Dry January

But good luck Rob! I have never tried to give up alcohol, but then I don't drink that much anyway (no raised eyebrows at the back there please). I don't think I'd miss it except at times of stress, when the thought of a nice gin and tonic or brimming glass of wine waiting for me when I get home does sustain me...

I imagine the hard bit will be not turning to other comforts like chocolate etc, but I'm sure you can do it! Treating yourself to yummy non-alcoholic drinks (rather than flat Coke or warm, fake orange juice) might be a good idea. Fruity smoothie things will also aid the detox.

I just end up reading books and watching glorious garbage on telly.

I shall endeavour to stop drinking on my own. But it's such fun sometimes!!

Good luck, Robster.

I have been drinking much more than usual over the past week or so due to xmas, new years, etc. Not having any in the house would be the best idea. Right now I've got lots of wood chuck hard ciders in the fridge along with wine coolers. Then I've got a couple bottles of wine and some rum around too. And those cool drinks, wood chucks and hard ciders, are easy to grab when I'm out of soda. So go buy yourself a bunch of fruit juices and sodas to quench your thirst and try not going to bars at all.

(A stone is 14 pounds Sarah.)

And yes, fruity smoothie things are U & K.

problem is, long-term abstinence is untenable, and may actually lead to binge drinking 4 relief. i am trying to drink more in moderation- learn 2 have a glass of wine w/dinner and stop- which i seldom do. this seems a better long-term solution.

but good luck with it. it really isn't as hard as it seems once u get past the first week.

But then, that's a plus: more cash means you can indulge any vices you want....

also, as an aside, a pint of OJ&L is likely to be the most expensive drink in a round (esp in SS pubs, where beer is cheap), so ignore em's comments on round getting in :)

Should've said before: the best thing about not drinking is knowing you will have a clear head the next morning, I definitely noticed a great increase in general well-being thanks to this, no wasted days recovering from the previous night.

i mean, thats the other thing, if you're going to go dry, why not also stay in for the month too, you can catch up on all the other things theres never enough time for

month without bouze vs month without pub: TS

more seriously i've had dry spells several times (once lasting about a year); the clear head thing is great, the rubbishness of pubs for the non-drinker less so. i tended to lose touch with quite a few friends as a result, which makes it a dud in my book.

Seriously, just drink some nice fruit juice. Or even a lassi.

I'm trying this and just want to eat every snack in the house now :{

Yes, you'll be missing the extra sugar, that's been my experience. I just took two days off and I was wandering through the store aisles craving something--I got fruit popsicles :)

yeah, not my first rodeo but it feels like the timing is right... everything else is going fine, I took some melatonin and sleep doesn't seem to be an issue

but there's a bunch of left over Xmas candy that my sister sent, I better hide it

This is our third year I think. For many years we used to start with a one- or two-week alcohol fast, but the full month really isn't bad. This year I'm going to try extending it with a hybrid approach — for Feb and March, no drinking at home, just when I'm out.

I'm not really trying to "change my relationship with alcohol" or whatever people say about dry January. I consider alcohol a net positive in my life in all respects except health — I accept that it's by far the least healthy I do regularly, so moderating it in various ways is worthwhile. (And btw I totally recognize that it is not a net positive for everyone, I'm not an evangelist. I just feel like I have a good relationship with it, except for the cumulative effects of its poisons on my aging internal infrastructure.)

Mostly what I replace it with is other beverages. I kind of always have a beverage at hand all day long — coffee, seltzer water, tea, etc. In the evenings, that is most often a cocktail or glass of wine. So in dry times I mostly drink more tea (as noted on the tea thread).

before Covid I had a (pretty) hard/fast rule about never drinking alone, but in the early days (like summer 2020) I used to meet a couple buddies in the park (all the bars were closed) and we'd drink beer and maybe a little whisky and then little by little my self-restraint eroded and I've been drinking alone, usually a tall can (or two) on a walk after work
It's become something I expect these days so I'm ready to disrupt that habit and get back to something more celebratory/occasional and less automatic

I enjoy drinking alone with a book so much! More than with people, I think. At some point of getting tipsy I'm going to regret that I'm not reading in peace.

Still having the most trouble with sleeping sober, unfortunately. Does melatonin really help? I can doze off but I can't stay asleep.

Does melatonin really help?

works for me but I think it's meant to be used occasionally, not routinely

have done it about three or four times now, maybe more, can't remember before covid. i drink a fair bit so i enjoy a break. it can be hard. it leads to an absolutely huge amount of free time, i find, as at weekends means i'm up very early. but over time i find you build routines to make it easier, for example i'll go somewhere for breakfast early on saturday or sunday. last year i went to early films at the bfi or other good cinemas, they often have something old screening at 11 or 12am. the prevalence of zero alcohol options helps a lot too, if you do go out.

i treat it a bit also as a chance to be alone a little more as after xmas i find myself a bit tired of so much socialising. it is nice to go out and have a zero beer or two but it can be very isolating and weird if everyone else is drinking alcohol.

the drinking i miss most in dry january is:

- wine with dinner on a sunday
- wine with a meal at a restaurant (it's just not the same without)
- a beer on a friday after work
- definitely a beer alone with a book (tho this can be nice with a zero beer as it's more about atmos)

i don't find myself craving the sort of longer drinking sessions so much even tho i do those once a week or so with friends during normal months.

Still having the most trouble with sleeping sober, unfortunately.

Ah, well here's where "California sober" helps. Understand that's not for everyone either, but thc does way more for my sleep than alcohol. Alcohol's actively bad for sleep for me.

I have some strong (2400mg) valerian root capsules that help to knock me out as well

I did this last year, and I think I drank fewer than 25 drinks the rest of the years. As some of you might know, I used to be what could be called a "functional alcoholic." Honestly, it was the best decision I ever made, totally changed the way I live my life and relate to alcohol. Still not sober, but approaching it.

I do, however, pop 5-10mg THC edibles every evening around 9:30p.

What's funny about the sleep thing is that when I *drink* alcohol, particularly beer or wine, I cannot sleep at all. I had to give up beer this summer because I simply cannot drink it and get the necessary amount of sleep that I need.

i mean prob gonna quit weed for january also. i have about one joint per week but it is nice to see how your mind works free of substances for a while.

sometimes at the end of january i am tempted to go further and see how that would feel for longer. but i am always tempted by the fun of socialising.

