Ask HN: What to do instead of drinking alcohol?
My social and entertainment life has involved alcohol for the last 10 years. There's been lots of alcohol and health related posts on HN in the last few days. As a result, I am going to stop drinking. It's worth noting I don't have a problem with alcohol or being around it.
For those of you who don't drink, how do you fill your Friday and Saturday nights?
FYI, I don't smoke or drink tea/coffee.
171 comments
[ 5.6 ms ] story [ 231 ms ] threadFor example, I’ve grown to like extremely sour alcohol-free cocktails so much that I now prefer them over alcoholic drinks.
As someone who drank v.copiously all day every day for years, it's somewhat easier than you might imagine, just gotta stick it out till you're in a new routine. (BTW something very unexpected, I had zero sweet tooth when I was a heavy drinker, gave up booze and a month or so later I was craving cake every night. Not sure how common it is, but push through that too I think.)
Extremely good. :)
The ultimate life hack I’ve found for when you feel like a beer is Lagunitas Hoppy Refresher. They’re super tasty, zero alcohol, zero sugar, zero carbs. It’s basically seltzer flavored with hops and man is it delicious and nicely carbonated. A little over $5 for a 4-pack. Thank me later!
Runner up is Heineken 0.0, surprisingly good.
And for another healthy way to alter consciousness - weed edibles are where it’s at.
The biggest thing you run into is social pressure for not being called fun etc. Ignore it and you’ll be good :) you’ll notice amazing benefits 3 to 4 weeks after you stop drinking that’ll keep you going!
In terms of how you fill your evenings, that can stay the same, just involves a different drink. :) (unless you literally sit on the couch with an alcoholic beverage and do nothing else, but I’m unfamiliar with that!) hope that helps.
>Those "stupid things" are often things you reminisce about with friends many years later
Often only because your friends inform you of your "memorable accomplishments" at the time which you actually have no recollection of whatsoever.
I don't know what's on their mind sometimes . . . and neither do they.
It's bizarre to me that some people think the opposite of "drinking alcohol" is "being solitary and having no fun". It seems like a lot of people have leaned on alcohol for so long that they've actually become convinced it's the only way.
Weekend drinkers, while terrified of having a boring life, are some of the most boring people I know. They never read anything, they never do anything, they never build anything or have any interesting ideas. They're too busy sleeping until noon to have time for that.
And while you drinking, especially hard, it is hard build anything or implement your ideas - alcohol very often acts as “reset” button (at least in my case) and you not able to develop and maintain any complex idea for a long time - next party will wipe it out.
If you are drinking so little that you are not getting hangovers (and you are older than say 35), then you are drinking so little you might as well substitute the alcohol for something non-alcoholic and do the same thing, because your experience will largely be the same as that of a sober person either way.
People in here are acting like the only thing enjoyable about alcohol are the effects of binge drinking.
I have one or two beers in the evening, and I fall asleep. Been that way since my 20s.
>Live your life. You only have one.
Two interesting pieces of advice.
As we know however, tons of people are going to need to completely stop drinking alcohol in order to continue living any kind of life at all.
Survival would hinge on heeding only the latter approach.
not my downvote, but I do speak from experience, I actually was set back a couple years as a result of an air conditioner in motion combined with the way the pavement behaved.
But I survived.
Vaporizers (dry flower or otherwise) are low on smell, edibles have no smell at all but can take a while to kick in.
I don’t miss alcohol, but I do miss the social part. Having kids is taxing, but also incredibly rewarding.
I think it was Schopenhauer that said love is nature's way of tricking people into taking on the responsibility of having children.
Over the winter while being at the parents home I have gotten into drinking high quality irish whiskey on a Friday night after a week of work to chill. But it’s not that amazing. Luckily that stuff is the only thing that doesn’t give me a subpar next day. Even 2 beers will make me feel scuzzy the next day.
