I stopped drinking alcohol some years ago. Before that I hardly consumed any alcohol at all for many years, but in my college years and maybe some years after that, I drank socially like “everybody else”. But I gradually kind of got tired of dealing with the bad feelings (physical and emotional), so I drank less and less.
And maybe because I drank less and less, even one beer often just made me feel kind of bad, so then I just stopped altogether. Anyway, I’m curious if this has happened to anyone else? And how do you go by it socially? What do you order at a bar? Maybe I’m a little afraid to go to places that has an “alcohol culture”, even if there are some places I would like to go. I don’t want to drink, but at the same time I don’t want to appear weird about it either.
The exact same thing has happened to me. I still have a beer every now and then (like once every two months or so). I pretty much can honestly say that if I drank any less, I wouldn’t drink at all.
I’ve never been that much of a drinker, but once I reached my forties, having a beer or two would invariably mean that I would need to take a nap a few hours later, and I just don’t need that interfering with my day. And I am cognizant of the recent studies have shown that there is no health benefits, only detriments, to any amount of alcohol at all. And add that I would pretty much always prefer the taste of a diet soda to a beer on almost any occasion, I’ve pretty much almost completely phased out alcohol in my life.
It helps a lot when most of your friends don’t drink much, either. That said, does any one else really care whether you drink or not?
My friend circles do not really care, or at least I hope they don’t. Most of my friends drink very little as well. There was some semi-awkward discussions about alcohol politics at some small parties when I decided to stop altogether, but I think that was that.