I know! Everyone says they sleep better sober, that with booze they can fall asleep but not deeply and not stay asleep. I have the polar opposite. I had wine last night and I slept LIKE A DAMN BABY.

I don’t like being high enough to have an issue with weed, it’s almost purely medicinal for me at this point

i've sort of stopped getting so high now as when i first got back into it about 18 months ago, but don't really want to smoke more. i quite enjoyed once a week on a weekend night in having a piece of cake, some tea, wine, and a joint, while watching a film.

now it kinda just mellows me out a bit but i sort of miss the high. i could easily stop again as a result.

I just bought a massive $5 bag of buds from a street vendor (he was mostly selling shrooms, this was on his 'bargain' table) but I'm kinda afraid to try it lest it's too strong

Not to be righteous about it, but Jan-March is a terrible time for bars and restaurants, so I’d rather support them now than withdraw. Saying that as a moderate drinker.

“right now is terrible time for the poison-sellers, won’t someone think of them”

Oh, that's true, if you think of them that way.

my liquor store owner is currently wearing a barrel with suspenders

Where do you guys go for social irl spaces?

It's funny, I have a few friends that are non-drinkers... one who has never drank as far as I know (old straight-edge punk) and of course the former problem drinkers.. and I see them around, they're not hiding in their homes, I do pub trivia with one of them and he just orders food and a coke or whatever. For people like this, there is no barrier to socializing w/o alcohol, they've been doing it for years if not decades. It's only us on-the-wagoneers that worry about stuff like that.

Yeah I have no problem going to a bar and ordering an NA beer, which almost all of them carry now.

I do hear the complaint/concern about the hit to bars' bottom lines, but I don't know what to do about it beyond continuing to go and get food and non-alcoholic drinks. My favorite cocktail bar has a mocktail menu I haven't tried, so probably I'll acquaint myself with that this month.

ginger beer, bitters & lime is an old standby for me... settles the stomach as well

I do hear the complaint/concern about the hit to bars' bottom lines

yeah, I guess so... but booze kinda sells itself, and it can sit for years without going bad. I think a bigger concern for bar owners is the demographic shift when Gen B or whatever they are now just aren't really socializing in bars as much, they're off kitesurfing on E or tiktoking or something... it'll be interesting to see if they grow into drinking or if there's a major generational shift away from booze long term

Having a ton of friends who've stopped drinking (as well as my partner), I've noticed that it's now standard for a lot of bars to have non-alcoholic options: NA beer, CBD water, NA cocktails, and so on. I think bars are (sensibly) figuring out how to sell a $6-$10 drink rather than a $2-$4 Coke or cranberry juice.

Yes these days I am surprised to find a bar that can't scare up a Heineken Zero from the back or something. Even while traveling (Houston, Huntsville,
St. Louis) and in airports I was rarely disappointed.

I have been ubersober about 10 months, and I am a musician so I spend a LOT of time in bars with my closest friends. It was an adjustment at first, but now it is routine.

I'm on Day 7!! (I had a beer & a half on the 2nd because I was hungover)

Feeling fine and sleeping well but I keep thinking of reasons to break this fast

I was visiting a friend in New York who quit drinking maybe five years ago or so. He stopped by a bodega to get beer to bring to a mutual friend's house, and apologized that for whatever reason the bodega he stopped in *only* had NA beer. He didn't know what was up.

There was yet another study that came out a week or so ago iirc that reaffirmed that there is literally nothing good for you about alcohol, and that it is outright poison that is toxic in any amount. One of the first comments was some variation of "everything is fine in moderation," and that person was immediately told to re-read the article, which said exactly not that. I don't drink that much, relatively speaking, but it was yet another reminder that my own moderation doesn't mean much in the wellness scheme of things.

whenever people get on about that it reminds me of that scene from sleeper. hundreds of great reasons to stop drinking but it's hard to imagine we're all going to stop doing this thing that's as old as civilization just because somebody shared some link on facebook

last few years i've fallen into a cycle of drinking for a month and abstaining for three. it's cut my drinking drastically, obviously, and the effects on my life have been undeniable.

i am somewhat reluctant to declare myself sober because i worry about the effects on my mental health and self-esteem if i were to fall off the wagon. but so far three-month intervals have been manageable and at this point it's honestly a relief to me to think that there was ever a time that a month of sobriety seemed formidable to me.

i am currently not drinking for january but didn't know there was such a thing as "dry january" until i saw this thread

yeah, I heard a couple public health experts/researchers react to that new warning from the Surgeon General (essentially a call to start labeling alcohol bottles as potentially carcinogenic, which would require an act of Congress) and they were a little more relaxed about it... telling people that they can only have one drink a month tends to push them out of the conversation, and these guys were saying that a moderate amount of alcohol is fine, it's a part of life, etc. Yes, technically there is no 'safe' amount but there is a lower-risk amount that you can enjoy without freaking out... they sounded sensible so I'm going with that

didn't know there was such a thing as "dry january"

Budo, I have some bad news for you about November.

yeah, I heard a couple public health experts/researchers react to that new warning from the Surgeon General (essentially a call to start labeling alcohol bottles as potentially carcinogenic, which would require an act of Congress) and they were a little more relaxed about it... telling people that they can only have one drink a month tends to push them out of the conversation, and these guys were saying that a moderate amount of alcohol is fine, it's a part of life, etc. Yes, technically there is no 'safe' amount but there is a lower-risk amount that you can enjoy without freaking out... they sounded sensible so I'm going with that

― Andy the Grasshopper, Thursday, January 9, 2025 6:42 PM (twenty-four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

“Doctors recommend Winstons for all their benefits for your “T-Zone””

The NYT article I read about it broke down the risk of 2 drinks a day for men as rising from 10 percent risk for all cancers for nondrinkers to 13 percent for drinkers. That’s a 30 percent increase and certainly significant, but it’s still just going from 10 to 13 percent. There are lots of other risk factors for cancer obviously, genetic and behavioral, and for me that 3-point increase isn’t by itself that alarming because I don’t have a lot of other known risk factors. Knock wood! On the other hand I’m on Dry January, so I do have some health caution about it.

The podcast The Studies Show did a very good episode on the question of whether alcohol consumption can have any benefits at all. Basically their conclusion was that many studies have shown a slight health benefit to moderate consumption as opposed to none, many other studies have shown negative effects associated with any consumption at all, and that in all such studies it's fantastically difficult to control for the many other lifestyle factors that may influence the results, so in effect the answer is whatever works for you.