Cooking
Lifting
Reading
Building Stuff
Dabbling in various other hobbies
And for what to do if you'd rather not spend your weekend at the bar with friends, well you can do anything else, and that's a pretty vast category. Just do a brainstorm on the things that interest you. Sit down and list 10 things. Then 20. Keep going till you have a list of 100 things that interest you. There will be that many things. The world is an interesting place for most.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_hobbies
Even though those drugs are very safe (in the short term) on their own, watch out that they are highly dangerous to mix with alcohol -- if you do that you could get over-sedated, do crazy things, black out or die.
Other drugs of that family are less good as a social lubricant, particularly the long-acting benzodiazepines such as Klonopin or Clorazepate which could still be sedating you 24 hours later.
Unfortunately if you use BZs regularly for a long period of time you can get an addiction which is particularly hard to kick.
In the realm of speculation it's been imagined that a partial agonist for the benzodiazepine receptor would have a cap on its effects even if you took a large dose and would be very safe for recreational use, kind of like the 'Synthahol' from Star Trek. One advantage is that the effects can be reversed with this stuff
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2244412/
however there is a lot of apprehension about using that drug for BZ overdoses because a person who is badly dependent on BZs could have seizures triggered by Flumazenil.
Not in the United States. Try getting a script for Xanax and you'll be lucky you don't get reported the DEA re: our opioid crisis.
(The combination of BZs and Opioids is not always dangerous in people who are experienced with the drugs, but can be a dangerous mixer for people who don't have tolerance.)
tldr; if you're poor, good luck getting any scheduled drug
Note to self. Sue the fuckers for violating my civil rights just to get Xanax. Clog up the courts. Finally! A windmill at which to tilt!
While people react differently Xanax scared the shit out of me. I would never touch the stuff again. I have a friend who got off Xanax and also heroin...Xanax was way harder to abstain from
It is noteworthy though to not buy them on the darkweb. Fentanyl is now tainting that stuff
On the other hand I think he should know that a 1-1 pharmacological substitute is available.
It's like alcohol though. Chronic use of alcohol will really destroy you, faster than chronic BZ use. Taking a Xanax on the weekend occasionally won't wreck your life and could be safer than drinking.
And going the darkweb route is a nonstarter due to fentanyl being found in a variety of Xanax
Or you can use a friend I do they have a legit prescription
"what can I do instead of drinking"
Well, there's dope, poppers, E, heroin, meth, crack, benzos, coke ...
LOL
Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise. — Benjamin Franklin
Books - Alcohol Explained by William Porter - The unexpected joy of a sober life (forgot the author’s name, but she is a great writer)
I did the exact same things I used to do except with no alcohol: bars, clubs, parties, whatever.
The toughest thing was realizing how...boring...some of these activities can be. There is, by default, an enormous amount of "down time" at a bar or club or young person's party; down time that people tend to fill by going to the bar for a drink, or sipping on a cocktail, or eventually by being drunk and letting the time pass.
The second toughest thing was realizing how irritating drunk people (and yes, this includes your friends) can be when you're sober.
But I stuck with it, and after a few months I learned different strategies for enjoying a night out--usually revolving around talking to other sober people, or dancing--and my life is much better for it.
Lastly, in my experience i didn't feel the full mental benefits of no alcohol until after about four or six months without a drop.
Some people might expect enlightenment after week of sober life. Never understand why, if alcohol require years to turn you to an alcoholic, how you can back to normal life in a week time?
Is that really a thing even for moderate or very moderate drinkers (like, 4-5 glasses of wine per month)? Do you really feel mental benefits from being totally sober? What kind of benefits? Is there any study about this?
I don’t recall feeling any overall mental differences in the period where I was drinking, although I was only doing it once a week or so.
A mild hum of well being in the back of the brain.
Like lifting the very light blanket of an endless hangover; a blanket so light you don't notice its presence, only its absence.
