Quitting Alcohol

[Nevwild]

91 days without a drink. Life keeps getting better and better and better.

 

[Will_m]

I track sleep data, resting heart rate and hrv very closely. I can say without a shred of doubt and based on empirical evidence that alcohol absolutely wrecks this stuff. There’s no question about it.

Anecdotally, I can also say that I feel better. Particularly as to stress, which is a major thing for me in a relatively high stress profession. I also don’t have the problems sleeping. I can generally go to sleep without issue, wake up feeling rested and seldom have the midnight or early am wake ups where I am just wide awake and feel like hell for the day.

If you are serious about literally anything in your life—whether it’s your family, fitness, hunting or whatever—other than just getting a 30 minute period of elated happiness from a drunken stupor, then alcohol is absolutely and unconditionally holding you back.

I don’t have a problem at all with others drinking. In fact, being around people that drink doesn’t make me want to drink; it has the opposite effect. It reminds me how stupid it really is.

Bottom line is alcohol is bad. Absolute dog shit. I mean how many times have you been like “wow, I’m glad I decided to have those drinks.” It is costing you. A lot.

Edited to add kudos to those who have quit and are trying to quit. Keep the momentum going!

 

[ChrisA]

I track sleep data, resting heart rate and hrv very closely. I can say without a shred of doubt and based on empirical evidence that alcohol absolutely wrecks this stuff. There’s no question about it.

Anecdotally, I can also say that I feel better. Particularly as to stress, which is a major thing for me in a relatively high stress profession. I also don’t have the problems sleeping. I can generally go to sleep without issue, wake up feeling rested and seldom have the midnight or early am wake ups where I am just wide awake and feel like hell for the day.

If you are serious about literally anything in your life—whether it’s your family, fitness, hunting or whatever—other than just getting a 30 minute period of elated happiness from a drunken stupor, then alcohol is absolutely and unconditionally holding you back.

I don’t have a problem at all with others drinking. In fact, being around people that drink doesn’t make me want to drink; it has the opposite effect. It reminds me how stupid it really is.

Bottom line is alcohol is bad. Absolute dog shit. I mean how many times have you been like “wow, I’m glad I decided to have those drinks.” It is costing you. A lot.

Edited to add kudos to those who have quit and are trying to quit. Keep the momentum going!

Spot on! Exactly what I've experienced too

 

[OKHunter84]

I was in a similar boat to a lot of people that I've read on here, in that I wasn't what I would consider an alcoholic, but one or two beers a day. I would occasionally over indulge, but not on the regular.

At the end of October I had a complete quad tendon rupture on a solo elk hunt in Colorado. I was recovering and had been kicking the idea around about being completely sober, making more of an effort to be as healthy as I possibly could. So I decided to just quit screwing around and quit completely at least for a while.

Almost 4 months in and I feel great. I feel like I've wasted a lot of time and energy and held myself back with drinking all this time. I really have no desire to drink at all anymore. It's also been a good influence on family members and my wife as well.
Going to ball games, dinner or events and not worrying about driving home or any issues with that. I feel like I'm sleeping better, my workouts are better, I'm saving more money. I can't think of any facet of my life that would be better with alcohol.

I will admit that I can see it being hard to not have a beer with my Dad if we're sitting around a campfire on a hunt. I know he wouldn't care if I didn't, but I could see that being challenging for me.

 

[hunt1up]

My grandpa passed away last week at the young age of 91. It was expected so it is what it is. We had the services yesterday. I have several adult cousins in their 30s and 40s(myself 40) who also had/have trouble with alcohol. Drinking has always historically part of our family events. My grandpas family is of Slovak decent and always had strong drinking skills. My 3 step-cousins, all brothers of Irish decent have always had superhuman abilities when it comes to consuming alcohol as well.

I've now been alcohol free for 3 years and 7 months. I show up at the services and two of my other blood cousins were there. I rarely see them but we know what's going on in each other's lives. They both struggled similarly to me and both quit around the same time, about 3.5 years without. They're like different people, as am I. It was pretty refreshing.

Then my one step-cousin comes in. It's 9:00AM and he lives 1.5 hours away. I can tell from across the room he's plastered. He's 45 and looks 60. Eyes yellow, hair was messy. He comes over and gives me a hug. Since quitting I can smell alcohol like I'm a bloodhound, and I could smell him before he even got to me. We make small talk but it was completely one sided. I had to really pay attention to understand him. Everyone else in the family instantly knew it too.

So here I am at a funeral for a 91 year old man who lived a pretty solid life, and in front of me is a dude in his 40s whose running the car right off a cliff. He was there with his college aged kids who drove him there and home. He was telling me how it's cool he can go visit his kids in college and party with them.