I've never had a problem drinking (beyond the fact that just about any drinking is almost innately problematic). I don't drink to excess, I don't get hangovers. I'm not overweight, I don't have high blood pressure, etc., so I've never done dry January. However, my wife reverse peer pressured me into going the rest of the month without drinking, and I'm contrarian enough that despite seeing it as somewhat pointless I'm doing it anyway, to prove a point by demonstrating its pointlessness, at least in my own personal case.

I did see some other post in a different place with a couple of interesting links. One was to stats that apparently show that Dry January in the US is most popular with those 18-29 years old and that its popularity decreases from there with increasing age:

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1332970/us-dry-january-participation-by-age/

Another a couple of OpEds, this one:

https://www.riverfronttimes.com/news/the-influencers-are-coming-for-dry-january-43919031

Summarized such as "It's a good thing to do, and it costs nothing to participate—so naturally, influencers have found a way to monetize it."

And this one in the NYTimes:

https://archive.ph/FZrq1

Headline: "Dry January Is Driving Me to Drink." A couple of provocative/conspicuous bombs tossed: "Sobriety without addiction feels like stolen valor" and "A broader modern temperance movement promoting 'clean' living traffics in moral superiority and old racist ideas."

(Sorry for Riverside Times link, that place is apparently BS.)

Ever since mh called you out in the gaming thread as not knowing what tf you’re posting about lol

Called me out, lol. I'm not sure that's what I was "called out" for, but OK.

that Cottom column is pretty wack afaic, particularly since she completely contradicts herself in it. is it “individual choice” or is it a “social problem” that must be solved by society at large? you can’t pick and choose, imho.

afaic, addicts have the right to do drugs, drink, whatever, as long as they’re not directly harming other people. and society should support addicts as people who deserve everything that non-addicts have.

but the pathologization of addicts leads into the really bizarre idea that being ‘sober’ if one was never an ‘addict’ is somehow performative. but being ‘sober’ is not about a performance, it is about a very personal choice that one makes for oneself.

that she refuses to condemn the billions and billions spent on marketing poison to people is ludicrous— yeah sure, the real problem is social media influencers talking about being sober.

(she is, in many ways, talking like an addict!!)

I mean i wouldn’t expect anything less from the NYT opinion section, which will defend the rights of companies to peddle poison to people while simultaneously saying that those who don’t agree are racist.

one of the best things you can do for your health is to abstain from reading the NYT opinion section, or anything in the NYT for that matter. works for me!!

Yeah, all opinion columns suck, lol. The only reason I came across either of those was searching for things to send my wife for forcing my contrarian hand.

That column is not very coherent, it's like she started with vague annoyance and then forced a long contrarian take out of it.

I get people being annoyed with marketing and trends, but I think having it as this hashtag movement probably helps a lot of people take a break. It's hardly mandatory.

"(Performative) sobriety practiced by non-addicts feels like stolen valor" is a take, I guess.

Funny inversion of the classic drunkard's claim that they don't go out drinking on New Year's or St. Patrick's day because they're annoyed by "amateurs."

I am enforcedly dry year-round now; I admit I do roll my eyes a bit when my drinking friends make a show of abstaining when I'm around. Makes me want to buy them a drink. Abstain for your own reasons if you want, not on my behalf (I sometimes wish to say).

On second thought, perhaps tipsy's point is valid. If someone initially abstains because I'm nearby, but then they find they can still enjoy the evening without the sauce, perhaps that's a good thing.

I'm not sure it adds to any understanding to say that there is no "safe level" of alcohol consumption. There's no "safe level" of driving either - every time you jump in a car you run the risk of being involved in a fatal car accident. Everything we do involves risk, the question is the level of risk we're comfortable with. If you're an occasional social drinker who enjoys a glass of wine every now and then, well yes that might raise your risk of cancer, but the absolute increase in risk will be so infinitesimal that it will easily be offset by the pleasure and social benefits of the occasional drink.

I'm just doing dry mon-fri . Life is too rough at the moment, I need self-medicating weekends to look forward to.

While my own feeling is that my relationship with alcohol is just fine and we get along grand, I will say that I really see the effects of drinking on middle-aged bodies — especially the insides. I've known some regular heavy drinkers who were able to seem moderately healthy through their 40s, but one of them didn't make it out of his 50s (he was a smoker too) and another is touch and go on that. I'm talking alcoholic level consumption, not moderate drinking, but it is still pretty visceral evidence. It annoyed me that Cottum put "poison" in quotation marks, it's not inaccurate. It will wear out the organs.

I clocked out over the weekend... split a bottle of Bordeux with two people on Saturday, and a couple three pints on Sunday to cope with the inauguration

but I'm back wagoneering yesterday and today

There may be no "safe" level of driving, but cars are a useful and/or essential tool that are also designed and regulated to be safer, so we accept the at least partly measurable risk. Alcohol serves no real purpose and is demonstrably bad for you, physically, so it's not really the same thing. It's a totally personal, generally voluntary choice with its own hard to specifically quantify pros and cons, potential physical health prospects vs. potential social benefits, that sort of thing, both only measurable in the abstract or anecdotal.

Me, what I find frustrating about Dry January is that it makes me very self-conscious about my own drinking. Which yeah, may be its purpose, except I really don't drink that much. Or maybe I do relative to someone that drinks very little or not at all? I certainly don't think it affects my health, but then again, that's exactly what a problematic drinker might say by way of justification. It's intriguing that those most likely to embrace Dry January are apparently 18-29 years olds, because those are the Gen Zers currently least likely to drink (let alone excessively) in the first place.

I barely drank at all at that age, for no particular reason, so it was not a part of my formative years/habits. I'm not currently a heavy drinker, or probably even a moderate drinker, by statistical standards, but from a Dry January position, that's what backed me into a rhetorical corner: if I don't drink that much and it's not an issue, then why not stop for a month (or a little under)? If I insist I *do* want or need to drink, does that mean alcohol is a bigger part of my life than I thought? And if I *do* go dry, does that mean alcohol is inessential to my life, so why drink at all? These are I suppose all sort of philosophical questions. Like I said, I'm just stubborn, that's why I'm currently not drinking. To prove a point, even if I don't know what that point is and may not even understand it when I get to February and I presume resume drinking again.

imho it should be precisely as hard as "don't eat lasagna for a month" and if it inspires the kind of turmoil you're describing then it may be good to examine that

strongly disagree that cars are essential and alcohol serves no real purpose

fwiw i have never set out to participate in sober october or dry january, i just find that it's helpful to take long breaks from drinking and a month is a useful increment, and sometimes it has lined up, like now. i'm happy to talk about my relationship to drinking and what i've found helpful vs. not, on this or another thread, but i don't think "have influences appropriated sobriety?" or "does science say drinking is bad?" are productive lines of discussion

*influencers

Yeah, influencers didn't create Christmas, the period that precedes January. It is a good/easier time to take a break.

