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I decided to give up alcohol for a year. That was three years ago and doubt I will ever go back. Aside from having better sleep than at any other point as an
by trts 5y ago
I decided to give up alcohol for a year. That was three years ago and doubt I will ever go back.
Aside from having better sleep than at any other point as an adult, I truly enjoy the activities I partake in just as much, if not more, than when I still paired them with alcohol. It took about 6 months to stop feeling like I was missing out, and now I feel like everyone else is.
Anxiety in general is noticeably lower (this was a huge windfall for me when the pandemic started).
Enjoyment of conversation, food, setting, all seem richer and doesn't flag as quickly once the alcohol is metabolized.
The end of the drinking activities don't leave me sleepy or craving bad food. I can go home and read a book or get some work done.
General reduction in workout recovery time and aches and pains.
Holidays are way easier to get through.
The only drawbacks have been the situations you discover are entirely dedicated to consumption, e.g. dive bars, beer gardens, work holiday parties and happy hours. Without having dulled your senses adequately, some of these things tend to be only loud, smelly, or without much to offer besides booze and banter.
- WrtCdEvrydy 5y agoI got a drone pilot's license. 8 hour limitation after drinking basically obliterated my drinking over night because the nieces can immediately be like "Can we fly the drone?". Not for everyone, because 13 year old nieces can be dangerous with drones.
- leifg 5y agoGenuine question: what do you drink instead? Do you stick to water or do you order any kind of soda/lemonade (or something I’m not thinking about)
- kevinmchugh 5y agoClub soda (or flavored seltzer) + bitters. There's alcohol there still but less than half a percent ABV. Not enough that it tastes boozy or impairs my judgement. Drinking one relatively low ABV beer impairs my judgement enough that a second drink sounds like a good idea, the soda and bitters never does that for me.
- germinalphrase 5y agoThis (or similar) is my go-to. In a rocks glass, it also looks enough like a cocktail that no one makes a point of asking (if that matters to you).
- carlmr 5y ago>no one makes a point of asking (if that matters to you). Actually it does kind of annoy me when I just drink water that people will ask all the time. My go to has been seltzer + lime + wedge because I do like to have some taste, and it does look cocktail-ish.
- czbond 5y agoI've loved club soda - and dislike alcohol; however, never thought of adding bitters. I like this idea a lot.
- crackercrews 5y agoHow are bitters with plain seltzer? I have a sodastream and am looking for some good flavors. Can't figure out anything that tastes as good as flavored bubly or lacroix and that doesn't have lots of sugar.
- Epenthesis 5y agoI personally like it a lot. It's my go-to at a bar when I don't feel like drinking That said I also like plain seltzer and bitter flavors generally (dark chocolate, black coffee, IPAs), so YMMV.
- mattlong 5y agoI love pairing bitters with my sodastream! A few of my favorite recipes are: 1) Grapefruit & Cherry, 2) Cardamom, and 3) Orange & Cranberry. Clearly it's all to taste, but a 3-4 dashes of each bitter is a good starting point for a ~16oz glass of seltzer. Fee Brothers sells a 12 piece variety pack which is a great way to experiment. After that you have quite a rabbit hole of bitters brands and flavors to explore!
- dlp211 5y agoI also gave up most drinking where I drink probably 5-6 times a year, usually with a dinner where I want a nice mixed cocktail or at a large holiday party/wedding, where again I can enjoy mixed cocktails. I personally drink soda as a replacement since I drink almost strictly water otherwise.
- ohazi 5y agoTangentially related anecdote: I went from always ordering a soft drink at restaurants to only drinking water. The swich occurred almost overnight, and I ended up losing about 25 lbs. The reason I did this was entirely social, and it happened by accident. My parents didn't have soft drinks at home, except occasional leftovers after a party, so ordering a soft drink at a restaurant was sort of a "special treat," even if it was an infinitely refillable fountain drink. It turns out 3 glasses of soda have a metric fuckton of sugar. Anyway, when I went to college, literally none of my friends would order soft drinks when we'd go out to eat. I'm not sure if it was because people were being thrifty, or for ease of splitting the bill, or maybe they just knew more about sugar than I did, but being the one person to order a soda felt so awkward that I just stopped and eventually never went back.
- 1980phipsi 5y agoI lost five pounds or so switching from Coke to Diet Coke.
- phkahler 5y agoThere is more weight loss to be had switching from Diet Coke to water. It's obviously not the calorie content, but the insulin response from sweet tasting things that will occur even with artificial sweeteners.
- koolba 5y agoDoes that apply to all artificial sweeteners such as sucralose or is it specific to aspartame?
