1 Year Drinking Wagon Challenge for 2014 - Printable Version
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1 Year Drinking Wagon Challenge for 2014 - RVF400 - 01-13-2019
Checking in here as it has been more than a month. I actually had a false start and drank on the 9th and 10th of December. Was on a road trip and saw an old friend whose wife had just left him, so beers were had...
Anyways, been on track since then, first couple weeks replaced booze with food but diet and fitness have been solid since the holidays. Got through xmas and NYE no problem and feel good, more weight finally coming off and starting to get some more mental clarity.
1 Year Drinking Wagon Challenge for 2014 - The Lizard of Oz - 01-13-2019
Quote: (01-11-2019 10:42 AM)rdvirus Wrote:
Forgot to do so earlier so I'll sign myself up for another year as of 10/15/2018.
I am crossing goals off like no tomorrow. I doubled my income last year and im on track to do even better this year. My savings went from literally $0 to 5 figures. Everything is going pretty good for me. There are some parts that I still struggle with but I am excited for what the future holds. A big step from dreading what tomorrow will bring.
rdvirus, that's great to hear. Keep it going -- the second year is crucial in consolidating the gains made in the first. Get the deuce under your belt and you'll be well on your way.
Welcome back aboard for year 2 as of October 15, 2018 and I look forward to hearing more from you here over time.
1 Year Drinking Wagon Challenge for 2014 - The Lizard of Oz - 01-13-2019
Quote: (01-13-2019 09:19 AM)RVF400 Wrote:
Checking in here as it has been more than a month. I actually had a false start and drank on the 9th and 10th of December. Was on a road trip and saw an old friend whose wife had just left him, so beers were had...
Anyways, been on track since then, first couple weeks replaced booze with food but diet and fitness have been solid since the holidays. Got through xmas and NYE no problem and feel good, more weight finally coming off and starting to get some more mental clarity.
RVF400, there is no such thing as a "false start". You committed to a 1 year wagon in this thread as of November 25, 2018 but you broke your commitment just a couple of weeks in. That doesn't mean that you need to get down on yourself or believe that your next wagon (if there is one) is doomed to failure, but you should do better than to mention your failure so cavalierly, and in the passive voice -- "beers were had" -- as if the choice to have them was made by anyone but you. It is very easy to convince oneself that there is a good, indeed unselfish, reason to have those beers -- isn't that something that you owe an old friend in trouble for old times' sake? But the truth is that you've made a solemn decision to have not one drop, for a full year, on any occasion or for any reason. It is always up to you to abide by that decision in the face of any temptation, however appealing a mask it seems to wear.
In any case, since you broke your first wagon two weeks in, it is now a thing of the past. If you would like to commit to a new 1 year wagon, please do so in this thread and post your new start date. Before you do that, you should reflect on the reasons for your commitment and make sure that you will take it more seriously the next time around.
1 Year Drinking Wagon Challenge for 2014 - 77market - 01-15-2019
Today is 4 months! Feeling a desire to get hammered on my birthday coming up on Saturday. I think I'll work instead and see how much money I can make before the weekend is over! Maybe I'll treat myself to a great meal for my birthday... Coping with emotions without alcohol is getting better every day. Rational thinking is getting better, slowly. Overall, I am much happier and much more stable. Thanks, everyone!
1 Year Drinking Wagon Challenge for 2014 - Polniy_Sostav - 01-15-2019
I am a teetotal since birth. I have always somewhat looked down at people who regularly drink to get drunk.
I am curious to know if people who were heavy drinkers and have stopped feel the same than me now ?
1 Year Drinking Wagon Challenge for 2014 - etwsake - 01-15-2019
Quote: (01-15-2019 11:33 AM)Polniy_Sostav Wrote:
I am a teetotal since birth. I have always somewhat looked down at people who regularly drink to get drunk.
I am curious to know if people who were heavy drinkers and have stopped feel the same than me now ?
I don't look down on drinkers. I'm just jealous as hell.
1 Year Drinking Wagon Challenge for 2014 - Kentemo - 01-15-2019
First 2 weeks without alcohol - must be already my longest streak ever.
My sleep slowly improves already, feel a bit less tired when waking up, and I start to remember my dreams again.
Just a minor effect, but already a good start.
Went 2 times to a beergarden last week, just drinking orange juice. And I actually had a good time. My friends respected my choice, and made some good jokes about it. Didn't really feel different than while I was drinking. I like parties in general, and seems like I can have fun without is.