Good thread.

Heh, Christmas was literally created by some OG influencers.

Josh, I have no idea what you're arguing. If you drink as little as you say, then you can (a) stop easily for a month; or (b) continue drinking as normal. If you feel pressure from your wife, that's your own affair!

(hums Kirsty MacColl song)

I'm not arguing anything, just airing.

I feel good and am sleeping well, but I keep thinking of reasons to crack open a tall cool one, they are legion

I've had the flu all month, with associated effects on more chronic illness stuff. I'm sort of improved but can't quite shake it, which is annoying as it's sort of ruining that nice healthy feeling that comes with a break. On the other hand, being sick made the first few weeks incredibly easy - didn't want a drink at all.

Alcohol serves no real purpose

well my kids probably wouldn't exist without it but don't tell them that

it wasn't that long ago that beer, wine & cider were the safest things to drink

Including for kids!!

I strongly dispute that alcohol serves no real purpose! It's our greatest social drug. Used at reasonable levels, it loosens people up and relaxes them and makes them more comfortable in social settings (whether a bar or a family dinner) that can induce a lot of anxiety and discomfort. There's a reason it has gone hand in hand with human societies for thousands of years. Of course it also has/can have a lot of bad effects (reduces inhibitions on anger and violence, e.g.). But I think our species has found it plenty useful over the millennia.

I totally agree that it can and often does serve *a* purpose, just not that it's any sort of necessity. Humans have been drinking alcohol from time immemorial, but of course, plenty of people don't drink at all and they seem to do okay too.

Lubricant, anaesthesia, shock absorber, analgesic, totally.

It accompanies celebrations and is a symbol of hospitality. It solemnizes camaraderie and fellowship.

There is a rich and often fascinating history and culture - from its role in health, in trade, in exploration, in diplomacy.

Its relationship with technology - sanitization, distillation, transport, refrigeration. Its entwinement with cuisine (food pairing, use in cooking).

There are loads of good things about drinking.

there are plenty of animals that are trying to catch a buzz as well.. it's not just us

I’m through with buzz (in January)

Loneliness is a killer - lots of research shows people who report loneliness or lead solitary lives die younger. In that context, alcohol as a social lubricant definitely serves a useful purpose.

true tho they prob are horsing a load of booze in at home alone

speaking from experience

Anyone who’s lasted three weeks: I’m ver yproud of you

I actually met four friends at a bar on Monday — a day when a drink felt well justified! — but settled for a faux negroni (eh) even though they were all having wine and beer. Not out of any great sense of virtue, but honestly I didn't want Trump's inauguration to be the thing that threw me off. I'm going to cut it a few days short because I have an out-of-town trip next week that will include some fine dining where I will very much want to avail myself of the libations.

I saw an article a few years ago where an old folks/retirement home in the UK installed a small pub on the ground floor, with a couple beer taps and some bottles of wine

It said that family visitations shot way up because the space was overall more comfortable than some drab day room... and the residents liked it because it reminded them of their old local

There is a famous alcohol study center in Austin, Texas (https://dellmed.utexas.edu/units/waggoner-center-for-alcohol-addiction-research) that discovered they got different results in a traditional lab than they did after they built a lab designed to look like a working bar. I read about it years ago in a great book called "Proof: The Science of Booze."

Loneliness is a killer - lots of research shows people who report loneliness or lead solitary lives die younger. In that context, alcohol as a social lubricant definitely serves a useful purpose.

And therein lies the paradox(es). Alcohol (that you drink) is literally bad for you. But most socializing is good for you. If alcohol helps you socialize, then that is good. But if you need alcohol to socialize, is that bad? Obviously this depends on the person and their relationship to alcohol. But if all alcohol is toxic, then is any relationship to alcohol healthy?

My grandma-in-law used to drink a martini at the end of every day, around 4pm, and it had to be in the right stemware, with an olive. She did this essentially every day, for I think 40 years. Was that a problem? Only if she didn't have that martini, lol! I once saw her throw a fit in a market in Albania because they didn't have the correct olives. She went to my sister in law's graduation and brought her own gin that she had decanted into a glass jar, because she wasn't sure the dumbass college kids knew how to make a martini the correct way. She left the bottle of gin behind and those same dumbass kids thought it was a jar of water and used it to water the plants. The plants apparently died.

Which brings me to:

use in cooking

Does anyone else think that the vodka in a vodka cream sauce is bullshit? Vodka doesn't really have a strong flavor to begin with. It's mostly used to deglaze the pan, and then it boils off, so what is its point? On the other hand, I know bakers that swear by vodka in pie crusts. As the science goes:

López-Alt says there were over 130 individual tests to arrive at the vodka magic trick. But once he got there, it all made perfect sense. The trouble had always been this: there is only so tender a crust can be with the known available ingredients -- fat, flour, water. Water is what allows a dough to bind together enough to be malleable and rollable; it also helps gluten -- the gremlin that makes crusts toughen -- form. And proliferate.

So he needed a stand-in for water, one that would offer moisture but not encourage gluten, and would leave no unsavory traces behind. The answer, of course, was vodka, the most forgettable of spirits. Vodka is 40% alcohol, which evaporates in a hot oven -- it sticks around long enough to keep the dough together, then politely disappears when it's no longer needed.

