<story><title>40 Days Without Booze</title><url>http://jdmoyer.com/2013/08/14/40-days-without-booze/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>bitops</author><text>&lt;i&gt;&amp;gt; booze enables workaholism, because of the fast unwind time&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;I think this is the key insight from the article. I went through a stressful period where I used alcohol to wind down quickly. But in reality it just made things worse because it numbed me up to the real reasons why I was stressed out. Sometimes though, we don&amp;#x27;t want to look at the deeper issues (emotional&amp;#x2F;psychological) for why we are unhappy, and booze provides some quick and effective relief.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;ve recently gotten much healthier and it&amp;#x27;s amazing to experience that the old adage about &amp;quot;making a lifestyle change&amp;quot; really is the core of it. All the different parts of your life have to hang together for the positive switch to happen. If you think of exercise and diet as a way to &amp;quot;pay down the debt&amp;quot; you&amp;#x27;ll never get out from under whatever is holding you down.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>nrivadeneira</author><text>I find that a hardcore workout works even better than alcohol. Not only do you get the same winding down effect in a short period of time (assuming you&amp;#x27;re really killing yourself and working to exhaustion in the gym), but you get a lot of additional benefits along with it: better focus, improved health, boosted confidence, and improved body composition. You wake up the next morning feeling a lot better about yourself. My experience with alcohol is often the opposite.</text></comment>
<story><title>40 Days Without Booze</title><url>http://jdmoyer.com/2013/08/14/40-days-without-booze/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>bitops</author><text>&lt;i&gt;&amp;gt; booze enables workaholism, because of the fast unwind time&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;I think this is the key insight from the article. I went through a stressful period where I used alcohol to wind down quickly. But in reality it just made things worse because it numbed me up to the real reasons why I was stressed out. Sometimes though, we don&amp;#x27;t want to look at the deeper issues (emotional&amp;#x2F;psychological) for why we are unhappy, and booze provides some quick and effective relief.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;ve recently gotten much healthier and it&amp;#x27;s amazing to experience that the old adage about &amp;quot;making a lifestyle change&amp;quot; really is the core of it. All the different parts of your life have to hang together for the positive switch to happen. If you think of exercise and diet as a way to &amp;quot;pay down the debt&amp;quot; you&amp;#x27;ll never get out from under whatever is holding you down.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>RougeFemme</author><text>Alcohol does help you wind down quickly, but, at least for me, it doesn&amp;#x27;t help me stay wound down. Even if I have a couple of drinks and then go to sleep, I don&amp;#x27;t stay asleep very long - a couple of hours at most. And when I wake up, I&amp;#x27;m more &amp;quot;wired&amp;quot; than I would be after a typical 2-hour nap. Having said all that, I still enjoy an occasional drink and the &amp;quot;slow&amp;quot; unwind that comes with that. But nothing beats the &amp;quot;lifestyle change&amp;quot;.</text></comment>