Meeting new people (I live in hostel, travelling now), without beer is a bit hard. Beer just fits so good with bonding and making new friends.
1 Year Drinking Wagon Challenge for 2014 - DTD309 - 01-15-2019
Quote: (01-15-2019 11:33 AM)Polniy_Sostav Wrote:
I am a teetotal since birth. I have always somewhat looked down at people who regularly drink to get drunk.
I am curious to know if people who were heavy drinkers and have stopped feel the same than me now ?
I used to look down on other people for a whole variety of reasons. As I have gotten closer to middle age, I find myself not doing that anymore. I think that perspective is related to your individual life experience, instilled belief system, and diversity of worldview as you age.
I would say that I look down somewhat on my younger self as relates to better decisions that could have been made (including drinking habits), but would not call that self-pity or regret. Self awareness is helpful so long as it helps to propel you forward in a positive way. Looking down on others for whatever reason really does not give me that same sense of purpose.
1 Year Drinking Wagon Challenge for 2014 - DTD309 - 01-15-2019
Quote: (01-15-2019 04:29 PM)Kentemo Wrote:
First 2 weeks without alcohol - must be already my longest streak ever.
My sleep slowly improves already, feel a bit less tired when waking up, and I start to remember my dreams again.
Just a minor effect, but already a good start.
Went 2 times to a beergarden last week, just drinking orange juice. And I actually had a good time. My friends respected my choice, and made some good jokes about it. Didn't really feel different than while I was drinking. I like parties in general, and seems like I can have fun without is.
Meeting new people (I live in hostel, travelling now), without beer is a bit hard. Beer just fits so good with bonding and making new friends.
Congrats on the 2 weeks! I read somewhere that brain cells take about 21 days to "germinate." I have experienced something similar before... look forward to improved mental function starting next week as a new batch of brain cells born post-alcohol go online!
![[Image: banana.gif]](https://rooshvforum.network/images/smilies/new/banana.gif)
1 Year Drinking Wagon Challenge for 2014 - Gmac - 01-20-2019
Finished!
I'd like to do a write-up soon on what I learned over this past year, but wanted to check-in here. Good luck everyone!
1 Year Drinking Wagon Challenge for 2014 - Velvet Jones - 01-20-2019
I was hardcore. One day I just quit. That was 20 years ago.
1 Year Drinking Wagon Challenge for 2014 - scotian - 01-20-2019
Quote: (01-20-2019 03:17 PM)Gmac Wrote:
Finished!
I'd like to do a write-up soon on what I learned over this past year, but wanted to check-in here. Good luck everyone!
Please do, looking forward to reading it and and congratulations!
1 Year Drinking Wagon Challenge for 2014 - Kentemo - 01-20-2019
Me too, definitely interested in reading it. I've been in 20 days, and it's already getting tough
![[Image: smile.gif]](https://rooshvforum.network/images/smilies/smile.gif)
1 Year Drinking Wagon Challenge for 2014 - The Lizard of Oz - 01-21-2019
Quote: (01-20-2019 03:17 PM)Gmac Wrote:
Finished!
I'd like to do a write-up soon on what I learned over this past year, but wanted to check-in here. Good luck everyone!
Gmac, congrats on the 1 year wagon -- it's a real achievement and I hope you take some pride and satisfaction from it. +1 rep point from me.
Given what you've written in this thread before, I was wondering if you might consider extending for another year. In any case, I look forward to hearing about how this year went for you.
1 Year Drinking Wagon Challenge for 2014 - Ski pro - 01-22-2019
Hi everyone. I don’t post in this thread much anymore because I feel like I’ve left alcohol behind. I should add my support here more because this thread was so useful to me when I was considering getting on the wagon and in my early stages of it.
LOZ will have the specific date but it’s 3 years now on the wagon. Observations from year 3
Pros
1. Insane levels of productivity
2. Clarity of thought
3. Natural energy levels
4. Not hanging out with deadbeats who look to drag you down
Cons.
1. Lonely. All the action happens in bars and I just don’t go there any more. I replaced the bar and hangover time with work, restaurants, skiing and motorbikes
2. I sincerely hope that the hard hard drinking I used to do hasn’t caused any permanent damage. I want to live for a long time now
3. People you thought were you friends fall away. They were drunk friends. Your real friends remain but your circle is smaller.
Sign me up for year 4. I won’t need help, I’m achieving too much to ever go back.
I do however promise to support those on here more by checking in more frequently.