You can use this trick in any flaky pie crust recipe -- just swap half the liquid for hard liquor. You can even use booze with real flavor, if you like -- like rye in apple pie crust, or rum in coconut cream. And once you understand vodka's properties in cooking, it can do even more. "Try replacing some of the water in a tempura-style batter or some of the beer in a beer batter with straight up vodka," López-Alt told me." Just like with the pie crust, you'll find that your batter comes out lighter and crisper because of alcohol's high volatility and gluten-inhibiting abilities."

my older sister used to steal beer from my dad and say she was using it to wash her hair

'A whole six pack??'

lol

OK, it wasn't Texas, it was apparently University of Washington:

In Seattle he founded the Addictive Behaviors Research Center, focusing on building even more realistic environments and contexts for his expectancy research. It wasn’t just the smell and taste—or lack of it—that sparked people’s behaviors regarding alcohol. It was socializing, sitting on a stool in a darkened room with music playing. You couldn’t build a laboratory inside a bar, Marlatt realized, but you could build a bar inside a lab.

So on the second floor of an academic building at the university, Marlatt installed a long, narrow countertop and put glassware and bottles behind it. He lowered the lights, put in a stereo system, and added five stools along the length of the counter. And he built in two-way mirrors, cameras, and microphones. Marlatt called it the Behavioral Alcohol Research Laboratory—the BAR Lab.

It was a virtual environment to simulate drinking perception and behavior—a holodeck for getting buzzed. “The idea is that many different factors go into intoxication beyond the alcohol itself. Alcohol is a socially imbibed drug. Environment is a factor,” says Kim Fromme, a psychologist at the University of Texas and a student of Marlatt’s. “Having a drink alone in your dining room is very different from having a drink in a bar out with friends. Alan came up with the idea of emulating a bar setting—dark rooms, neon lights, music, everything but the cigarette smoke.”

The Lab let Marlatt figure out a bunch of things about how alcohol affects people. He found that given enough cues, people in the expect-ethanol/get-placebo group would show signs of intoxication, like slurred words, facial flushing, and an increased probability of flirting with that attractive person over by the buffet table. At low-to-moderate doses, like what you’d get with social drinking, instructions designed to create expectancies are more effective when the subjects are distracted—by a party or an erotic movie (booze research is fun, right?)—than when the subjects have the chance to sit quietly and evaluate their own internal state of intoxication. In short, our state of mind affects what alcohol does to us, just as alcohol affects our state of mind.

I saw an article a few years ago where an old folks/retirement home in the UK installed a small pub on the ground floor

the nursing home where my dad lived for about 18 mo had a weekly beer meetup. they catered to veterans and the beer meetups were v popular. the fact that my dad didn't want to go was a sign to me that he was no longer there :( the guy never turned down a drink.

This thread has basically become a "let's justify our drinking" thread, which is fine, but I'm really curious as to why *not* drinking gets people so worked up? There are a zillion different ways to socialize that don't involve drinking, so the "social element" argument sort of falls flat for me— most of my 100% sober friends are much more popular than I am, even tho I have an occasional drink.

Well if we're not gonna drink, we can at least talk about drinking!

I don't know, I mean, it's a Dry January thread — by definition that's going to be mostly people who usually drink talking about not drinking. Which then leads to thoughts about drinking and what it all means. By next month this will all go dormant again.

This thread has basically become a "let's justify our drinking" thread, which is fine, but I'm really curious as to why *not* drinking gets people so worked up?

Because Campari has a sainted place in the lives of citizens.

it's Aperol now, old-timer

Yes, you people spritz it up *snort*

but I'm really curious as to why *not* drinking gets people so worked up

venturing a guess that many ILXors fall into the *ahem* coveted Gen X demographic, and many of us grew up in a world that still celebrated booze, from our parents' cocktail parties to 'Cheers' to keggers in high school through our boozy barroom twenties and beyond

Seems like younger kids have grown up in a world that has largely turned its back on heavy drinking or drinking *at all* so it's not the same conversation if you decide to take some time off, or not drink at all

I was just going to say any thread on substance use is going to have its turn towards the defensive at some point.

I've talked with my friends about that who have the same aged kids as me, the relative lack of partying — at least of the old keg-in-a-cornfield variety. Plenty of weed smoking. But just a whole different social culture. I didn't go to a lot of weekend parties, but I knew about them, everybody did. I would hear stories on Monday about who got drunk and started crying. I asked my younger son about it, he's 16 and has a big group of friends he hangs out with, but they don't have "parties" like that. I imagine they will break into somebody's liquor cabinet at some point, they're not choir boys, but their social landscape is just very different, and group binge drinking doesn't seem as common. (At least until college frat parties, I guess.)

Depends where they go to college or whether they go away to college. The ones who stay at home in the last five years dealt with COVID, so they're more sheltered and party less; they're more likely to vape, roll joints, or confine drinking to a beer. My student newspaper students are like this, though the revelers and those most likely to have recreational sex tend to be the ones who drink and smoke.

My cousin's kid, an FSU sophomore, parties like any frathouse bro you'd have seen in 1985.

I am on the older edge of millennial, born 1984, but have many friends who are younger than me. There's certainly less binge drinking in the early 20s set, but there's certainly some.

Many of the people closer to my age have stopped because none of us can afford hangovers any longer, and even more than a drink or two and I feel like garbage the next day.

As I mentioned up thread, I think, I used to be a functional alcoholic— I could easily put away 5-10 drinks (sometimes drinking 3-4 high ABV beers and a pint of whiskey) most nights of the week, and that was true until I got cancer at age 34...it stopped a lot of that right in its tracks, but some moments during the early pandemic made me think I was back on the booze train. At the end of the day, though, I just don't really *like* it enough to spend time, energy, and money on it. And frankly, most bars are boring to me, so I just don't go to them any longer.

I brought a bottle of Johnnie Walker to a work party more than a month ago, and there's still a third left— that wouldn't have survived the night six years ago.

It's a trend pretty specific to Gen Z. I've seen several explanations, some goofy, some intriguing. For some reason Gen Z is less likely to go out to socialize, or socialize more online, so that is apparently one factor, and covid kicked it up a notch (related: less sex). I also saw a theory that Gen Z was the first all digital or digital native generation, and thus is very attuned to and careful around phone cameras (see also - or not - their apparent reticence to show their feet in public). They're also acutely aware of the dangers of assault, and recognize drinks as pretty easy to tamper with.

Fwiw, those Gen Zers that do drink prefer spirits to beer; beer sales are in the shitter.

And yeah, I mean, I have a kid at Wisconsin, and boy do students there drink, but I think that school is among the trend outliers.

lol I wonder if Wisconsin has made Dry January illegal.

Pretty sure they sell "Drink Wisconsinbly" shirts in the student bookstore.

