7 ms·
No Alcohol, No Coffee for 27 Months (2016)
- newnewpdro 7y agoHow does he know the sleep effects were due to the alcohol and not the caffeine? I rarely consume either, but when I do, caffeine is by far the most disruptive to my sleep and will derail my routine for days.
- leowoo91 7y agoI second that, I used to have sleep issues and it got fixed after moving my coffee habits to morning.
- MaximumYComb 7y agoMy experience is anecdotal but I drink both. I've found that once you're a heavy caffeine drinker that you hardly notice it's effects on things like sleep. Alcohol is different. 8 drinks before bed and I wake up tired, despite my usual bedtime. I drink way more caffeine than I do alcohol, yet alcohol is the only substance that has ever seemed disruptive.
- qalmakka 7y agoYes, after a while your body gets addicted to caffeine and adjusts to the amount you are ingesting, so you need to increase how much you're taking in order to keep feeling the high you expect from coffee. If you suddenly stopped assuming caffeine, you'll start suffering from withdrawal symptoms such as headaches and drowsiness; this is because your brain adenosine receptors are accustomed to a certain amount of caffeine (which is itself an adenosine antagonist). Your brain receptors recalibrate themselves after a while if you stop drinking coffee/tea, or if reduce your intake of caffeine to a smaller amount.
- newnewpdro 7y agoNot sure why you're getting downvoted. The withdrawal symptoms for caffeine are brutal in my experience. It's really surprising every time I dabble with having an espresso a few times a week when I'm in a cafe-frequenting mode. Even just one week of having a double espresso every other day will leave me with 1-2 days of terrible headaches and nausea beginning 1-2 days after completely stopping. No other drug I've experienced so quickly establishes such miserable withdrawal conditions. And I've been around the block in this neighborhood.
- jeffdavis 7y ago8 drinks is quite a lot. That much alcohol affects a lot of things.
- copperx 7y ago> That much alcohol affects a lot of things. Don't take this the wrong way, but it's been a long time since I read a sentence that conveyed no meaning whatsoever. I found it amusing.
- Ididntdothis 7y agoI think with 8 drinks I would either die or have a weeklong hangover :)
- MaximumYComb 7y ago8 drinks are about 6 beers of 375mL volume here. In my country (Australia) beers are typically sold single, by 6 or by 24. So having 6 beers isn't uncommon. It's something you may do at a weekend BBQ during summer.
- carlmr 7y agoYeah, I can't have caffeine after 2pm or I will have terrible sleep. Alcohol also causes bad sleep, but only in larger quantities.
- edzx 7y agoI'm sure it depends on people to people. Everybody has different tolerance levels for both alcohol and caffeine. For me, mostly it doesn't disrupt my sleep even if I drink an hour before to go. But, the thing is decreasing anxiety level if I'm surrounded by a crowd. My focus can be easily fucked up then. While alcohol feels more comfortable at the same time.
- illyism 7y agoIt is. Try sleeping with a smartring, smartwatch or phone app that measures your deep sleep. The difference is shocking. The sleep quality for me is about half of what it is when I'm sleeping sober.
- wojcikstefan 7y agoI'm sure different people have different sensitivity to caffeine and certainly the author's sleep benefited from both reducing caffeine and removing alcohol entirely. But if you read e.g. the studies mentioned in "Why We Sleep" by Matthew Walker, you'll see that alcohol's effects are much graver.
- qalmakka 7y ago> In the summer I now drink ice tea, in the winter regular tea. Is the OP aware that tea also contains caffeine, right? Regular black tea has generally much less than espresso, but it's still a caffeinated beverage.
- cosmotic 7y agoDrip coffee has even more than espresso. https://www.caffeineinformer.com/the-complete-guide-to-starbucks-caffeine https://www.caffeineinformer.com/the-complete-guide-to-starb...
- alasdair_ 7y ago>Drip coffee has even more than espresso. Only if you also think that beer has more ethanol in it than whisky. In equal quantities, neither is true.
- carlmr 7y agoAnd if you believe that people routinely drink the same quantities of espresso as they do drip coffee or beer and whiskey that comparison would make sense. But people usually drink much less whiskey and espresso, therefore it's much more relevant to compare commonly used quantities.
- rkachowski 7y agowhat would the quantities of ethanol be in 100ml of whisky vs 100ml of beer?
- CMCDragonkai 7y agoSociety has been duped in thinking they need coffee to stay awake. People need good sleep, occasional naps and that's it.
- fastbeef 7y agoSince becoming a father, I’ve started taking naps when feeling low on energy and let me tell you, that stuff is incredibly powerful. I lie down in a dark room with a timer set 40 minutes into the future, drift off and reappear with my energy meter glowing.