1 Year Drinking Wagon Challenge for 2014 - scotian - 01-22-2019
So far I've found my friends to be pretty supportive, especially the hard drinking guys I grew up with and some of the guys at work who are around my age. When they ask me why I gave it up, I just tell them that I can't take the hangovers and lack of productivity and am trying to get a lot of things done this year (upgrading work skill set) which is entirely true. Their responses are usually something like "I hear ya man, the hangovers are killer, especially after 30, I hate felling like shit on Sundays."
1 Year Drinking Wagon Challenge for 2014 - Horus - 01-22-2019
I will need to reset my one year wagon unfortunately. I'm very disappointed with myself. I don't have much to say about it, other than I need to make a commitment with the same solemnity I did at the start of my first successful wagon. My starting date is January 23 2019.
1 Year Drinking Wagon Challenge for 2014 - The Lizard of Oz - 01-22-2019
Quote: (01-22-2019 03:15 PM)Ski pro Wrote:
Hi everyone. I don’t post in this thread much anymore because I feel like I’ve left alcohol behind. I should add my support here more because this thread was so useful to me when I was considering getting on the wagon and in my early stages of it.
LOZ will have the specific date but it’s 3 years now on the wagon. Observations from year 3
Pros
1. Insane levels of productivity
2. Clarity of thought
3. Natural energy levels
4. Not hanging out with deadbeats who look to drag you down
Cons.
1. Lonely. All the action happens in bars and I just don’t go there any more. I replaced the bar and hangover time with work, restaurants, skiing and motorbikes
2. I sincerely hope that the hard hard drinking I used to do hasn’t caused any permanent damage. I want to live for a long time now
3. People you thought were you friends fall away. They were drunk friends. Your real friends remain but your circle is smaller.
Sign me up for year 4. I won’t need help, I’m achieving too much to ever go back.
I do however promise to support those on here more by checking in more frequently.
Ski pro, great to hear you're rolling along. Your wagon date is February 10, so you've still got a couple of weeks to go before you hit the trey. I will welcome you back aboard for year 4 at that time.
1 Year Drinking Wagon Challenge for 2014 - The Lizard of Oz - 01-22-2019
Quote: (01-22-2019 08:46 PM)Horus Wrote:
I will need to reset my one year wagon unfortunately. I'm very disappointed with myself. I don't have much to say about it, other than I need to make a commitment with the same solemnity I did at the start of my first successful wagon. My starting date is January 23 2019.
Horus, thank you for posting. You should be very disappointed, but there is no need to beat yourself up too much. Let yourself really feel it today; and then tomorrow let go of it and forgive yourself. Just see it through this time, it's really as simple as that. Your attitude towards the wagon should be beyond all emotion -- beyond solemnity, even; it's simply a commitment that you keep as a matter of course. You've done it once, and now you will do it again.
Welcome aboard as of January 23, 2019 and I look forward to hearing more from you here as time goes on.
1 Year Drinking Wagon Challenge for 2014 - Rhyme or Reason - 01-23-2019
I stopped drinking a few weeks ago. I was / am a heavy drinker. I feel better in some ways already, but I feel kind of mind-fucked being sober. It's sort of telling, the fact that I am gun-shy about coming out and declaring I'm not drinking for a year.
Alcohol has caused my physical appearance to degrade. This is a fact that I have only really acknowledged recently but has been going on for much longer. I've been trying to drink lots of water since quitting but still drink a lot of caffeine ... so I switched to decaf and that seems to help also.
The hard fact to admit is that I'm pretty much a textbook addict. I've had a history of substance abuse (posted briefly about it here or there) and basically after I quit abusing drugs it wasn't long before similar behavior patterns emerged just with alcohol instead of opiates. Granted I never got in the habit of day drinking, I never drink at work even though I bartend for a living. Paradoxically my bartending nights are my only sober nights in the week.
When I started drinking, it meant fun times, going out, swooping chicks, getting laid and having fun. This was in stark contrast to what my opiate use days were like, which were dark and miserable. So that's what attracted me to drinking initially.
But the reality is drinking now to me rarely means any of that stuff it used to mean.
Anyway, keep up the good work in this thread, fellas.
1 Year Drinking Wagon Challenge for 2014 - The Lizard of Oz - 01-23-2019
Rhyme or Reason, the best thing for a guy like you is to go what I have sometimes called Full Mormon. No drugs, no booze, no smokes, no caffeine. Just water, good wholesome food, regular (but not excessive) exercise, good regular sleep night in night out. Live that way until it's the only life you know. All substances are bad for a brain like yours, you should avoid all of them. Learn to love the taste of water and live your life until your life itself has that clear cool taste.