More of my friends than not have stopped drinking in the past year or two, and while I am absolutely glad they managed an addiction or just worked to improve their lives—I've never questioned anyone's quitting or teetotaling or never participating—for the first time in my life I find myself missing the messy, irrational conversations and messy, irrational times that can happen between two buzzed people.

I sometimes have used my step-dad as a hopeful example of how you can get away with a lifetime of boozing. He's 78 and until only a month ago was still living a daily routine involving drinks in the pub and evening shifts in the casino, playing blackjack and drinking some more. Not as heavy a boozer back when he was middle aged, but still a steady drinker.

He discharged himself from hospital yesterday to go home and die. He's got a diagnosis of 2 different types of leukaemia and god knows what else, but he told my brother he could be gone in the next week and it would probably be a miracle if he is still alive in march. It seems to come at you fast does this shit when it catches up with you :(

It probably has been mentioned at some point but there is fair deal of skepticism around scientific findings - my generation grew up with the conviction that a glass of wine per day was good for health and cardiovascular diseases, which came from a 1992 study in the Lancet. It takes year to establish a scientific consensus and for it to sink in collectively, to be believed, and to change social codes.

People also are skeptic about the idea of maximizing your health / life expectancy, because they associate it with a sanitized life, deprived of risk and fun. Even if there is no good reason that it worked for cigarettes but not alcohol - except maybe for passive smoking not having a direct parallel in alcohol use.

I'm not doing Dry January because it seems a little hypocritical and here to justifying drinking in December, and also I think I can limit my consumption in more direct ways - but I've seen evidence that it works for people if you look at their drinking several months after and I guess Dry January is the main global preventative campaign and a good opportunity for messaging, so it's certainly a good thing.

I was a happy social drinker for eons but a diagnosis of ott blood pressure last year nipped that in the bud (no pun). I stopped altogether in late October and have no interest in drinking again. Being a teetotaller and a few other lifestyle/diet changes brought the BP down to normal levels and I feel great. But, man, they were good times.

Lol - Maybe that belonged in the 50+ iLXOrs thread ?

It is intriguing that pervasive cigarette use has been significantly curtailed - and it happened pretty quickly, over the course of a couple of decades - but not alcohol use (even if numbers are currently down). I wonder why? I guess the most obvious answer is the most obvious answer, that there is a ban on cigarette advertising and warnings on cigarettes and many places have banned indoor smoking. Of course, an alcohol ban was famously attempted, and famously failed, but I wonder how hypothetical restrictions would be received 100 years later.

You know what, though? I'm spotting more smoking around campus the last couple years: blatant, policy-defying smoking.

might be another COVID-era hangover

I've noticed it a bit, too, but I think it might be just coincidence. Like when you're pregnant and start to notice all the other pregnant people. Smoking is also a lot more noticeable. My kids, especially when they were younger, would bristle and complain if they smelled smoke from a single smoker on the sidewalk 100 feet ahead of them, and I would have to say, kids, you have no idea. I used to come back from shows and literally have to put all my clothes in a second hamper and take a shower before going to bed.

I do hear tales of a lot of scofflaw smoking in the train here. Drives commuters nuts, because they arrive at work all smelly.

I was shocked to learn recently that there is no federal smoking ban, and that a relatively large number of states have iirc few or no restrictions.

Yeah, apparently just 28 states have an indoor smoking ban. But even they have exceptions, and the other states have kind of ad hoc restrictions, too, including those with no formal ban (Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wyoming).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_smoking_bans_in_the_United_States

I've sort of inadvertently taken January off the booze. I was ill over Christmas but had two sessions and on both succeeding days felt so debilitatingly dreadful, I thought 'what the fuck am I doing this for?'. My issue is that if there's time involved, ie drinking starts at 6 pm and there's no end in sight, I'll drink for that entire time, often speeding up as I go. I can't moderate. It's ridiculous but it's like I get in a kind of tunnel or furrow and the only solution is to drink for the blackout.

British culture is so saturated with booze, it's difficult to extricate yourself from it. When I've given up before, I've had to endure all sorts of interrogations - 'what do you mean you're off the booze? Are you vegan, too?'— that sort of bullshit. My feeling about Dry January is that it shores up the dominant ideology; it's virtually a state-sanctioned sober period that frees everyone up - morally, and financially - to booze the rest of the year round.

smoking is definitely ‘back’ in some way— not just via the pandemic, but also because many people realized that vaping is actually worse for you in many ways, so back to the old nic sticks.

not surprised but dismayed that the uk govt and all others tbf sleepwalked into having vaping be legal.

Is vaping worse for you? I recall there were issues with some black market vapes, but I always thought the thing with vapes is that they are simply presumed to be better for you than cigarettes (because it's hard to imagine they are worse), but that there is not any real science or studies available to make a definitive claim one way or another. Ignorance is bliss, etc.

I def. know more than a couple of people that vape rather than smoke, and while I can't attest to their health or its safety, at least it doesn't stink or stick to your clothes, afaict. (I've never been a smoker.)

I'm so glad I broke my nicotine addiction last year and threw all my stinking vaping paraphernalia in the bin, that felt really good. Still failing to get completely off alcohol, but drastically cutting down my consumption at least feels like a progression in the right direction from being a total funct-alc.

I'd rather someone lit an old-fashioned death-tab rather than vaped next to me. That vape juice stench depresses and nauseates me, the old fashioned smell of death is much more nostalgic

Do you notice a health difference, pre and post smoking?

I still smoke one a day, always with a cocktail or glass of wine; it's impossible for me anymore to smoke one without spirits. I will have a second or third depending on the length of the evening -- almost always a weekend -- or if I hang out with one of my two full-time smoking friends.

Early wakeup (5 a.m. seven days a week), exercise, and aging have naturally bit into my alcohol consumption. Two drinks a day is my usual: a cocktail at 5:30, a glass of wine with dinner. On a weekend it's three or four and even then my system shuts down -- I simply can't keep drinking all night like I used to, say, 15 years ago. To come down I'll usually smoke weed, an immense help.

xp

most definitely, not feeling like shit all the time is one of the most noticeable differences. At the height of my vaping use I used to wake up 3 am (after overdoing it somewhat), feeling like my lungs were drowning in gunk, just an absolutely wretched way to feel when you are meant to be sleeping.

Three days dry and smoke-free, thank the single digit temps that make it dangerous/unpleasant to venture outdoors.

