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I started drinking in a student-life context, around the age of 23 (bit late, I guess). Everyone drank. I joined in, and it was a lot of fun. Post-college, many of the people I knew just sort of grew out of it. Stopped getting drunk every weekend, and only drank a beer or two with a meal, or only with special meals/moments. But because I became an expat/freelancer/traveler, I kind of maintained a bar-centered, beer-centered life, and naturally ended up with friends who were the same. It never occurred to me that this might not be 'normal' for everyone. The dynamics behind this are fascinating, but not so relevant at this point. Suffice it to say that most drinkers overestimate how much 'most people' drink. All this was not a problem until it suddenly was. At some point I'd started drinking to relieve stress, or deal with depressive episodes, and one day I 'woke up' and realized that I'd been drinking to the point of 'being drunk' almost every single day. This was particularly shocking to me because I studied psychology and always had a fascination with addiction. So I knew about the dynamics. I was high-functioning, and doing pretty well all in all, but I didn't feel comfortable knowing that I had a 'dependency'. It took me a full two years to actually properly get things under control again. There were four things that I believe were crucial: 1. I realized that simply thinking I might have a problematic relationship with alcohol was enough reason to treat it as one, and at the very least 'test' whether I had one. I now believe that if you're not entirely happy with your drinking habits, then that should be enough reason to try and remove that habit for a while, since there are no real downsides to sobriety, and there are definite downsides to drinking regularly.
2. I started frequenting /r/stopdrinking subreddit and #stopdrinking chat room.
3. I found for my 'down-time' drinking periods and drinking social circles: I started meditating and diving into zen buddhism, I started reading and actively doing things again that I knew made me happy in the past (without pulling significant energy and willpower, like programming does[1]), and I took time off from my drinking friends. Meditation was perhaps one of the most important things, all in all.
4. I actively looked into sources of unhappiness and stress, and did my utmost to cut them out or minimize the negative effects. [1]: interestingly, while my 'craving' for getting drunk is almost entirely gone these days, one of the few times that I feel the pull is when get caught up in a programming project. After spending hours doing that, sometimes forgetting to eat or take a break, it's like my mind is exhausted beyond a healthy point. I'm starting to think my active coding life played a big role in my alcohol dependency issues. |