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.
I stopped drinking about six years ago. My university had a very “party” atmosphere, and I faced a lot of social pressure to drink during most outings. Being an oddball nerd, I drank for the first time alone in a basement so that I could understand how it felt before doing so in front of others. After some vaguely pleasant spinning about the room I ended up vomiting and had a rough hangover the next day. And that pretty much summed up my relationship with alcohol for the following decade. Have a mildly good to mediocre time, followed by regret. Even with just a small amount. Eventually I had a moment of clarity in my late twenties where I realized “this is not for me” and just stopped. I wish I had possessed the self awareness and bravery in my late teens to take the stand then.