chat

Alcohol though... That one calls to me. It's not even a "craving." It's insidious. It haunts you subtly. You don't even realize it until you're pouring a glass of bourbon, or cracking an IPA, like "wait, what just happened?"

Managed to wean off of it. I still do scheduled social drinking once, at most twice a week, but stay away otherwise. I come from a long line of functioning alcoholics on both sides of my family, so that probably explains a lot of it. Used to be a lot worse. Drinking to excess after work literally every single day. Get up again at 5am, go to work at a job I fucking despised with people I couldn't fucking stand, come home, drink myself half-unconscious again. Rinse, repeat. Getting a better job helped, but the problem then was the actual drinking culture at the company. You have to go to the bar after work with the big bosses. You want that promotion right? You want that raise right? That's how you move up in the company. Bigger problem was I actually liked those people, and they liked me. So it wasn't holding my nose and "enduring" the bar just to get a promotion. I wanted to go hang with them.

Having a kiddo helped me a lot. I have to take care of a little person, so I just can't be drinking at all. I just do not have the option unless it's pre-planned and scheduled ahead of time so I know my partner will be able to take care of the kiddo. No randomly just "having a few beers" anymore. It is just wildly irresponsible, in my opinion, to be under the influence of anything stronger than allergy medicine if you're taking care of children.

No idea where I'm going with this. I just wanted to share because we seem to have had the exact opposite problem. Maybe I'm just getting old. I don't know. I know with over two decades of substance abuse I've probably done a lot of damage to my liver, which is the other reason I am minimizing as much as possible the amount I consume. I would rather not drink at all but I think there is, like you were saying, some genetic trait. I mean I know there is. Look at the rest of my lineage: bunch of drunks that would show up at work on time every single day and do their jobs competently and skillfully, but still a bunch of drunks.

I'm just hoping my partner has the dominant genes, and none of the shit in my lineage gets passed on to my kiddo. I could die happy if I knew my kid didn't end up with severe clinical depression and substance abuse problems like the rest of my fucking family.

But don't get it twisted: my parents are excellent people. They dealt with their issues and rose above them, and did everything they could to raise me the same. They're why I'm a hard leftist that found my way to a place like this. They're why I can openly talk about shit like this, because it's valuable if other people can learn and benefit. We're here to help each other.

Anyway. Old shitposter emo-rant over. Back to the shitpost mines.