Of course--and as usual for this sort of thing--lots of confounding factors, N of 1, YMMV, etc etc
I was having two to three strong IPAs every single evening for about the last 10 years. This would give me a nice buzz but nothing close to getting drunk. I stopped completely six months ago. Since then, I've had no noticeable mental benefits to speak of, but I also wasn't experiencing any noticable negative effects beforehand. I have never had elevated liver enzymes. I am physically active and keep a healthy diet.
I decided to stop less for the health reasons but more because I was definitel psychologically super addicted. At this point in my life, I want to begin a new phase without any substances having a hold on me. Pot was a much more serious issue for me, but alcohol is objectively worse for the body so I figured I might as well let go of it too.
Overall, stopping was surprisingly easy. No withdrawals or anything like that. After two weeks I started having emotional cravings for IPAs, cause they are just so damn tasty. That, and kicking back after work with my wife and a few beers had become a very ingrained ritual. Another month from there that went away, along with any thoughts of wanting to drink, period. Going food shopping is about the only time I'm reminded that alcohol exists.
I did make the conscious choice to have a 9% 20oz IPA after about 4 months off. I was very curious about what kind of effect that would have after such a long break. It was strange. I barely felt any effect from the alcohol and got a nasty hangover the next day that lasted into the early evening. I suspected this had something to do with the hops so two weeks ago I repeated the experiment with 24 oz. of 10% Belguian sour. No hangover but still a very subdued effect from the alcohol. I guess even though my enzymes weren't elevated, there is some other mechanism that was making my liver less efficient at processing the booze when I was drinking.
Anyway, my main point is it's all a matter of habit. Unless you're well into the physical addiction phase of alcoholism, it's 100% emotional. Things were a bit easier for me in that I don't like going to bars one bit. House parties were a lot of fun in college but as an adult my social drinking would almost always involve a few friends hanging out at someone's house. Quality time with good friends if they are drinking and you're not is just as good. For those who are into the bar scene, ummm, maybe try pot? But overall, I'd say that if alcohol makes a boring activity tolerable, it obviously makes sense to do something that you actually enjoy instead.
For all of you wanting to stop drinking, just give it a go. It may take a month or two to delete the habit, but it will happen.
Perhaps you should question yourself for bias against the substances being discussed, unless you wish to admit the obvious, i.e. that you have questionable reading skills. OP does not have a substance abuse problem. Billions of people across the planet use alcohol, marijuana and any number of other substances to achieve precisely the same thing that he is seeking to achieve, and they do so successfully and with aplomb.
I'm gunna use what I got.
“Who of us is to say that the goal of this life is not in the leaving it?” —Vladimir Nabakov.
</soapbox> with my apology.
Yes! I agree wholeheartedly. What the human mind and body can do is monumental and incredible. The depth and breadth of experience we are capable of is truly mystical.
It is this very capacity for near-magical experience that has me very wary of casual use of mind-altering drugs of any sort. I look through the comments on this thread and am horrified by the number of people who think that the highest form of human socialization and relaxation is achieved only through an altered state of consciousness. That to really live, we have to take a substance that changes how we live. The sense seems to be not that the human mind is capable of incredible feats in its own right, but that the human mind is mostly a great conduit for externally-injected meaning and value. It is this perception that concerns me.
One slightly annoying side effect is that I find non-alcoholic beers tend to make me very bloated/gassy/windy. I do not love this, and I don't get this problem with alcoholic beers, or at least nowhere near as badly.
(Btw, I will say in my group of friends, nobody seriously questions it if somebody is choosing not to drink alcohol, even though many of us do. Still, even amongst the drinkers, there are plenty of occasions where they might choose non-alcoholic options.)
[0] Which is actually 0.5% abv, I think, but I worked out you'd have to drink 15 or 20 pints of it in a fairly short period of time to be over the limit for driving which... well, it's not at all feasible for me.
Are there any advice on particular brand to try? Alcohol free Moretti is nice for my taste, but all other lager non-alco is frustrating.