
Ask HN: What benefits of quitting alcohol consumption? - throw51319
I&#x27;ve decided to do a &quot;dry&quot; January and if I can do it, will try to extent to all of 2020.<p>I didn&#x27;t drink often, not more than once a week. But it was usually a binge episode, having at least 10 drinks.<p>Has anybody stopped? What were the benefits? I am thinking that the reduction of stress on the body might lead to clearer thinking during work, etc.
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ramraj07
Another angle: ego.

Never drank in my life till 25 due to growing up in India and luckily finding
myself among folks who didn't drink most of the time. I then had a chance to
decide without baggage and never drink in my life.

The voluntary reasons are several, but the primary is the fact that I respect
my authority over my mind too much. Even if you're slightly drunk, you're
legally not allowed to drive. Neither are you considered "able" to give
consent for things. Suggests to me (rightly?) That we momentarily don't
consider people who are drunk as human, but as some mentally challenged being
that is incapable of good reason. I personally feel like voluntarily becoming
a mentally challenged person just to get a buzz is just too demeaning, so it
encourages me to stay dry.

Why completely dry? It's always easiest to draw the line where it's absolutely
clear, and with "addictive" things like drinking it's easiest to draw it at 0.

~~~
throw51319
Yeah I agree with the completely dry. My parents are always like "just have a
few!". Which I can do at family events, etc. But at a big party, it is tougher
and sometimes impossible to just have 2-3.

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bawolff
>I didn't drink often, not more than once a week. But it was usually a binge
episode, having at least 10 drinks.

Just fyi, i think most people would consider having 10 drinks in a single
session, once a week, to be "often"

~~~
throw51319
I live in NYC so maybe it is more excessive. But usually if you start at
9:30pm and end at 3am... that's 2 an hour. Not unrealistic. Honestly it's
usually even more for me.

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PaulHoule
So far as binge drinking:

I used to go to parties, drink too much, and then act like a jerk.

My brother-in-law kicked me out of his house. After I stopped binge drinking
and atoned I get along better with my brother-in-law, which is a real benefit.

Otherwise:

The worst immediate consequence of overdrinking is that you feel worse the
next day. Alcohol can mess up your sleep and also feed into the metabolic
disorder behind insulin resistance and Type II diabetes.

I don't think you will notice a difference between 2 beers a night and no
alcohol at all, but if you drink more than that you probably will perform
worse the next day.

~~~
throw51319
Nice. That is pretty much the same reason I am stopping. Did you notice any
other benefits on a large or small scale?

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f_nachos
Alcohol is known by medical science to be

\- neurotoxic.

\- carcinogenic.

If that's not persuasive, I don't know what else could be.

~~~
asjw
So are wasted fumes coming from your car, without the benefits

The same can be said for barbeques

When will people stop pretending that changing one thing doesn't really change
anything in life in general?

Drinking is like everything else: if you do it with moderation it is not that
harmful

If you don't, you got bigger problems

~~~
f_nachos
If you're implying that I am overestimating risk by comparing it to barbecued
meat and exposure to vehicle exhaust then I would say that maybe you're
underestimating risk from those two things.

I personally avoid barbecued meat for that exact reason, as well as refrain as
much as possible from huffing exhaust fumes. If a lifestyle that allowed me to
avoid being near cars were reasonably easy to achieve I would choose it.
Because as you say, car exhaust is neurotoxic and carcinogenic.

~~~
asjw
I work in healthcare in Italy, where we live more than anyone else in the
World, on average, except for the Japanese.

You are overestimating the causality between consumption and actual damages.

Consumption is ok, abuse is not.

Even too many showers can kill your skin

Of course if you have a condition even a simple contact can be deadly (think
about favism)

And of course people are free to not drink, there's no shame in that, but
don't think that it will give you more chances to have a long life than
someone who drinks moderately

It's like smoking, it is bad, you shouldn't do it, but truth is that smoking a
couple cigarettes a day is like not smoking at all

Paracelso said, many centuries ago, that it's t he dose that makes the poison
and it's still true.

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helph67
A few recent links for your consideration... [http://cancerherald.com/alcohol-
itself-causes-cell-damage-an...](http://cancerherald.com/alcohol-itself-
causes-cell-damage-and-mutations-and-its-metabolite-acetaldehyde-is-highly-
carcinogenic/)

[https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/07/190708084334.h...](https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/07/190708084334.htm)

[https://neurosciencenews.com/age-alcohol-
consumption-10835/?...](https://neurosciencenews.com/age-alcohol-
consumption-10835/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+neuroscience-
rss-feeds-neuroscience-news+\(Neuroscience+News+Updates\))

~~~
throw51319
Thanks for the info! I think the 2nd link doesn't work.

