After:
Sunday, 6 January 2008
Tuesday, 18 September 2007
Giving up drinking / Controlling alcohol
Giving up drinking
After a particularly heavy week of binge drinking, I came to the conclusion I'd come to several times before - I needed to stop drinking. Step one: write down how much alcohol I'd been drinking. I decided to start with the preceding three days...
Weds:
Whisky: 1 shot
Lager: 1 pint
Vodka: 10 shots
Thursday:
Wine: 2/3 of a bottle
Vodka: 10 shots
Friday:
Wine: 1/3 of a bottle
Lager: 4 pints
Tequila: 1 shot
For an average of 18 UK alcoholic units a day ... that's about 9 pints. Ouch. That also explained quite nicely why I was getting my hangovers at 3pm the next day - it was taking that long for my body to get rid of all the alcohol.
I wasn't drinking until I was blacking out, and I wasn't getting drunk and doing (that many) stupid things - but my liver was starting to ache during the day, and I was having a fair amount of trouble doing productive work in the day time...
I also felt I had some fairly compelling reasons not to quit drinking:
The odds felt somewhat stacked against me; I'd given up drinking totally once before, and had one drink to celebrate a month of being dry ... and realised just how much I enjoyed beer, and started drinking again.
Luckily, a friend came to the rescue, suggesting:
The Glass Ceiling - http://www.everydaysystems.com/glassceiling/
The basic rule is: 2 drinks per calendar day
Advantages:
It wasn't all that easy to start with, but then it really wasn't all that hard either. I felt light headed for the first few days I didn't drink, and I also had to make some tactical decisions about when best to enjoy my drinks to get maximum buzz. But after the first three or four days, it actually became pretty easy.
Two large glasses of wine is splitting a bottle with someone over dinner. When I'm in a club where I have bottle service, I'll just switch to mixer after my first two drinks (or after my first drink, and wait for the champagne!).
For the first two weeks, I drank my full allowance daily. Since then, it's just gone down and down - now I only drink a couple of days a week. And it doesn't feel like I'm missing out on anything.
Being forced to be sociable while sober has gotten me out of my head a lot too - I've found myself acting drunk (or maybe: less socially inhibited) even when sober - this is a great experience.
I guess the best thing is: I feel this is a system I can follow for the rest of my life. It's not like a crash diet, and it's not like completely cutting out alcohol. It's also not something that can slowly creep up again. I've noticed weight slipping off since I started it, and I've stopped having nights where I've made very bad decisions!
Highly recommended.
After a particularly heavy week of binge drinking, I came to the conclusion I'd come to several times before - I needed to stop drinking. Step one: write down how much alcohol I'd been drinking. I decided to start with the preceding three days...
Weds:
Whisky: 1 shot
Lager: 1 pint
Vodka: 10 shots
Thursday:
Wine: 2/3 of a bottle
Vodka: 10 shots
Friday:
Wine: 1/3 of a bottle
Lager: 4 pints
Tequila: 1 shot
For an average of 18 UK alcoholic units a day ... that's about 9 pints. Ouch. That also explained quite nicely why I was getting my hangovers at 3pm the next day - it was taking that long for my body to get rid of all the alcohol.
I wasn't drinking until I was blacking out, and I wasn't getting drunk and doing (that many) stupid things - but my liver was starting to ache during the day, and I was having a fair amount of trouble doing productive work in the day time...
I also felt I had some fairly compelling reasons not to quit drinking:
- A lot of my work involves environments where people drink heavily, and where I get drinks for free
- I really enjoy: good wine; good ale; bad whisky (JD, baby)
- What constitutes moderate drinking? One pint of Stella? Two? Five? Eight?
- Some social situations sort of require drinking. Birthdays, launch parties, visits to strip clubs ...
- Measuring alcohol consumption on the go is hard to do well ... how much alcohol did that cocktail have in it? How strong was that beer?
The odds felt somewhat stacked against me; I'd given up drinking totally once before, and had one drink to celebrate a month of being dry ... and realised just how much I enjoyed beer, and started drinking again.
Luckily, a friend came to the rescue, suggesting:
The Glass Ceiling - http://www.everydaysystems.com/glassceiling/
The basic rule is: 2 drinks per calendar day
Advantages:
- Allows me to drink a safe amount every day, without forgoing all alcohol
- Gives me a hard and fast rule. Two glasses.
- Allows me to 'binge' a bit, by having two drinks before midnight, and two after, as long as I don't have any the 'next' day
- By measuring in glasses (and there are some rules about cheating, but I'm pretty good at not rationalizing), no need for tricky alcohol calculations
It wasn't all that easy to start with, but then it really wasn't all that hard either. I felt light headed for the first few days I didn't drink, and I also had to make some tactical decisions about when best to enjoy my drinks to get maximum buzz. But after the first three or four days, it actually became pretty easy.