- lotsofpulp 5y agoI have yet to find a single study confirming any rumored ill effects of artificial sweeteners, including aspartame. At least in any reasonable consumption amounts since you need so little of the sweetener.
- 5y ago
- crackercrews 5y agoI prefer to eat my calories rather than eat them. So I drink water and soda water 95% of the time.
- graeme 5y agoIf available, sparkling water with lemon. Another commenter mentioned bitters, I plan to add that. They’re fine as long as the incredibly tiny alcohol amount won’t cause any issues. If that isn’t available, some sort of soda or tea or coffee. Or, just water. No one really cares, though to be polite to the bar you’re at it’s good to try to buy something.
- mumblemumble 5y agoI've also discovered that my favorite gin and tonic doesn't actually contain any gin. Tonic water and lime suits me just fine.
- tingletech 5y agoa lot of beer places near me carry lagunitas hop water. It's zero calorie sparking water with a hoppy flavor.
- philips 5y agoDry kombucha is a really nice alternative at 50 - 100 calories a can. My go to this summer https://www.lionheartkombucha.com/flavors/ https://www.lionheartkombucha.com/flavors/
- yojo 5y agoI'm also a fan of kombucha (and make it at home), but it's not quite a non-alcoholic beverage. Commercial kombucha is generally < .5%, homebrew can be up to 10x that. It's a two step process - yeast ferments the sugar into alcohol, then bacteria digest the alcohol into acid. If the bacteria fall behind, the ABV goes up. The yeast can work anaerobic, the bacteria need O2 to get the job done. Anything not pasteurized is likely going to increase in ABV some in the bottle, since the yeast are active and the bacteria aren't. This is also why I force carbonate my home-brew - when you build CO2 with a secondary ferment you're also building alcohol.
- smegger001 5y agoyup. I ferment craft soda in my cellar. root beer, ginger beer, cream soda, and I have to be careful or it starts to get a noticeable alcohol content. most of my friends drink when we get together and I am not fond of the flavor of beer. But home brew ginger beer seems to fill the space and I can drive home after as the sodas when done properly have like 1% or less abv. just have to pasteurize it at the right point or drink it soon enough.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- TheTrotters 5y agoFlavored sparkling water
- paulgb 5y agoI've replaced the beer in my fridge with Athletic Brewing's non-alcoholic beer.
- matwood 5y agoHow do you like it? I like the taste of beer, and often want something more than water at night. But, I don't typically have alcohol except on the weekends (my wife and I joke about 2 beers and things are getting crazy lol). So during the week I often drink milk or a sugar free sports drink. Tea is also ok, but I try to avoid all caffeine late in the day.
- paulgb 5y agoIt's not exactly the same taste as beer but they satisfy my cravings. They've completely replaced the occasional beer I have with dinner in the evening, and if I drink socially I often alternate between them and “real beer” so that I don't pay for it the next day.
- meheleventyone 5y agoThere’s a couple of really good non-alcoholic beers here in Iceland. For want of a better explanation the flavour is really there but it lacks the edge or bite of real beer. I don’t know if it’s flavour or feel but it’s noticeable. That said due to recent medical stuff I’ve been drinking it and think I could stick with it long term.
- losvedir 5y agoI'm in a similar position, and lately I've been having flavored sparkling waters (Mmm Orange Bubly) and herbal (i.e. non-caffeinated) teas, depending if I want hot or cold. Obviously they don't taste like beer, but what I found was at least for me after doing it a while, it's not really the taste I wanted; that was just the association I had with the ritual I enjoyed of a nightcap, and now I'm happy with my new ones.
- sciurus 5y agoThey're decent, and definitely towards the top of the pack of non-alcoholic beer brands. Clausthaler is also ok if you prefer a lager to an ale. (I spent a couple months trying every variety of non-alcoholic "craft" beer that I could get my hands on earlier in the pandemic)
- globular-toast 5y agoNot OP, but I've also stopped drinking entirely and my standard go-to is a lime soda. I've never been somewhere where this is not known and it's not overly sweet or expensive. It looks enough like a drink to be a drink, if you know what I mean.
- waterglassFull 5y agoGive quality sparkling water a go if you can, eg San Pellegrino, Castello, Harrogate (glass only), etc.
- bitcurious 5y agoUsually seltzer, coffee, tea. Recently I discovered Hoplark “hop teas” which (to my tastebuds) separate the best parts of beer from the alcohol.
- sciurus 5y agoIf you like hop-flavored beverages, definitely try Lagunitas Hoppy Refresher.