- alexchamberlain 7y agoCan you do that at work?
- fastbeef 7y agoWhen working from home - sure. A previous employer had a resting room that you could book in Outlook and it was almost always free.
- carlmr 7y agoI think most people know this, but naps aren't accepted in the workplace. I function much better on 6h at night and nap after lunch than 8h at night, but society forces me to stay awake after lunch. I've even thought about looking for remote jobs, just to be able to have an afternoon nap.
- mirekrusin 7y agoThat's why we invented remote work.
- CMCDragonkai 7y agoAs the boss of my own company, I've made naps acceptable.
- 7y ago
- Semaphor 7y ago> Some might think that this is heavy alcoholism, but trust me when I say that having 1–2 drinks everyday in New York is more than normal. Maybe not heavy, but that sounds still pretty bad. Just because that’s possibly normal does not really make that better. I don’t even think I’d be able to function properly with that much alcohol, and I’m not a light drinker. That’s more than what I drank in University. > But removing coffee from my diet helped me become more relaxed. Coffee always made me stressed out. For those who have this problem but don’t want to skip coffee, I can recommend looking into L-Theanine [0] supplements. It’s a part of tea (mainly in green IIRC) and in combination with caffeine helps concentration and wakefulness without producing coffee jitters. [0]: https://examine.com/supplements/theanine/ https://examine.com/supplements/theanine/
- donmb 7y agoProblem is society exactly as the author describes. There is so much pressure on having drinks when going out. This is due to people trying to suppress their insecurity. Start with yourself: If a sober person is in your round, help him by not let other's in the group mob him. Do not say things like "ohhh why the fuck you not drink?" - just say "cool you don't drink, I respect that" and still do conversations although you do have a drink yourself. If your group does understand, that there are people who do not need a drink every time, it will help yourself also to "survive" in that group so it becomes more easy to go out sober. Me myself find it very hard to not drink - but I like to drink and I like to be slightly drunk every now and then. I know that and I live with it. Chances are that some day this might change :) good luck everyone with whatever helps you to feel better
- slimsag 7y agoThere are a lot of non-alcoholic (and sometimes non-caffeinated) drinks you can order at bars and restaurants, many people would not even know are non-alcoholic - just ask the bartender. If the people you are hanging out with are judging you for your life choices then they are assholes and you should honestly call them out on it and disassociate with them.
- donmb 7y agoexactly
- paxys 7y agoRemove alcohol, caffeine and sugar though and your drink choices are slim to none.
- llamataboot 7y agoThat's why god invented tonic water with a lime
- inferiorhuman 7y ago
- Dabz 7y ago> > Some might think that this is heavy alcoholism, but trust me when I say that having 1–2 drinks everyday in New York is more than normal. It is alcholism, maybe not heavy, but alcoholism nonetheless.
- exclusiv 7y agoI don't agree. Drinking 1-2 cans of coke doesn't make you dependent on coke as an example. You can simply enjoy coke even though you don't need it.
- wojcikstefan 7y agoIf you feel upset/unhappy (even mildly) any day you can't have your 2 cokes, that's a dependency.
- exclusiv 7y agoPerhaps, but that's my point with regard to the parents claim that 1-2 per day is definitely alcoholism. It may be for some people. Someone drinks 2 large vodka drinks, they are alcoholic. 1-2 glasses of wine, probably not.
- Symbiote 7y ago1-2 cocktails every other day, which is first given in the article, is 3½-7 a week. 2 per day is 14. A carefully made cocktail (e.g. in the stricter European countries where the measures must be accurate) might contain 40-60 mL of spirit (2 US fl oz ≈ 60 mL), depending on the standard measure in use. Taking 50 mL, each drink is 20 mL of ethanol (40% × 0.05 L). That's 75–140 mL/week, up to 280 mL/week if it's two cocktails a day. The medical recommendation in the UK is not to drink more than 140 mL/week. This is the low estimate. In the USA my experience is the barman pours in a bit extra (got to earn those tips!). I'm not sure how we define alcoholism, but with the other mentioned drinks (beer, wine etc) at minimum the author was drinking at the UK recommended limit, in likelihood somewhat more than that.
- jonplackett 7y agoI did the same thing, giving up coffee, alcohol and also sugar for about 2 years. I expected to feel superhuman but the truth is I felt basically the same, still often a bit tired on the morning - but I did get quite skinny.
- Ididntdothis 7y agoI always envy people who have these dramatic effects. I went vegetarian a few years ago and I don’t feel any better or worse. Same when I take marijuana. I feel a little heavy and dizzy but that’s it. Sometimes I wish I would find that thing that totally changes my life like other people claim to have found.