~~~
ken
Google search suggests the title of that page began with "Quitting alcohol may
improve mental well-being, health ...", which leads to pages like [1] with the
same title from around the same date.

[1]: [https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2019-07/ji-
qam070319...](https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2019-07/ji-
qam070319.php)

------
alt_f4
I don't drink at all anymore, but I also never liked the taste. I used to
drink socially (maybe a beer or two or three, once a week), but I found better
friends, so I don't need to do that anymore. It's been like 5 years.

> What were the benefits?

The benefits are that I look younger and I'm definitely smarter and sharper
than people that binge once a week at my age. Alcohol dehydrates you (which
makes you look older) but it also destroys your brain, especially in binges.

The downsides are some people try to peer pressure you or try to make you feel
bad for not drinking in social situations.

My $0.02 are - if you can't do a dry January, for whatever reason, then you
probably have a drinking problem and need help.

~~~
ramraj07
I don't drink and I _really_ wish it were true, but just drinking (unless
you're alcoholic) by itself doesn't make you "dumber". You probably are
anecdotally associating idiots around you (who tend to drink like the morons
they are) with causation.

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aeternum
Just for a counter opinion: I only drink on the weekends in social situations,
but have gone 2-3 months without as an experiment.

I didn't notice any difference other than it completely resets your tolerance.
After the break it only takes one beer to feel buzzed, whereas before it was
2-3. In a big city, I'd recommend trying it once regardless of the benefits
because it is challenging from a social POV. A surprising number of events
center around alcohol, and people think it is strange that you're not
drinking.

~~~
bradhe
> After the break it only takes one beer to feel buzzed

Not sure if this was your experience, but at the same time hangovers get
_enormously_ more painful!

~~~
Symbiote
I thought that was just because I was getting older.

(A couple of people 5 years older than me say the same thing.)

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rdiddly
You will save a ton of time, money, energy and productivity that you currently
waste in going drinking and recovering from drinking.

I mostly stopped, not particularly by trying, but just by sort of growing out
of the lifestyle and almost like, "forgetting" to drink, after a while. I'm
big on the forgetting thing. When I failed to quit smoking dozens of times, it
was by paying close attention to what day/time I was going to stop, how long
it had been since then, etc. In other words, thinking a lot about smoking. The
time when I finally succeeded, was the time when I just sort of forgot to
smoke. Although note that there was undoubtedly an "infrastructure of
forgetting" in place, without which it wouldn't have been possible to forget.
For example the band I was in (with two smokers) broke up, so I stopped being
reminded so often of smoking. So set yourself up for success by going through
and trying to get rid of things that remind you of drinking. And don't make a
big deal of it or count the days. Certainly "Only 5 days left until I can
drink again" is a sign of failure, but in my opinion so is "Alcohol-free for
12 days! ... 13 days! ... 14 days!" Makes me thirsty just typing it! The
biggest indicator of success in my book would be that the thought doesn't
enter your head, and you're not paying any attention to it. Fill the extra
time that you save, especially at first, with new or neglected activities that
are more interesting & pleasant, yet not too demanding, so that you have
better things to do and experience and think about.

~~~
throw51319
So true about "forgetting". I've also come to the same conclusion, in my
experiences with other substances. If I simply forgot about it being something
that I would do, it just seemed a lot easier.

For instance, a nic vape, I would just put it in a drawer after the last coil
finished... and within a day I forgot about taking hits in the morning or
while on the computer.

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mc3
* All the cliche health benefits and then some! Car analogy: you'll fire up the other 2 cylinders while no longer needing to tow a caravan. Combine with exercise and better diet which will be easier to stick to due to no drugs to sap your will power.

* Ability to drive places. Not worry about being "DUI" the same or next day.

* You'll exercise your ability to say no! In the UK for example it is sacrilegious to not drink unless you have a good excuse, which apart from religion (along with appropriate ethnicity to make that believable) there seems to be no acceptable excuse. So you can say "fuck you, I'm not drinking that shitty poison" and be an outcast for a while, then find people worth hanging out with.

Australia is not as bad because of the sport culture. "My personal trainer
said no" is acceptable and most places I have work have had a mild to zero
drink culture.

Not sure about the US, but I get the impression that like Australia and unlike
UK, Russia, etc. it more acceptable to not drink.

~~~
el_dev_hell
> Australia is not as bad because of the sport culture. "My personal trainer
> said no" is acceptable and most places I have work have had a mild to zero
> drink culture.

That's a pretty specific edge case.

If you're sitting at the pub with friends or work colleagues and you're the
only one not drinking, you can expect some irritating comments.

I've learned to deal with it. I've figured out the main reason people push a
drink on you is to justify their bad choices (e.g if you're at the pub with
Bob and he's sinking 12 pints tonight, he doesn't want a reminder that he's
killing his body and will have a terrible hangover in a few hours).

