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@dooks
Yo! i'm pretty regular and fairly heavy drinker but as mentioned in the alcohol thread a while back i decided to give it a break for a month or so to re-set my tolerances, give the body a break and generally do a bit of an appraisal of my relationship with alcohol. It'll be two weeks tomorrow since I had a drink and i'm finding it surprisingly easy to be honest. Here are my findings so far:
First few days found it hard to get to sleep. Guess I was used to being tranquilised with half a bottle of wine or two or three beers most nights. Got over that in a week.
Next few days noticed that without trying i'd all but quit smoking. The link between drinking and smoking was so strong that as soon as i was away from the pub and not drinking i found i didn't really want to smoke.
Weekends seemed much longer without saturday and sunday morning being taken over with hangovers and lying in bed.
Energy levels definitely up after a week. I'm riding quicker, got round my regular run quicker than ever and my regular swim went from 40 mins to an hour without really trying.
I'm eating less and better. I don't crave fat and carbs so much. I'm losing weight pretty quickly as a result and also because of the thousands of calories directly from the alcohol i'm now not consuming. I can see musculature under the beer fat for the first time in a couple of years.
House is tidier as i've been staying in more and looking after it, i've saved a bunch of money and am generally feeling pretty good.
Only downsides I can see are that I do miss the taste and sensation of a bottle of nice wine with dinner or a few quiet pints with a mate on a weekenight, or getting though slightly too many bottled ales whilst watching a boxset on a weekend night in with the missus. But i'll get that back soon enough and hopefully in moderation. It's hard going to the pub and drinking coke and juice etc. You tend to keep ordering things you don't really want just to have something to do with your hands. Also I found that when I went to the pub even though I wasn't drinking i started smoking again.
Finally, I've had a constant, not painful, but sort of nagging headache on and off for the whole two weeks. It's almost like a pressure or stress in my head from the daily grind of work and whatever that I can't helping thinking would be wonderfully relieved by three or four pints. I need to find other ways of letting off steam... Playing music and wanking furiously seem to be filling the void so far.