- coderintherye 5y agoAs another non-drinker, Kombucha and occasionally non-alcoholic beers. Kombucha has a tiny bit of alcohol (<0.5%) and tastes a bit like a soda but has a tiny amount of sugar (usually only 8g / serving).
- danwills 5y agoAnd as long as it hasn't been pasteurized, is a living probiotic too. (though I prefer milk kefir myself)
- spodek 5y agoFor reference, humans drank only water after weaning for several hundred thousand years. Today we act like only water is deprivation.
- Ericson2314 5y agoI found eating or drinking later has started to mess me up. (see e.g. the 3 hours before bed rule from the literature around circadian arrhythmia.) Between that in particular, and all the intermittent fasting faddishness in the air, calories in drinks, especially outside mealtime, just began to feel weird. Water it is.
- marton_s 5y agoI live in Germany where beer is abundant and so are the non-alcoholic variants. My favorite is non-alcoholic Hefeweizen - unfiltered wheat beer: no spoiled taste, the only thing absent is alcohol.
- graeme 5y agoExactly the same experience. Gave it up after a concussion, substantially happier now. I notice the effects of even a single drink the next day.
- agumonkey 5y ago> Anxiety in general is noticeably lower you were more anxious when you were drinking ? that's a first not to look naive, but there was a period of my life having a beer [0] was really the only way for me to exist outside my bedroom walls, i wasn't even tipsy.. I was just able to sit in a room without crippling dread. [0] I didn't drink, but the few times I did at parties I realized how drinking a bit was lifting me up to ~people's normal
- tw600040 5y ago> you were more anxious when you were drinking ? that's a first drinking habit increases baseline anxiety. it's not that having a drink will make you more anxious in next few hours.
- altcognito 5y agoConditions like GERD where stomach acids come up into the esophagus can be mistaken for anxiety or panic attacks. Alcohol can make GERD type symptoms a lot worse.
- trhway 5y agoit isn't necessary mistaken. The issues like GERD and some other around stomach/digestion affect how your muscles handle the diaphragm and that may strangle the breathing in various ways and also obstruct heart beating movements - that all limits the oxygen supply, and while sitting relaxed doing nothing the oxygenation may be sufficient it struggles to cover any additional increased requirements which spike due to increased body and/or brain activity, and that insufficient oxygen delivery naturally makes one feel anxious.
- ryantgtg 5y agoInteresting. If I get drunk two nights in a row, there are high chances that I’ll wake up the night with a panic attack. I grew up with panic attacks, and they were random and I had no clue what was happening to me until college when I first learned of the phrase (prior to that I just referred to it as “the chaos”). I can control and fight them off them now. But if I drink too much, then my mind and body are weakened and I can’t fight them off (while sleeping!). Anyway, I’ll look up this GERD thing.
- methyl 5y agoHow much you used to drink before?
- fokinsean 5y ago> The end of the drinking activities don't leave me sleepy or craving bad food. I can go home and read a book or get some work done. This is one of my biggest motivations for reducing my drinking during the week. Even having just one or two beers after work, the probability that I read or work on a side project drops close to 0.
- Rapzid 5y agoThis is also why I very rarely day-drink. Couple beers in afternoon and if I even stop nothing productive happens for the rest of the day. Even if something productive did happen I would get tired and have to take a nap. Now my sleep schedule is even more wrecked. Strictly a night drinker.
- cecilpl2 5y agoSame here. A drink at lunch and the rest of my day is pretty much shot, so it's only happening if I'm on vacation or my plan was to lie on the beach all day anyway.
- baron_harkonnen 5y ago> the probability that I read or work on a side project drops close to 0. As someone who has done quite a few major projects on personal time and reads quite a lot as well: I personally have found the attitude that I must always be working on something or "improving myself" far more dangerous than excessive drinking. Certainly there is balance, and I obviously don't advocate giving up all personal projects in order to drink. But the fact that many people on HN, myself included, feel bad if they're not working on some side project or improving some skill is its own kind of escapism. I drink and smoke weed a lot more now then when I was younger. I still get many projects done, and read a ton, but there is a certain value to an evening spent stoned just getting lost in a video game or listening to music. Reflecting on it now, I also find that by any objective measure the output from my personal projects is always probably a bit higher now, though I have a lot more fun.
- fokinsean 5y ago
- ckosidows 5y agoCurious about your age? Does this get easier as you get older? I stopped drinking for 6 months and then a friend got a new job and my birthday rolled around. I felt like the situations called for celebratory drinking or that it was expected. I really enjoyed my period of non-drinking and I feel exactly the same as you in regards to sleep, anxiety and well-being. But being in my late 20s I feel like people around my age just expect drinking and going out.