I don't have to abstain from both but just coincidentally I did anyway, and I reliably start yawning around 10pm which is a big improvement! Sleep is slowly getting better, fewer wake ups and less wakeful. I miss both of my vices which still feel good to me, but I recognize this is a positive direction to be going.

I was doing 2-3 days a week off already by choice but this is my longest consecutive stretch in a very long time. Like a decade.

I'm kind of surprised drinking is down - you'd think with White Claw and Carbliss and all these cocktails in a can teenage drinking would be more appealing than ever

The kids are all right, surprisingly. Or perhaps not but they've at least considered the options we gave them and said "no thanks I'm good" to a few, considering the effed up choices on offer.

They smoke weed instead.

xxp I feel the same as before, I don't feel better or worse for abstaining. That's been the problem with getting motivated, I wasn't that heavy of a user and/or my body had adjusted so I wasn't feeling bad, so it's easy to just keep going.

Does anyone else find being off booze gives them sugar cravings? I guess beer has a lot of sugar, tho I wasn't having a beer every day or whatever.

Oh yeah big time. I've been snacking, sometimes on fruit popsicles or a few spoons of ice cream, or olives and cheese.

If I could extrapolate from my kids' friends and college students, I'd say young people are still drinking plenty and a fair chunk vape too. My son has dabbled with cigarettes but at £16 a pack, it's insanity to keep it up. (Bless him - he bought a vintage Marlboro Red box to keep his cheap Sovereigns in. At least he has style.)

And 100% yes to the sugar cravings!

I gather that my kids are scared shitless of drinking (having witnessed my very public and rather spectacular lifesplosion last year). That said, I don't know how much exposure / opportunity they have or will have to the drinking culture I grew up in.

The eldest departs for college in the fall and I don't get the sense they have much of a party appetite. That or they're extremely good at concealing it, which concealment would be a waste of time and energy anyway, because see above.

Younger kid is likely to be in special-needs care situations for life.

There's a host of formative experiences that I got that they likely won't - for good, for ill, who knows. That's true of all sort of things. The kids will chart their own course.

Oh yeah big time. I've been snacking, sometimes on fruit popsicles or a few spoons of ice cream, or olives and cheese.

Same, I ordinarily will have a dessert at the weekend or whatever but have been craving chocolate a lot. I think perhaps also cos it replaces the "little treat" feeling.

Does anyone else find being off booze gives them sugar cravings?

that's what started this thread revive! I was eating Xmas candies that I don't even like

They smoke weed instead

this is true, but the weed is gnarly... My buddy's 16 year is kind of a troubled kid (he ordered Taco Bell delivery at 1am on a school night last week) and they realize they can't really police his weed use, but it's not the weed of our youth, by a long shot.. dabs and shit like that

Here in Oakland I've noticed these industrial-sized flavored nitrous oxide tanks (like strawberry-banana!) left on the sidewalk as well... not just the baby Whip-Its anymore

xpost It makes sense, technically alcohol conveys sweetness, which is why super hoppy beers (more bitter) are also higher alcohol (to balance it out). I have heard lots of accounts of people going dry for January making up for their lack of drinking with more snacking. For sure I find myself settling in at the end of the day looking for something to occupy my stomach while I watch TV, and more often than not it's been a little bowl of candy or cookies instead of a pour of bourbon.

I've had three cocktails this month across three different days. The last couple of Decembers haven't been heavy enough to engender that kind of poisoned feeling that makes a dry January feel necessary for me

I've taken to having dry or heavily reduced periods throughout the year a bit more. I've also stopped drinking beer at home altogether and find the relative labour-intensiveness of cocktails puts a natural limit on how much I drink, more so than if I just had six cans of IPA sitting in the fridge

I mean, Negronis are easy but the fact that drinking three of them on the bounce would probably kill me puts its own limit on those

I post promiscuously about Negronis and can handle only one: it's that sour-sweetness.

When we're not Dry Januarying at our house, we have an informal rule of no more than one stirred drink per night. A negroni or a martini plus a glass of wine is fine, but 2 negronis or 2 martinis is 2 much.

boy, we're in mind-meld, tips.

that seems reasonable!

I only got back into weed in the last two years or so after a long hiatus, apart from like the odd joint handed to me at a party or whatever.

It really is so different to when I was in my twenties or even my thirties. Growing up in Dublin it was only ever resin. And even back in th day in London it felt more like someone sells you something and you take what they have.

But now it's like someone sending me a list and when I asked what the different strains are I was directed to a website that describes them all. It's not legal where I am but feels much more like buying a bottle of wine or whatever than before.

In terms of the effects it's quite nice being able to choose and know, so you aren't falling asleep when you want to go out or whatever.

Tho tbf a lot of the user descriptions of weed read vaguely, like they were written after smoking a load of weed.

Alternatively, they're mostly bullshit. Kind of like when I buy a beer with tasting notes, and I try it blind and guess, like, "orange, herbal and ginger" and then look at the can and see "tangerine, pineapple and vanilla" and go, oh yeah, it does taste like those things.

Actually there was/think still is a website where people log ecstasy tablets and do user reviews. Always thought a found poem from it would be great. The usernames were all like "gurnking_2001" or whatever and the comments would be "normal, smooth come up, very pleasant, then after an hour it was like I have been hit with a bible, wow! danced all night!"

I think weed descriptions and specific purported effects are kind of like audiophile snake oil.
https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/91CojPTqKjL._AC_SL1500_.jpg

The indica-vs-sativa thing certainly seems overblown, and these days almost everything is some hybrid or other. Not like I've ever been very scientific about any of this, but the main differences I experience have to do just with dosage. I will say that the "hemp derived" stuff like Delta-8 and Delta-10 does feel different and not as potent as good ol' Delta 9. On the other hand there's a whole lot about the plant and its interactions with the human body that aren't all that well understood, including the possible effects of non-THC components (CBD, terpenes, etc). Which is to say that I think it's plausible that there are different strains that may have somewhat different effects, but in general more weed will get you more high regardless.

Also good for us for turning the Dry January thread into a weed thread lol

Weed, sugar, ecstasy, is there anything else we can get in here?

fwiw I've definitely experienced more upper type effects from some of the modern strains that are new to me

now we're talking 'california sober' heheheh

I quit weed for January too also, just wanted total clarity for a while. Tho I always think of that Spinal Tap "too much, there's too much perspective" line when doing dry January.

Weed, sugar, ecstasy, is there anything else we can get in here?

