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I've always been circling around alcoholism. My dad was an alcoholic. I had been drinking heavily between 16 and 26, it got a bit better afterwards, but I still was very much into binging every other weekend. After I had turned 30, my life got significantly better. To cut the story short, I just stabilized. Both professionally (I'm a teacher) and mentally. Alcohol still kept lingering around. I drank with colleagues and friends, I always had a bottle of vodka in my fridge. I never drank on work days, only on Friday and Saturday. But when I got hammered, I really knocked myself out.
Years moved by, I was getting a hold on my career, while becoming more and more aware of my habits. I'm by no means against drugs, I never have been. Some drugs have significantly improved my view on myself and life - especially LSD - others have shown me that I don't need them to be happy. And then Covid happened. Lockdown, home schooling, you know the story. A dangerous time for someone like me. In April 2020 I still drank from time to time, but I started noticing how disinterested I had become into being drunk. It was just not the mental state I wanted to be in.
Summer came and went, asides from a few beers here and there, I was living a sober life. I stopped buying alcoholic beverages around November 2020. I slowly realized how much alcohol had influenced my adulthood. Drinking is accepted - almost necessary - where I grew up. My home town is in a region in rural Bavaria, there used to be a steel factory, but these times are long gone. Luckily, I met like-minded people back then, who also weren't really fitting in. But there was one thing that united us with the townsfolk: We also were drinking heaviiy. Beer and booze at the youth club, in the pub, at private parties, basically everywhere. Rituals were formed. I don't regret a thing, I wouldn't be me if I had chosen differently back then. But the alcohol somehow always was there. We had fun, we had terrible nights, you know how it goes.
So here we are. Covid slowly is on its way out, even though we will have to learn to live with it being around. Somehow this feels oddly similar to my relationship to alcohol. It slowly disappeared from my life until it stopped being a thing at all. I know myself well enough to say that there might come a day when I start drinking again. But right now, there's no need to be drunk.
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Congratulations. I always found it weird how in Germany drinking is just part of social life. Like there's no awareness that it can be addictive or detrimental beyond the theoretical knowledge, which is funny when you think about how strongly German culture on average rejects almost anything that could be harmful or dangerous. Even smoking is strongly looked down upon nowadays, but getting drunk a lot is still perfectly normal and part of almost every teens' life. I can't count how often people tried to get me to drink with them and how often I was the odd one for saying that I don't like it.
I feel that slowly loosing interest part with a lot of my old hobbies, but I've not really found stuff I'd like to do instead. Glad that it's been different for you with drinking and you could remove it without feeling that you lost something.
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so what do you do on fridays/saturdays now instead?
i'm pretty much the same, getting wasted on fri/sat and going to school on mon/tues wanting to die every fucking week recently
popped my head in a gym literally yesterday coz had some spark of life in me crop up (didn't sign up just looked around)
to other guy: my 'culture' in the UK was fuckin retarded , i literally wouldn't leave the house without wanting to get drunk, still suffer from it to this day (not dead yet somehow), and it's painfully confusing to see so many people (where i live now) look at me like i'm a fuckin freak when back in the day it was just my thing
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Congrats man. Giving up/getting rid of old habits can be tough, glad it went this way for you instead of it being an arduous, conscious process. Personally I have a really low tolerance for alcohol so I probably can't really relate on a personal level but small steps like this are important in all areas of life 
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Northern Ireland23286 Posts
Congrats man, I’m finding it a motherfucker myself but considerably easier lately.
There was a time I’d have minimum 4-8 beers every night, stressed and just generally profoundly unhappy. My own father was an alcoholic in mostly unbroken recovery, unfortunately one of my best friends has passed even being a functional alcoholic and I guess that was a wakeup call of sorts.
My personal hypothesis was my drinking habits were very influenced by my environment, and if a few cards dealt my way were a bit better I could cut it out, and largely this has proven the case thus far. Unlike my friend who I believe just seeks a numbing of his general existence and is much more physically addicted.
But yeah, as things gradually got better I started swapping coming home from work and listening to podcasts getting drunk for personal programming projects, getting back into playing/making music etc. The only downside is unlike when I was 18-23 and playing and recording with people it’s a rather solitary thing.
Thanks for the share man.
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Like any addiction its only defined by consequenes- when it causes a problem; be it financially, legally, health, relationships, whatever.
If you cant stop in the face of adverse effects and you want to, then it needs to be treated professionally or you need to join AA and get a sponsor and work the steps.
Video games can do this too.
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EPT