- RobotCaleb 5y agoI'm sure that it feels like a real problem, but it really isn't. I haven't drank anything for my 39 years of life and I have found most people to be quite accepting of it and those that aren't aren't worth it.
- teachingassist 5y agoIn my experience: some people may take it as a personal reflection on them, if you stop drinking, and will react negatively. (I don't recommend keeping those people in your life.)
- matwood 5y agoPart age and part friends. As people get older many stop or cut back their drinking. Responsibilities means there's no time. Real friends support you if not drinking is something you want to do. It also doesn't have to be a binary thing. I go months without drinking and then have a beer or wine because I want one.
- tootie 5y agoI'm sure it just varies a ton from person to person. As much as some people (notably alcoholics) find it extremely difficult to stop drinking, I pretty much stopped without even trying. Got married, had kids, stopped hanging out so much with friends. I just didn't drink for months at a time and didn't really notice. I never consciously quit drinking, but I average maybe 2 drinks a month now and don't miss it. I also never really found that alcohol really relaxed me emotionally.
- grumple 5y agoI went to a party the other night and didn't drink at all. Very unusual. I brought a bottle of tequila for the host and friends. Strangely, I didn't feel anxious at all, despite having pretty high general anxiety. My energy levels were higher than usual, which I felt was connected to not drinking. I felt totally normal in my social interactions, didn't force anything, felt good. I kept my water bottle in hand and never felt out of place. It was a good lesson that alcohol is not needed to have a good time.
- heavyset_go 5y agoI stopped drinking because I wasn't going out due to the pandemic. I've come to a similar conclusion, and intend to make this a long-term decision.
- globular-toast 5y agoThe last time I had a drink was a beer festival. I used to drink beer a lot in my early 20s and beer festivals were something I looked forward to. I slept terribly that night and felt awful the next day. It suddenly dawned on me that this happened every time and I realised alcohol does nothing good for me at all. It's expensive, unhealthy, slows my senses, makes me less funny, makes me worse at sex, makes me sleep worse and often ruins the next day. I don't plan to ever drink again. It is necessary to have the confidence to order something non-alcoholic and be straight with people if they question it. I don't drink. If they ask why (which is exceedingly rare), I ask why they don't smoke. That usually gets the message across.
- fastball 5y agoA eureka moment was required for you to realize that... alcohol induces hangovers?
- globular-toast 5y agoI used to think there was some kind of intake threshold and hangovers were the result of surpassing that threshold. The "eureka" moment was realising that any amount alcohol made me feel worse.
- pedalpete 5y agoI'm in a similar boat. I stopped, but without a timeframe for how long. I just knew I had to cut back, but that wasn't working well, so I just stopped, and when I was offered a drink, I'd say "I don't drink", because here in Australia, I find if you say no to a drink, it's mostly forced on you. The statement put an end to that. However, I also internalized being an non-drinker. It became part of my identity. I don't notice a measurable difference in my life, which is also part of the reason I didn't pick it up again. It wasn't enriching my life, but I'm also not a better person without it. Having said all that, I am still looking for a replacement for what to drink when I do go to a bar. So far nobody has hit the right mixture of a drink that isn't defined by being non-alcoholic, but replaces the "I deserve this" attitude of having a drink .
- lemonberry 5y agoMy favorite non-alcoholic beverage is equal parts soda water and tonic water, a couple of splashes of orange juice and a few dashes of bitters. Tweak as necessary. At the holidays I like non-alcoholic sparkling apple juice. I also find soda water out of a can to be a good beer replacement on hot days. I think part of this is the sound of opening the can and the carbonation. No idea if any of those will fit your needs.
- Marsymars 5y agoHaving tried many drinks, I try to trend away from acidic ones for the sake of my teeth. Doesn't leave much though. Peppermint tea.
- pedalpete 5y agoYeah, it still feels like "soda", which is what I'm trying to get away from. I've been speaking to a friend about creating something new. My requirements are: - not trying to be alcohol/imitation alcohol - not soda/juice/kombucha - has the "occasion" attitude of alcohol I admit this is probably 90% branding and 10% the drink itself. As I was mentioning to my friend, you probably wouldn't feel strange ordering a redbull at a bar without the vodka, because of the marketing and how it isn't considered a soft-drink. I don't know anybody that drinks redbull every day (though I'm sure there are people that do). Something more mature than a soft drink in flavor profile, something that I hopefully don't chug, so it lasts like a cocktail or beer. Keen to hear others thoughts on that. There's Lyres https://lyres.com/ https://lyres.com/ - which pretends to be gin/wisky/etc And Non (https://non.world https://non.world) - which is very juice, but at the price of wine.