~~~
boblebricoleur
When I tried to stop drinking in college, I used to fill empty beer bottles
with water to drink at parties. This helped a lot with social pressure. I
reckon one could do the same in a pub if the bartender is understanding and
discrete, but I never tried it.

~~~
chrisco255
Nowadays just get some Topo Chico (carbonated water) or you can drink the
Heineken Zero.

------
wetpaws
I did it for year. Two big benefits: first, you are loosing weight (I lost ~10
pounds) and second, craving has gone. It was seriously concerning me and a big
motivator to quit.

I did not find much difference in how I feel, but at least this disgusting
feeling in your mouth in the morning has gone too.

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cyorir
Binge drinking is not synonymous with alcoholism, but comes with many
downsides nevertheless. The benefit to stopping binge drinking is to avoid the
associated risks of binge drinking (including risks to health). Avoiding binge
drinking could certainly improve work performance. However, just trying to
avoid binge drinking may be difficult. I would consult a health professional
who specializes in addiction.

[https://americanaddictioncenters.org/alcoholism-
treatment/bi...](https://americanaddictioncenters.org/alcoholism-
treatment/binge-drinking-problem)

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supernintendo
Lifestyle judgments aside, you'll certainly save a lot of money in the long
term.

Good luck! I'm trying to rein in my affinity for craft beer (I love the beer
but hate the empty calories that come with it).

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cmdshiftf4
>I've decided to do a "dry" January and if I can do it, will try to extent to
all of 2020.

There's no "can" about it, you'll do it, and you'll enjoy it. Whether it has
to be a whole 2020 thing is up to you.

Personally I do dry months during the comparatively quieter social periods at
the start and near-end of the year (leading up to Christmas), and I find that
I both enjoy the months where I allow myself to drink and those that I remain
dry all the more because of it. YMMV.

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batt4good
I reached six months alcohol free in January. I didn't have a problem but once
I turned 23 I found my body just seemed to no longer tolerate alcohol and
decided just to try not drinking for a while.

To be honest, my life hasn't really changed as a result (socially), but I
definitely feel healthier, have a clearer head and my skin has never been
better.

Friends from college that kept drinking 4-5 times a week (2-7 drinks per
outing), especially women, appear to have aged years more than me.

~~~
alt_f4
> Friends from college that kept drinking 4-5 times a week (2-7 drinks per
> outing), especially women, appear to have aged years more than me.

I have observed this too. Not sure why but this and also smoking seems to hit
women's age appearance a lot more than men's.

~~~
batt4good
It's really kind of uncanny. I think the root of it is alcohol dries out your
skin and causes lots of mid-level inflammation. Smoking is just all around bad
for your body (I didn't realize it causes your body to heal about half as fast
- although I've never smoked), granted your face is always inches away from a
source of smoke.

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boblebricoleur
here is a testimony that motivated me to try and stop like you are :
[https://thinkfaster.co/2019/02/quitting-
alcohol/](https://thinkfaster.co/2019/02/quitting-alcohol/)

------
moxd
Take the problem at the source and ask yourself why do you need to get wasted?

~~~
throw51319
Yeah true. I thought about this a lot and I think it is an expression of some
inner nihilism and a self-destructive habit. By trying to focus on something
creative and doing a good job, I can put the nihilism at bay and thus my
desire to self-destruct through drinking is reduced.

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smallcharleston
I wonder why some folks seem to only go on these huge drinking sprees. Why do
few people seem to discuss simply drinking 0-2 drinks daily? Ie using
moderation like an adult.

~~~
cmdshiftf4
I don't go on huge drinking "sprees", but I feel like this comment applies to
me.

I don't drink during the week as I reserve it for social occasions, even
though I really enjoy certain drinks (wines, cocktails and liquours). I also
eat healthily during the week and try to look after myself physically and
mentally.

I'm pretty actively social, between family and friends, and we get together
pretty often. That manifests itself usually with a dinner, with a drink or two
proceeding it depending on the time available, drinks over a nice slow dinner,
maybe a digestif and then either relaxing with a couple bottles of wine and
good conversation at one of our houses/apartments or maybe move on to go
listen to some music, go dancing, etc.

All-in-all, over the course of a typical 5:30pm to 2am gathering, that can
equate to quite a few units of alcohol (at one unit per hour you'd be looking
at 8.5 units, and it doesn't take an hour to finish a cocktail or glass of
wine) and the majority of the time it's not people getting wasted, it's simply
enjoying themselves with a variety of alcoholic beverages they enjoy.

I, and I'm sure many others, enjoy this approach while also enjoying not
drinking on a day-to-day, "more moderate" approach.