- seppin 7y agoThe big difference is when you stop abusing things like Coffee or Alcohol, if you quit causal use of either one I can't imagine the difference for your body being that much.
- mirekrusin 7y agoI guess you can experiment, for me chelated magnesium and sometimes l-tyrosine does the trick.
- kasperni 7y agoI hear you on magnesium, that thing is like a flip-switch on an overactive brain if you get the right type of it. What do you use l-tyrosine for?
- mirekrusin 7y agoI don’t know exactly why it works, may be related to vaping or something else, but for days when I’m lazy-brain dead-not motivated taking l-tyrosine on empty stomach seems to make me normal/productive again.
- zatkin 7y agoI don't drink alcohol, but I do drink two cups of coffee a day - one in the morning, and a second after lunch. The first cup is to wake me up in the morning and it makes me highly productive. The second is to avoid the food coma. If I ever feel stressed, I know I can go for a walk to exercise off the coffee. But most times I'm not.
- wojcikstefan 7y agoThis is the trap many people (including myself, for years) fall into... You develop dependency on coffee and then you claim it is what makes you focused and productive. But if you never had a cup of coffee in your life (or if you stop and let your body adjust), you'd be as focused and as productive without ever feeling like you're missing it.
- zatkin 7y agoI drank no coffee up through university and my productivity was sound - I ended up getting good grades. I started drinking coffee after I got a full-time job.
- ghego1 7y agoI also went without alcohol for 25 months and my expererience couldn't be more different. I never stopped going out for drinks. I always kept enjoying being with other people, it has never been about the alcohol going out. When going out for drinks, in the first couple of months I would simply order non alcoholic beverages. After a while I realized that it was unnecessarily expensive and I simply stopped ordering drinks. On this the author is right, this led to huge savings. I just got out for the fun of being with other people. As the author himself explains, the drinks are just an excuse to go out and do stuff. Unless of course someone has a problem with alcohol. I think that the only thing that I can really relate in the article is the difficulty of explaining why I was not drinking. But even that I think is something I did very differently from the author. After a few months in which I tried to explain myself, which got the kind of arguments the author mentions, I started saying that I just didn't like to drink. That's a pretty short answer and mostly no one investigates that. So in the end in my experience my social life was not affected in any negative way by not drinking. To be honest, if anything, I think it increased my social skills, as I was more focused and "awake" by not drinking. And this is a experience that still has positive impacts on my personality. The only reason I started to drink again is because I actually like the taste of most alcoholic beverages (wine, beer etc), so I was missing a good glass of wine with my dinner. On the contrary, the experience of the author reminds me of someone that has made alcohol a requirement of his/her social life. Which is looking troublesome because it denotes a poor relationship with alcohol. The author should focus on what's funny in going out without alcohol, which is what matters. Alcohol should not be what makes going out funny. I would suggest to everyone to go at least 1 year without alcohol while still going out and having a very active social life in a context where everyone else is drinking. This is a great way to better know yourself.
- tom_mellior 7y ago> I never stopped going out for drinks. I always kept enjoying being with other people, it has never been about the alcohol going out. The author writes the same about coffee: "I found out that “Going for a coffee” turned out to be more of a social activity than the actual craving for coffee. Keep the social habit, replace coffee with something else." They seem to be saying that they can't stand "gossip" in one setting (in a bar) but do enjoy it in another (in a coffee place). Maybe the author's acquaintances are really all terrible drunks, but maybe the author is just contradicting themselves to justify to themselves that alcohol is bad. I congratulate the author on stopping drinking, but article does wade a bit too deep into "I'm virtuous, you are all phonies" territory.
- headmelted 7y agoI was like $1,000 a month on coffee!? Then I saw that it’s cocktails every day. “Some people may call that heavy drinking”. Ya think? Also, here in Ireland, even we call $1,000 a month on alcohol pissing your money up a wall. It’s crass, but based on a large body of evidence from our history.
- jamisteven 7y ago"Assume that I have 2–3 cocktails every other day" Ehhh what, sorry but my friends that have 2-3 every other day I would tell them they have a problem. Is it some shock to the author that this is unhealthy and expensive?
- ubercow13 7y agoDepending how strong the cocktails are, 2 cocktails every other day doesn't seem to be much, if at all, over the NHS advice for regular drinking [1], for example. Would you really call out your friend as having a 'problem' based on that? [1] https://www.nhs.uk/news/food-and-diet/new-alcohol-advice-issued/ https://www.nhs.uk/news/food-and-diet/new-alcohol-advice-iss...
- kayoone 7y agoyeah, maybe not a problem but I would not call it "more than normal"