Posting to follow and contribute.
In my life I probably had about 10 years of consistent moderate to binge drinking from the age of 17 to 27. That covers late high school, through university and about 5 years post university in the adult world. It wasn't a problem. I drank less than a lot of the people I know. Looking back however, it was riddled with issues, mainly around mood, mild anxiety and really poor sleep, compounded by the fact that drinking often meant staying up late. All my friends were the same, but that's what young people do, right? They drink a lot and allegedly have fun doing it.
My drinking dropped off in 2009 because I started spending less time with friends who liked to party and because I realised that being quite drunk whenever I was socialising (which wasn't that often) really hindered my ability to make friends and meet a lady.
Once I started dating my wife in 2011, my drinking really dropped, because all socialising was in large groups of couples, or in small groups of couples. It was more adult, more polite, more refined. No more "Shooters then a club!"
Then from about 2014 onward my drinking decreased again. I noticed that without thinking about it I'd have 2 or 3 drinks in fairly quick succession at the start of the night and then stop drinking completely because experience had shown me that drinking more made me feel crap, both at the time and the day(s) after.
On my wedding reception night (3 weeks after the actually wedding) in November 2015, I had 2 drinks, and only enjoyed the first drink and a half. By this point I was basically T-Total i.e. I could comfortably go for 4 months without drinking, and then have a couple of drinks at a social event and go back to months of not drinking. I remember I got really drunk on about 8 drinks one weekend in 2017 and then didn't drink again until November 2017.
In July 2019, I finally decided to stop drinking. Why? Because by that point in the year I'd had a total of about 5 alcoholic drinks since January 1st, 2019, and each time I had just one drink on a given day, I woke up in the night, really hot, really uncomfortable and didn't feel right the next day. Maybe not a hangover (not a severe one anyway), but a realisation that the very minimal enjoyment I got from consuming alcohol, was now massively outweighed by the negative effects the following day.
Also, I discovered at Christmas 2018 that my 22 year old cousin no longer drank because he did a placement year abroad whilst at university. He went to Texas for 9 months and after watching countless people get really fucked up at parties, and not really liking the taste of it, he decided he was done. He also has an alcoholic Uncle (who is a dumpster fire) providing him with extra motivation. I was inspired by my cousin. At his age I was a dick. So I decided to quit.
I only have one friend who I don't see that often who may have a slight issue with it (because he really does drink too much and likes everyone around him to be drinking if he is) but other than that nobody has said anything. My wife supports it but does seem to think it's a phase, no matter how many times I tell her that's it, I'm done. I don't get any cravings, I don't like the taste, I don't enjoy it. It doesn't enhance my socially.
Funny experience was standing in a bar in the middle of everything on the work Christmas do, and watching everyone around me go from being sober professionals to oversized drunk toddlers in the space of about 4 hours, and then seeing them the following morning in the office looking like ghosts and complaining about it.
I like not drinking. I like the simplicity of it. There's no debate of when, where, what, how much or who with. All those variables and decisions are eliminated. I don't drink. At all. Simple. It's really freeing.
Reading about
@Malkynn 's experience was awesome. I haven't gone through anything that immediate, but I think I've unwittingly conducted the same experiment at a slower rate over a much longer period of time.
