plan to drink here and there with friends or at social events, but I had no idea how much of a negative impact my couple drinks a day was having on my life.
I took up a 'mild' (at least by American stoner standards, half a smallish joint a day before dinner) weed habit some years ago for a year. During that year, I stopped drinking all alcohol except very occasionally at events. I've always been skinny but actually became clinically underweight (despite the munchies mythology) because I'd guess a moderate proportion of my caloric intake had been alcohol.
I did find that it dampened any drive or motivation I had to do things with my free time though, so I stopped after a while. Now, again, I like a glass of wine with dinner, and sometimes a drink or two with friends, family or coworkers. I tried a few other drugs in my youth, and none of them (even weed) made me feel good, maybe relaxed or energetic, but not 'good'. Alcohol, even in small doses, makes me feel happy (my family has some rare examples of Jewish alcoholics). That's a dangerous thing indeed.
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