News:

MysticWicks endorsement: ""Oooh, I'm a Discordian! I can do whatever I want! Which means I can just SAY I'm a pagan but I never bother doing rituals or studying any kind of sacred texts or developing a relationship with deity, etc! I can go around and not be Christian, but I won't quite be anything else either because I just can't commit and I can't be ARSED to commit!"

Main Menu

Life Changes

Started by LMNO, March 11, 2016, 06:40:21 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

LMNO

:deadthread:

OK? OK.

I've been drinking for a very long time, starting about 26 years ago, and really getting into it for about 20.  Over the years I've dabbled in other stuff, but have been primarily a drinker.  Wine with dinner, beer at shows/band practice, cocktails at clubs and bars, nightcaps, etc etc.  No worries.  It was legal (fine, I had a fake ID for a few years), it was mostly socially acceptable, it was convenient and available, and I liked both the taste and the buzz.

Then, my latest physical happened, and I got the news I'd been anticipating for a while.  "Elevated liver function".  Not full blown damage, nothing permanent, but it had finally become an issue.  OK, fine.  I knew it was coming.  It's not a full-blown "quit or die" scenario, but more of a "cut in half" sort of thing.

So:  Science time!  I began charting my consumption.  I looked at what I was drinking, when, and how.  And I came across some interesting results.  Essentially, during the week I would come home from work, have a cocktail, and wine with dinner.  Fine, I can make a half-sized cocktail, or eliminate it altogether on some days.  Wine with dinner really isn't going to change, believe me.  But then, after dinner.... More wine.  Sometimes, a lot of wine.  Like, bottles worth.  And while I really do like the taste, it seemed the goal was different than it is when having it with dinner.  I was looking for the buzz.  Accusations of escapism aside, this was a functionally different use for alcohol than the other ways I was using it.  That got me thinking, if that's the main goal, what can I do that achieves similar results without stressing the liver?

So I got a weed dealer a month or so ago.  And thanks to neighboring states with more relaxed laws, getting edibles is easy.  My routine now is a half-cocktail, a glass or two of wine with dinner, and then a bit of edible THC.  The release for me is slower than smoking it, and the high is, well... I get high.  Then I go to bed.  Of course, I kept with my observations, to see if it was a temporary thing, or if I would slip back into old habits.  And you know what?  It hasn't, so far.  On top of that, I'm going to bed earlier, and as one would expect, I wake up without feeling like I drank a gallon of wine the night before. 

In fact, last Wednesday a friend of mine flew in from Croatia, and we went out for tacos and drinks.  I had a few of each, and then some more drinks on top of that.  And I felt terrible the next day.  It was quite striking.  So, my subjective/objective observations seem to come to a tentative conclusion: My life is better when I'm not drinking so much, and so far my THC consumption has harmed my life less than my drinking. 

I'm not going to be one of those "alcohol sucks, weed forever" types of people, as I really do enjoy cocktails and wine, but so far this approach is working for me.

What a fucking hippie.

Cain


LMNO


Mesozoic Mister Nigel

I, too, have started mediating a reduced alcohol consumption with weed.

Less so these last three weeks.

I find that I feel better, I sleep better, my emotional regulation is better, and I consume fewer calories when I smoke or eat pot instead of downing a bottle of wine.
"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."


The Good Reverend Roger

I've totally eliminated alcohol, due to drug interaction problems with the pills.

I don't get drug tested at this job, but I'm not really in the mood to smoke weed.  I am considering having a talk with the doc and seeing if weed will in fact work better than pills.  Then I'd just have to deal with horrible withdrawals.
" It's just that Depeche Mode were a bunch of optimistic loveburgers."
- TGRR, shaming himself forever, 7/8/2017

"Billy, when I say that ethics is our number one priority and safety is also our number one priority, you should take that to mean exactly what I said. Also quality. That's our number one priority as well. Don't look at me that way, you're in the corporate world now and this is how it works."
- TGRR, raising the bar at work.

Vanadium Gryllz

I went through a similar experience a few years ago - I went from drinking pretty much every day to a couple of years alcohol free by essentially swapping it out for weed.

I get annual urine tests at work that I am 90% sure are just for sugars etc but I  not taking the risk so I have 3 months in a year weed free - I am currently in that phase of the year.

For me, it is tempting to let being high become a constant during my waking hours and that's probably not an ideal situation. There are definitely drawbacks in cognition when being high becomes your new normal and then, when you arent, I become anxious and have no appetite for a couple of days.

When I can indulge again, in April, I plan on exercising a little more moderation and seeing how that goes.
"I was fine until my skin came off.  I'm never going to South Attelboro again."

Eater of Clowns

Quote from: Pippa Twiddleton on December 22, 2012, 01:06:36 AM
EoC, you are the bane of my existence.

Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on March 07, 2014, 01:18:23 AM
EoC doesn't make creepy.