Two large glasses of wine is splitting a bottle with someone over dinner. When I'm in a club where I have bottle service, I'll just switch to mixer after my first two drinks (or after my first drink, and wait for the champagne!).
For the first two weeks, I drank my full allowance daily. Since then, it's just gone down and down - now I only drink a couple of days a week. And it doesn't feel like I'm missing out on anything.
Being forced to be sociable while sober has gotten me out of my head a lot too - I've found myself acting drunk (or maybe: less socially inhibited) even when sober - this is a great experience.
I guess the best thing is: I feel this is a system I can follow for the rest of my life. It's not like a crash diet, and it's not like completely cutting out alcohol. It's also not something that can slowly creep up again. I've noticed weight slipping off since I started it, and I've stopped having nights where I've made very bad decisions!
Highly recommended.
Wednesday, 12 September 2007
Clearing out the junk
Over the last three days, I've forced myself to finish off a task I started well over three years ago: getting rid of all my junk. Apart from furniture and office equipment, all my possessions except my guitar now fit in a 36 x 20 x 14 inch trunk, like the one I used to have at school.
This was entirely as hard as it sounds. Perhaps much much harder. You are not unique in finding it hard to throw stuff away - this is part of the universal human suffering.
Some tips on ruthlessly triaging your lifelong collection of personal treasures:
- Don't value things on how new or expensive they were. Hardest thing to give away was an expensive suit I bought two months ago, worn ... once. I already have a suit that fits better, and that was already having to fight for it's right to stay. I'm still considering trying to stage a break in at the charity shop to get it back.
- Have a rule and stick to it; mine was: if it's not been used in the last 6 months, and it's easily replaceable or substitutable, it's out. This took care of almost all my paperbacks and 90% of my clothes.
- I found gutting my room, and putting everything on the bed gave me a real sense of progress. While there were still things in cupboards and drawers, it was hard to get a handle on how much there was left to do, and a tendency to give up and check my email at least once every 5 minutes.
- Cables are easily stored wound and wrapped in cling-film. No more spending hours untangling cables.
- This took three days as it was excruciatingly dull. Setting little time challenges for myself on the last day helped me get it wrapped up. For example: 5 minutes to deal with all books, and timing myself throwing all the books on the floor from the bed, quickly deciding which I absolutely had to keep (very few, and almost no fiction), putting the rest in the charity pile, and putting the 'to keep' books back on the bookshelf. Bit of a challenge + efficiency of batching = much easier to complete.
This was entirely as hard as it sounds. Perhaps much much harder. You are not unique in finding it hard to throw stuff away - this is part of the universal human suffering.
Some tips on ruthlessly triaging your lifelong collection of personal treasures:
- Don't value things on how new or expensive they were. Hardest thing to give away was an expensive suit I bought two months ago, worn ... once. I already have a suit that fits better, and that was already having to fight for it's right to stay. I'm still considering trying to stage a break in at the charity shop to get it back.
- Have a rule and stick to it; mine was: if it's not been used in the last 6 months, and it's easily replaceable or substitutable, it's out. This took care of almost all my paperbacks and 90% of my clothes.
- I found gutting my room, and putting everything on the bed gave me a real sense of progress. While there were still things in cupboards and drawers, it was hard to get a handle on how much there was left to do, and a tendency to give up and check my email at least once every 5 minutes.
- Cables are easily stored wound and wrapped in cling-film. No more spending hours untangling cables.
- This took three days as it was excruciatingly dull. Setting little time challenges for myself on the last day helped me get it wrapped up. For example: 5 minutes to deal with all books, and timing myself throwing all the books on the floor from the bed, quickly deciding which I absolutely had to keep (very few, and almost no fiction), putting the rest in the charity pile, and putting the 'to keep' books back on the bookshelf. Bit of a challenge + efficiency of batching = much easier to complete.
Introduction
I bought and read Timothy Ferriss's "Four Hour Work Week" about three months ago. About the same time, I saw (and subsequently spent $1,200 on a print of) a photo by Robert Altman. I'm yet to convincingly explain to anyone else why the print inspired me to quit my job (although I still find the photo massively inspirational), but people seem to see the attraction of living abroad and not working very much straight away.
I've quit my job, I've set a goal: move to Thailand for three months, early January 2008, and spend the rest of the year (my life?) living abroad, and living a full life, far far away from the office.
I've set up this blog to track my progress, for me, for my interested friends and family, and for anyone else who's interested in repeating such a disappearing act.
I've quit my job, I've set a goal: move to Thailand for three months, early January 2008, and spend the rest of the year (my life?) living abroad, and living a full life, far far away from the office.
I've set up this blog to track my progress, for me, for my interested friends and family, and for anyone else who's interested in repeating such a disappearing act.
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