this post was submitted on 15 Jul 2024
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I have genuinely never had a sip of alcohol in my life. It’s just amazing how people still almost constantly try to get me to start. They seem offended as if I personally attacked them when I refuse. Could you imagine someone getting offended because you didn’t want to do heroin with them?
Almost everyone in my family is some form of an addict, and they all say they could definitely quit anytime they want to, even the one who mixes alcohol with coffee in the mornings and who gets drunk almost every night. The societal level of denial when it comes to alcohol is amazing, people treat addiction like it’s just a snack-eating habit and not drinking literal poison. A lot of my family basically just treats it as a snack that they “munch” on throughout the day. The physical and cognitive decline over the decades is readily apparent.
I clearly remember the amount of pressure I was under to start drinking myself to death the second I turned 21. I said no. One of the best decisions I ever made. But how is a 21 year old kid supposed to make a clear-minded decision when drinking is almost universally normalized and encouraged, so much so that they’ve probably already gotten dangerously drunk several times over by the time they’re 16? (at least, that was the norm where I grew up)
Definitely never start. I’ve been heavy drinking for a decade and it’s almost completely destroyed my life. I have squandered ever opportunity and meaningful relationship I’ve ever had. I have profound brain fog and cognitive impairment and im not even 30 yet (and I’ll be surprised if I even make it there). Never let anyone convince you to start drinking
it's never too late to quit btw, i was in a similar position (started at 14, kept going for a decade+) and it's been years now since i've touched the stuff.
you can always escape
I’ve been striving to wean off and stay off for as long as I can withstand doing so. It’s really a terrible poison lol. And it’s so ubiquitous, especially in food service, which is where im currently employed.
did you do AA or anything similar when you stopped? I’ve been thinking about going but im on the fence
oh shit i missed this in the deluge, my bad comrade.
this is the way to do it. slow and steady wins the race. uhhh which is also part of my answer to your next question: no, i did not seek any outside help. one day, after months of puking up blood every morning, i decided to go cold turkey. just quit right overnight.
i absolutely 1000% encourage you to do anything but what i did. it was super dumb as fuck and i probably should have died. it was like...a week(?) of nonstop vomiting, sweating, and shitting, and that wasn't even the bad part. >> the hallucinations were what made it a living nightmare. idk if i'm just naturally predisposed or what but i felt like i was losing my fucking mind at points.
all that is to say that it's totally possible to quit and not go through hell; you just gotta be smart. it sounds like you are! i will also say that imo you've already gotten past the hard part, which is deciding you no longer want this substance in your life and deciding you're going to do something about it, and then beginning. those things together represent maybe one of the biggest hurdles to kicking a substance.
as a quick mishmash of advice before i have to get running to the store:
be gentle with yourself. i know stumbling feels like failure and failure probably feels like a permanent state, but this is one of those rare instances where you only actually fail once you totally give up hope.
celebrate every milestone if you want! alternatively, do what i do and totally ignore it if that's easier. i found not thinking about it at all helped a lot more, but i know some people who've taken the first tack and met with success. it really is all about you and what works best.
on that note, addiction displacement is how a lot of folks i know quit. i quit booze cold turkey but i had to swap to weed when i went to go quit smoking a few years later, as a for instance.
idk sorry if this is scattershot, i am in a bit of a rush but feel free to DM me if you'd like :3 and even if not, i wish you the very best of luck
Wish I could hug you, thanks for the advice :)
My brother did the same thing, went cold turkey and he ended up having a pretty bad seizure. I’m gonna wean down as best I can and try to find a hobby or something (displacement, as you said) to replace the habit. I also need to find a new line of work, but that’s a long term goal.
Thanks again for the response, it made me feel a lot less alone.
I quit at 35, don't wait that long comrade
People get offended because they know it’s bad for them and you’re showing the restraint that they themselves sometimes wish they’d have.
The other side is that drinking makes them vulnerable and you not drinking puts you in a power position over them. Sometimes predators don’t drink because of that. But obviously that doesn’t justify their reaction to you not drinking.
(This is the perspective of someone who does binge drink occasionally)
Yeah true, I haven’t really thought about it from that perspective. I feel like I’ve always subconsciously avoided those sorts of sober-drunk power dynamics though. I don’t like to be around drunk people. It’s like going to a concert where everyone else is raving but you’re really not feeling it at all. Being the only sober person is an extremely off-putting feeling for me. And I’m not sure if it’s the autism, but bars induce a visceral feeling of disgust. It’s not a moral thing, it just physically feels gross. So if people are going out to drink, I’m not tagging along.
That's actually me! Just never seemed like the right thing. And know I'm regularly taking other depressants, so it's not at all safe.