EoC makes creepy worse.

Quote
the afflicted persons get hold of and consume carrots even in socially quite unacceptable situations.

Mesozoic Mister Nigel

Quote from: Xaz on March 12, 2016, 12:11:13 PM
I went through a similar experience a few years ago - I went from drinking pretty much every day to a couple of years alcohol free by essentially swapping it out for weed.

I get annual urine tests at work that I am 90% sure are just for sugars etc but I  not taking the risk so I have 3 months in a year weed free - I am currently in that phase of the year.

For me, it is tempting to let being high become a constant during my waking hours and that's probably not an ideal situation. There are definitely drawbacks in cognition when being high becomes your new normal and then, when you arent, I become anxious and have no appetite for a couple of days.

When I can indulge again, in April, I plan on exercising a little more moderation and seeing how that goes.

Yeah, I don't like to be in an altered state during the day at all, it makes me useless. Fortunately I'm a total lightweight, so I can get by on like 1/4 of what a veteran stoner would consume.

I've had too much to drink many times since my son died, including last night and the night before and the night before that, and I need to break that habit before it sets in. I made it through my first year of school despite brutal near-daily hangovers, but I don't want to go back to that even if I could fumble through 400/500 level biology in a sickly daze. The last thing the kid would have wanted is for my life to be derailed over this.
"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."


Pergamos

I like altered states as a break from reality, if they become reality (which they have a few times, fortunately not often) then it just costs more to maintain reality.

P3nT4gR4m

I've had a few brushes with alcohol over the years. Shit is like quicksand, just grabs a hold of me and all of a sudden I'm a lot worse off than before, physically, mentally, emotionally.

Been sober for about 14 months now and I still find myself occasionally hankering for a three week bender. Weed, on the other hand has always been there for me and only really became a problem that time I got too deep into the business side of things. 

I'm up to my arse in Brexit Numpties, but I want more.  Target-rich environments are the new sexy.
Not actually a meat product.
Ass-Kicking & Foot-Stomping Ancient Master of SHIT FUCK FUCK FUCK
Awful and Bent Behemothic Results of Last Night's Painful Squat.
High Altitude Haggis-Filled Sex Bucket From Beyond Time and Space.
Internet Monkey Person of Filthy and Immoral Pygmy-Porn Wart Contagion
Octomom Auxillary Heat Exchanger Repairman
walking the fine line line between genius and batshit fucking crazy

"computation is a pattern in the spacetime arrangement of particles, and it's not the particles but the pattern that really matters! Matter doesn't matter." -- Max Tegmark

Max Blyss

I used to drink a lot, but that mellowed out by my mid 20's...  Been a confirmed potHEAD since I was 13.  It's always been nice, although my lungs are probably coated in resin.  Alas, we all must go sometime, so one might as well be chill and slightly paranoid.

Congrats to OP on reigning in a habit, though.  That can be a bit of a bitch.
Facilitating Futility Wherever Duty Calls!!!

LMNO

The experiment is still going strong, and as far as I can tell, the results are still promising.

One of the more amazing things I've learned is that I think I've spent the majority of the past decade suffering a low-grade hangover, which I "normalized" into the common state of things.

:news:

I'm an idiot.

P3nT4gR4m

A world of wonders awaits you. Healthy REM sleep, improved memory and concentration, freedom from constant, low grade background depression...

The only problem is this nagging little voice in the back of my head that gets louder whenever I'm near a pub or off-license or even just a bit bored, yelling "PARTY TIME - DO EET!!!"


I'm up to my arse in Brexit Numpties, but I want more.  Target-rich environments are the new sexy.
Not actually a meat product.
Ass-Kicking & Foot-Stomping Ancient Master of SHIT FUCK FUCK FUCK
Awful and Bent Behemothic Results of Last Night's Painful Squat.
High Altitude Haggis-Filled Sex Bucket From Beyond Time and Space.
Internet Monkey Person of Filthy and Immoral Pygmy-Porn Wart Contagion
Octomom Auxillary Heat Exchanger Repairman
walking the fine line line between genius and batshit fucking crazy

"computation is a pattern in the spacetime arrangement of particles, and it's not the particles but the pattern that really matters! Matter doesn't matter." -- Max Tegmark

Vanadium Gryllz

#13
Quote from: LMNO on March 18, 2016, 01:51:14 PM
The experiment is still going strong, and as far as I can tell, the results are still promising.

One of the more amazing things I've learned is that I think I've spent the majority of the past decade suffering a low-grade hangover, which I "normalized" into the common state of things.

:news:

I'm an idiot.

Congratulations on the discovery.  :banana:
"I was fine until my skin came off.  I'm never going to South Attelboro again."

Cainad (dec.)

I wish I could enjoy pot more than I do. I've had about 50/50 on "nice high" and "sweating paranoia and cognitive fog" in my experiences. It actually makes me less creative and more clammed up.