It may sound dull, it may feel dull -- no matter. Just do that and one bright morning -- it may be years from now -- you will look at your face in the mirror and you'll see gazing back at you a face fresher than it has any right to be. You will know then that you are in a different life.
The reason you are feeling "mind-fucked" being sober is because your brain is very unhappy that the neurological patterns characteristic of addiction have been taken away from it. The only cure for this is time. You have to teach your brain new habits, the old neural pathways must be allowed to degrade over time. The more completely you embrace the idea and the reality of a Full Mormon lifestyle -- not allowing the brain any recourse to its familiar patterns -- the more surely and thoroughly those pathways will degrade. Take the opportunity given you by the few weeks head start, and just build on it and let it deepen; there is no time like the present.
1 Year Drinking Wagon Challenge for 2014 - Kentemo - 01-24-2019
I used to be a pretty heavy drinker as well in the past. When I start getting drunk, I usually can't stop and feel on top of the world and start buying more and more drinks for me and my friends. Sober I am completely different person, but I think I like myself better this way. I reflect a lot more and feel happier without any special reason. Mindfullness is something I am looking into as well, instead of getting drunk.
Anyway, so far almost a month here! Very impressed already. Let's see how the rest of the year goes.
Also, anyone wants to start like a private facebook group here and discuss. I feel more stories from different person could definitely help.
Stuff like:
- Feeling healthier
- Replacing alcohol with other hobbies
- Productivity
- Gaming and partying without alcohol
- Tips and tricks / what's difficult etc...
Just an idea. What do you think Lizard?
1 Year Drinking Wagon Challenge for 2014 - The Lizard of Oz - 01-26-2019
Kentemo, of course guys are free to do as they like, but I believe that all discussion on wagon-related matters is best kept to this thread. Facebook groups and the like all too easily degenerate into Reddit whining or AA platitudes, despite the best intentions of their participants; they will inevitably bring about a diffuseness and a flabbiness that are not useful to the purposes of the wagon.
The wagon thread has a perfect structure, at once austere and expansive, and in the more than five years of its existence it has never lost its integrity or its responsiveness; it has only gained depth and amplitude as the years have gone by. It is a place that can be visited and revisited as frequently or as occasionally as its subject requires, and its linear and additive form is a beautiful representation of the passage of time and accumulation of experience that lie at the heart of the wagon. Rarely has a vehicle been more finely suited to its purpose; it's best to simply stay aboard and keep it rolling along.
1 Year Drinking Wagon Challenge for 2014 - Polniy_Sostav - 01-27-2019
Actually , I would like to ask a question.
I have personally never understood the need for altering your mind through alcohol to feel more social and/or to have more fun/ be bolder.
This has costed me sometimes to be ostracized socially , and to be seen by some women as a "boring" guy , especially at student age.
What is seriously and objectively fun in drinking ? The 10-15 times i have done it in my life I have simply embarrassed myself by acting quirky , feeling stupid and spending tons....
1 Year Drinking Wagon Challenge for 2014 - komatiite - 01-27-2019
Quote: (01-27-2019 10:22 AM)Polniy_Sostav Wrote:
Actually , I would like to ask a question.
I have personally never understood the need for altering your mind through alcohol to feel more social and/or to have more fun/ be bolder.
This has costed me sometimes to be ostracized socially , and to be seen by some women as a "boring" guy , especially at student age.
What is seriously and objectively fun in drinking ? The 10-15 times i have done it in my life I have simply embarrassed myself by acting quirky , feeling stupid and spending tons....
Hard to say man, everyone’s wired differently. For me, I still remember the feeling I got when I was a teenager and had my first drink — all the insecurities I had just melted away, and I felt like I finally fit in. It was one of the most liberating moments of my life. I was always kind of uncomfortable in my own skin, and this amazing little potion just eliminated that. No need for self improvement; self fulfillment was just a $20 bottle away.
But there’s no such thing as a free lunch and the cons started to outweigh the pros within five or six years of hard drinking. My life started to unravel and I would try to blame anything but the drink. But I finally was honest with myself and realized if I was going to make anything out of my life I had to quit. Took a few tries but here I am, haven’t had a sip since August 4 2015.
Some people can have a couple drinks and move on with their lives, some people like yourself just generally dislike it, but guys like me and plenty of others on this thread have the experience I just described above. Alcohol just seemed like the answer to everything until one day it came back to collect it’s rent for all the joys it had provided in the prior years.