Thank you to everyone for this thread, which I have followed for a few years now and has been a source of information and inspiration to me. In addition to your stories, I found Nancy Grace’s work, Huberman’s exegesis and Manson’s video particularly useful.
Manson’s story parallels my own. I drank heavily in my early 20’s, because it was my culture and to alleviate social anxiety. As I entered my medical training, partying and binge drinking gave way to lower intensity use for stress and for the pleasures of food and wine. I settled into a pattern of 8-10 per week for decades. Like Manson, I found that my older body was less tolerant of alcohol. I was taking antacids after drinking, sleeping poorly half of my nights and developed half-day hangovers if I had 2 drinks. I would have one later in the evening after living with the stress of the day. It helped, but like Huberman explained, led to the need for more habitual stretches of drinking. Eventually I began to identify as someone who simply became anxious and given to dark moods later in life.
For the last several years I have been cutting back progressively. Dry Januarys haven't been difficult, but I have usually looked forward to February and resuming my old habits, if somewhat attenuated for awhile. More recently I have shifted my abstinence efforts from avoiding consequences of drinking to focusing on the positive benefits of drinking. I rarely find any. Often, a sip of wine or whiskey often doesn’t spark any joy and tastes bad, and I will not hesitate to pour it out.
I have been coasting to retirement for the last 3 years or so, and becoming a more serious runner. That next-day feeling after 2 drinks takes all the enjoyment out of a long run. As I was training for an ultramarathon I had another shitty run the day after drinking (and not enjoying) a half bottle of wine and sleeping poorly. I said “fuck this” and stopped altogether until the event. Wow, between running fatigue and no alcohol I have never slept better. Also, I have been getting these day long dopamine highs after long runs, something that wasn’t happening with even modest drinking. After the event I rewarded myself with a craft beer, but poured it out after one sip, opting for a NA beer, which I now prefer (Partake IPA). I have had alcohol twice since then. Once was a celebration; the wine didn’t make me happier and I had GERD and bad sleep. I had a beer the other night. It felt useless (no enjoyment) though I perceived no harm.
I was doing pretty well focusing on the disadvantages of drinking much alcohol, but I feel like I’ve crossed over in my relationship with it. Zero feels qualitatively different. I know that dabbling with drinking now and again risks pulling me back in. For me, I think the key has been to be really honest with myself about what the experience of drinking is really like, both in the moment and connecting with my physical and mental states downstream. Seeing myself in Huberman’s descriptions, Manson’s life, and some of the stories here has been enormously helpful.