It was a heavy day. I was close to my grandpa and certainly sad to see him go. But at the same time I was happy and even in some odd way envious of all the lives he impacted in a positive way. Lots of love in the room. Then in contrast I see a dude completely pissing his life away and he seemed completely oblivious to it. So in that vein I was almost pissed. If me and this particular cousin were closer I would have had words, though they would have fallen on deaf ears.

All that to say, it further strengthened my resolve to never go back to that way of life. I was never THAT bad, but it was certainly not good. I've got no time for it. Life is too short to stumble through it in a daze.

 

[thinhorn_AK]

I was in a similar boat to a lot of people that I've read on here, in that I wasn't what I would consider an alcoholic, but one or two beers a day. I would occasionally over indulge, but not on the regular.

At the end of October I had a complete quad tendon rupture on a solo elk hunt in Colorado. I was recovering and had been kicking the idea around about being completely sober, making more of an effort to be as healthy as I possibly could. So I decided to just quit screwing around and quit completely at least for a while.

Almost 4 months in and I feel great. I feel like I've wasted a lot of time and energy and held myself back with drinking all this time. I really have no desire to drink at all anymore. It's also been a good influence on family members and my wife as well.
Going to ball games, dinner or events and not worrying about driving home or any issues with that. I feel like I'm sleeping better, my workouts are better, I'm saving more money. I can't think of any facet of my life that would be better with alcohol.

I will admit that I can see it being hard to not have a beer with my Dad if we're sitting around a campfire on a hunt. I know he wouldn't care if I didn't, but I could see that being challenging for me.

You might be surprised. I was recently at a fishing lodge with my dad, we weren’t drinking because we were there to fish. The last thing I wanted to do was be hungover and have to get out out of my waders to crap like 10 times a day. Anyways we were the only ones NOT drinking and 4 of the 7 people in the lodge were drinking very heavily, I mean they would walk in, get out of their waders and start drinking bourbon, they would continue until dinner when they would switch to wine then back to bourbon after dinner. They acted like idiots, repeating themselves over and over again, saying innapropriate things, laughing at stupid things….and they didn’t catch any fish. Only 3 out of the 7 caught fish (me, my dad, one other guy). The guys drinking apparently couldn’t even fish that much because they were so hungover and would start drinking on the river. From listening to their stories, apparently they were well off, would take multiple trips yearly and do this same thing which apparently had led to arrests/detainments in places like Mongolia and French Polynesia for their drunken behavior, also, from all their stories it didn’t seem like they caught every many fish at all.

It just seems like sorting a lame way to be.

 

[OKHunter84]

You might be surprised. I was recently at a fishing lodge with my dad, we weren’t drinking because we were there to fish. The last thing I wanted to do was be hungover and have to get out out of my waders to crap like 10 times a day. Anyways we were the only ones NOT drinking and 4 of the 7 people in the lodge were drinking very heavily, I mean they would walk in, get out of their waders and start drinking bourbon, they would continue until dinner when they would switch to wine then back to bourbon after dinner. They acted like idiots, repeating themselves over and over again, saying innapropriate things, laughing at stupid things….and they didn’t catch any fish. Only 3 out of the 7 caught fish (me, my dad, one other guy). The guys drinking apparently couldn’t even fish that much because they were so hungover and would start drinking on the river. From listening to their stories, apparently they were well off, would take multiple trips yearly and do this same thing which apparently had led to arrests/detainments in places like Mongolia and French Polynesia for their drunken behavior, also, from all their stories it didn’t seem like they caught every many fish at all.

It just seems like sorting a lame way to be.

That sounds crazy. We never really did anything like that. Maybe just a couple beers around the campfire. If we are on a hunting trip, then hunting would be the main priority.

 

[dubllung4]

I am in the same boat as many others, I didn't think I had "a problem". I would have maybe a beer or two at night. Some weekends a couple more. Somewhere in the back of my head I always liked the idea of not drinking, just could not figure out how. I just loved sitting in the barn drinking a beer in the evenings while working on projects.

A couple months ago a buddy was over and talked me into trying Budweiser Zero. I was skeptical, but surprised at how "real" it tasted. I bought a case and haven't looked back. I can think of times in the past where I was likely short with my wife when she didn't deserve it, and I can't say that a couple beers didn't have an effect. It's hard to describe but I just feel so much better and have no desire to have a beer anymore. I've got a great family, a better job than I deserve, and it really just isn't worth it.

Funny enough is my dad was the exact same as me, and I'd always look forward to having a beer with him on weekends. He quit as well, but neither one of us told the other. Just recently found out by accident.

I'd really like to get my diet cleaned up now. I've been able to eat whatever junk I want and never really put on weight, but I know I'm not doing by body any favors.