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I quit drinking ~9 years ago. I tried to start several companies while drinking, built and exited a company after quitting. Now I work as an exec coach w/ a foc

by caser 5y ago

I quit drinking ~9 years ago. I tried to start several companies while drinking, built and exited a company after quitting. Now I work as an exec coach w/ a focus on recent applied research in behavioral psychology. All that to say, I’ve thought a lot about both healthy / unhealthy alcohol use and productivity. Here’s my $0.02. I’m not of the mind that no one should drink, but if you’re noticing that it’s hard to work and be productive without alcohol, you might want to explore that more before going back to drinking. It could be as simple as you’re using alcohol to get past the initial discomfort of starting a task / etc, or it could be that it’s a way of avoiding some deeper emotional issue (anxiety, depression, ptsd, etc). Regardless, even if you continue drinking, it would be ideal if you could access vitality and excitement and productivity without needing alcohol, so you can freely choose when to drink and when not to. If you can’t be productive without drinking, on some level you’ve developed a dependence on it, and this is not typically a great place to be. Even if you never have major consequences, it just tends to make the joy of everything else a little duller. The fact that you’ve quit for 6 months and still aren’t feeling more excited seems indicative that something else is going on, whether you’ve replaced alcohol with something else (caffeine, nicotine), you actually don’t enjoy your work, or you were drinking quite a bit and your brain is still recovering. It can take 6-24 months for people who were significantly alcohol dependent to get through “post acute withdrawal” and return to normal brain activity. If you drink during that period, it more or less resets. Anyways, hope the above is helpful for some context. If you want to talk, drop me a note.

reactspa 5y ago
Good points, thank you. There are definitely anxiety, depression, ptsd types of issues at play. After reading your and others' comments, I've decided to skip the alcohol for as long as I can and work on other modalities to try and increase my passion and motivation for work. Maybe I'm burned out and need a sabbatical or break.
- caser 5y ago
  I hear you — taking some time off can definitely help. The one other idea I’d offer is that the way you’re talking about drinking is a sort of “dead person goal.” In behavioral psych we define this as a goal that a dead person can accomplish better than an alive person. A dead person will be really good at not drinking. To turn it into an “alive person goal,” all you need to do is make it positive — ask yourself, what am I moving towards that I care about by not drinking? Maybe this is a better relationship with work, connection to family, health, or even something like making space for healing. Whatever it is, the more you can focus on what you do want to move towards rather than what you want to move away from, the greater chance you’ll have at tapping into vitality and engagement in your day to day. All that being said, this can be easier said than done. Especially if you’re burnt out, taking time off and getting back in touch with doing things for the intrinsic rewards can go a long way towards rekindling the spirit.

by caser 5y ago

reactspa 5y ago

Good points, thank you. There are definitely anxiety, depression, ptsd types of issues at play. After reading your and others' comments, I've decided to skip the alcohol for as long as I can and work on other modalities to try and increase my passion and motivation for work. Maybe I'm burned out and need a sabbatical or break.

caser 5y ago
I hear you — taking some time off can definitely help. The one other idea I’d offer is that the way you’re talking about drinking is a sort of “dead person goal.” In behavioral psych we define this as a goal that a dead person can accomplish better than an alive person. A dead person will be really good at not drinking. To turn it into an “alive person goal,” all you need to do is make it positive — ask yourself, what am I moving towards that I care about by not drinking? Maybe this is a better relationship with work, connection to family, health, or even something like making space for healing. Whatever it is, the more you can focus on what you do want to move towards rather than what you want to move away from, the greater chance you’ll have at tapping into vitality and engagement in your day to day. All that being said, this can be easier said than done. Especially if you’re burnt out, taking time off and getting back in touch with doing things for the intrinsic rewards can go a long way towards rekindling the spirit.