Caffeine! I know some people who can't or won't drink caffeine and cut it out entirely, to the extent that if there's any sort of coffee in something (like a dessert, for example) they get paranoid they'll be up all night.

Is there any sort of Dry January for nicotine, or is that stuff so hard to quit that if you go without for a month you might as well go forever?

or is that stuff so hard to quit that if you go without for a month you might as well go forever

I have friends that are like two-three cigarettes a month (usually bumming when drinking) and I could see them taking a month off without too much duress

I train at my local running track once a week and the other day there were two guys in the bleachers smoking a huge blunt adjacent to the track sending a plume of dankness down the backstretch and I stopped to tell them that the park less than one block north and the neighborhood two blocks to the east are both actually rather famous for open-air weed smoking for the past 60+ years.

I felt like a total Karen.... but I think COVID warped people's sense of civility and self-awareness.

I'm semi-dry this month not for any reason other than lack of opportunities and I'm trying to get in shape after an injury last month.

i'm at the point of looking forward to a drink on friday 31 jan quite strongly now. tho another part of me would like to do another month, there are too many plans in february once people are around more.

calzino, I'm very sorry to read about your step-father.

when I was 22 I didn't drink for six months. I was prescribed medication for my mental health and I thought, if I'm going to do it properly then it means no drinking since there's no point mixing a depressant with an anti-depressant. I kinda loved what it did for me - it made me realise that a lot of my friendships at the time were based solely on habit and rituals of social drinking rather than shared interests and values. I would recommend everyone considering it to try a period of sobriety, even just a few weeks, just because it shakes up your routine and habits. But don't everyone pick January please, it's grim for us Capricorn babies to have fully sober birthdays.

I do really enjoy drinking now, and being drunk, and sometimes I find myself getting the 4pm Friday itch, the "what's your weekend plans?" text to everyone in my inner circle to see who fancies opening a bottle if I've had a boring or testing week. But I can go for weeks without drinking without realising. I had three drinks on my birthday last week and if it wasn't for that it would have been a full month, and it's only this thread that made me realise it's been that long.

The indica-vs-sativa thing certainly seems overblown, and these days almost everything is some hybrid or other.

as someone who has worked in the industry, has a medical card, and has smoked a lot of weed in my life, i am going to say, politely, that you are very very very wrong.

Once a budtender explained to me which one is in-da-couch, I never looked back.

Tables I will defer to your knowledge, I certainly couldn’t even tell you what my own experience is because most weed I’ve ever consumed has not been labeled.

The science on it, to the extent it is exists, is fuzzy. Sativa has a higher concentration of THC, indica has more CBD, but an awful lot of what gets grown and sold now is not strictly either.

If I lived in a legal state it would be interesting to try several clearly identified strains on different days to test the differences. Alas around here we take what we can get.

As I understand it, there are many things at work in cannabis - many active compounds, like over 150 (though only three that get you high?) - so that in so far as it's even been studied much at all it's really hard to isolate exactly what does what. Different strains, sure, but different effects? Whether or not they are responsible for specific effects, I still think our brains do a lot of heavy lifting when it comes to use and uses. And even as far as strains go, one strain called "Dirty Diaper Skunk Butt" and another with the same name might be chemically distinct from each other. And call a strain "Sleepytime" and I bet many reactions would be as expected.

Our brains are amazing. From that same Proof book about alcohol:

A study titled, simply, “The Color of Odors,” will destroy your faith in anybody’s ability to taste anything. Here’s how it worked: three French researchers started with two wines from Bordeaux, a white made with Sémillon and Sauvignon grapes and a red made with Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot.

The researchers first had a group of subjects taste both the white wine and the red, under white light in clear glasses, and write down all the words they could think of to describe each one. In this test it didn’t matter whether the tasters perceived the same things. Inter-rater reliability wasn’t a factor here—the researchers didn’t care if tasters agreed with each other about the wine color and taste, just that each taster would consistently call one “red” and one “white.”

Then the researchers took an odorless, tasteless extract of the grape-skin pigment anthocyanin and dripped it into the white wine, turning it red. And they called the tasters back for a second go-around, asking them to compare the white wine and the colored wine—the same wine, in other words, with red food coloring. The result was a taste-test catastrophe. Almost to a person, the tasters chose to use the same words for the white wine from the initial tasting on the white wine in the second. And they used the same words for the red wine on the red-colored white wine. They simply could not tell the difference. Color alone—not aroma, not flavor—told them what to expect, and that’s exactly what they tasted.

that anecdote doesn't surprise me at all, wine tasting is mostly horseshit... though I'm sure there are some actual pro wine folks who would be like 'what the fuck?'

I was once gifted a book called "Cork Dork" about a writer that takes a year off to try and become a master sommelier. She succeeds, and to that end discovers that there *are* some skills that can be learned that allow you to make specific, educated observations about wines, like regions or variety or expression or whatever, but that there are some things she thinks are BS. And her conclusion in the end, iirc, was that if you have an exceptional glass of special wine on the steps of a beautiful home in the south of France while watching the sunset, then have that same wine at home after shoveling dirty snow on a cold New York night, it may not seem like the same wine.

probably the same with weed lol

If I lived in a legal state it would be interesting to try several clearly identified strains on different days to test the differences. Alas around here we take what we can get.

it's illegal in the uk but i defo notice v specific differences with the ones i've tried.

also sorry but that is total nonsense about wine, lol.

it's not even about 'skills', it's just this grape tastes diff to that one. or storing this thing in wood makes it taste different to steel or something, are wood and steel the same too?

I favor delta 9

yeah what

I went out to dinner tonight and drank a (perfect) martini and a glass of Argentinian malbec. I'm good.

this thread has hopelessly gone off the rails, love it

i sold four bottles of wine at work last night, a wednesday
alcohol is alive and well in case anyone wondered

xps

thanks boxedjoy, it's rough on my mum who has lost her 3 remaining siblings to cancer in the last year.

I've almost completed my dry mon-fri shift and friday officially ends at 6pm or thereabouts by my dryness rulebook. So I'm going to drink some red wine tonight, maybe a few beers as well. Catch up with some highly rated modern movies I have missed in the last year. The greatest show in town imo.

https://preview.redd.it/7l8z7joekdf81.jpg?auto=webp&s=5686e2588e2722b87ef7d59312f18f75737ecc28

Have drank so, so much tea this month.