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.
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