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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   2609 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for March 17, 2024

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This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

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New Years resolutions updates- we're a little over a quarter of the way through the year, how is everyone doing?

For myself, I have meaningfully reduced my intake of restaurant food in general by better planning/meal prep and an increased willingness to eat leftovers. This is cheaper but I haven't actually seen any health benefits; I'm not sure if this is because my health was already pretty good or because I need to do something or other else, maybe exercise.

76 Days sober.

Jan 1 - present.

I didn't have a rock bottom moment or full on dependency, but I was undoubtedly drinking far too much and for not good reasons. My estimate is somewhere just north of 1,000 drinks for 2023.

Expected: Energy, mood, discipline, mental health all far,far better. Everyone says this and it is true.

Unexpected: Quitting was easier than I thought. After day 10, I felt genuinely confident I could maintain sobriety. After day 20, I started to feel proud. After day 30, I actively started thinking about how much it would suck to relapse. After day 50 .... I just don't think about drinking anymore. I've been to dinners, bars, and hangouts with friends where everyone else was drinking and have had to turn down offers multiple times in one night. It just hasn't been hard. This was very unexpected.

There have been zero downsides. Social life hasn't suffered. A (minor) additional unexpected - the number of people who genuinely give you a "Good for you" style response and mean it. Some of these people, I think, may be struggling themselves.

I keep hearing about how great everyone feels after quitting drinking, and I kind of feel bad that I don't have a way to get that kind of improvement. For me, not being in a constant state of low-grade chronic alcohol poisoning is just normal, so I don't really appreciate it.

If it's any consolation I quit drinking for almost a year and didn't really feel any better at all except in one way: much better sleep.

I still don't really know what other people are experiencing when they say they feel so much better without alcohol. Sure, an actual hangover is pretty unpleasant, but I cannot tell the difference between a Monday where I had three beers watching football in the afternoon and a Tuesday where I had nothing to drink the day before. I also have a decent amount of health and performance metrics - resting heart rate, HTV, stress level, sleep score, and running/cycling data. Alcohol causes a noticeable, but transient increase in heart rate and stress level. If I drink too close to bed, it disrupts sleep. But moderation and avoiding late-night beverages results in no measurable or felt short-run differences.

A couple of theories for why I didn't see benefits from not drinking.

  1. Drinking lots of water mitigates the negative effects of alcohol.

  2. Something like half the people in America are diabetic or pre-diabetic. Many also have non-alcoholic fatty liver syndrome. Adding alcohol and sugar to the diet might be particularly dangerous for this group. But I'm decently fit and my liver function is good.

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