"Discipline is knowing you can do a thing and choosing not to."

It's free and still nobody wants it

Except not, considering your real worth is dictated by others, not you. What you think of yourself is nearly entirely meaningless. If you haven't made yourself worth something than you are worth nothing

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Give yourself a manageable timeframe - say, a month, like the dry January im doing now.

Hell, you can cut it down to a day, AA style: I’m just not drinking today (repeat ad infinitum)

You may be an alcoholic. I was the same as your for 10 years. Then covid came and I went into a deep hole of permanent bingeing. Came to realize that I'm an alcoholic

Inflation baby :D

I planned purchases for things I could afford with my previous alcohol intake.

So far, that’s 3 pair of boots, Series X, PS5, a laptop, and a new bass. I’ve since lost count and know I shouldn’t drink again.

I also joined r/stopdrinking

I drank tons of soda water early on. 1:1 or 1:2 per drink that would be alcohol and maybe a bit more at bars. I quit before and went back after “special occasions.” It has been almost 4 years since my last drink.

Figure out your triggers… when on the weekends do you start drinking? I had some problems around and after the pandemic and honestly the thing that helped most was just hard exercise. I got way into lifting and the high from the workout made me less likely to drink plus I knew the alcohol would negatively impact my fitness goals. Working out in the late afternoon really helped me get rid of my evening drinking issue

I used to always come home to a nice blue collar beer. Replacing it with a PBR, (placebo beer replacement) helps. I get those flavored zero cal/zero sugar seltzers and its a refreshing little burn in your throat and it just hits the spot after a long day. That or you can throw some lime and mint in there for a refreshing virgin mojito. Drinking usually is just an activity you’re accustomed to and associate with relaxing. You gotta change your relationship with the vice and create your own boundaries. Stick to them!! Thats the discipline part no one else can control except you. Create your own parameters that are maintainable and stick to them indefinitely. Its very difficult to live surrounded by alcohol and not stand out in a crowd for being entirely sober. This is what often pressures people back into binging behaviors. Its okay to have a drink sometimes, you just need to consciously control when.

Yesterday I went to the funeral of my only sibling who died as a result of constant drinking. He was 40.

Depending on your financial situation, you can do something fun or productive with the extra money you have every month. For me every time I quit drinking that’s the most dramatic change is that I just suddenly have four or 500 extra dollars in my bank account every month.

Do the math on how much you typically spent in a week or in a month on booze, and make a point to set that money aside: save it, donate it to an effective charity, buy yourself something nice with it. Celebrate that extra money every month in some way. Very motivating for me.

You can start with Meditations, but Ryan Holiday has a great book called the Daily Stoic that gives you daily excerpts from the Stoics along with brief explanations and reflections.

I read the Daily Stoic first, and then read Meditations, as well as some works by Epictetus and Seneca.

So much wisdom

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For you my friend I give you good price

Unless you have a pimp.

I quit drinking a couple years ago after realizing that I had a problem and that it just makes me feel like crap. What’s helped me is connecting with other non-drinking people (via zoom at first because it was during the pandemic) and now in person. I also try my best to connect how I feel - mentally, emotionally, and physically - after I’ve done something different or something I used to do while drinking. Initially, the question I would ask myself is if (whatever I did) made me feel good…now I try to identify deeper feelings. There’s a lot of great quit lit out there, too, if you’re curious to read more about how others cope. It’s not always easy, there are certainly days I want to drown whatever is going on, but those feelings always pass. Meditation and yoga have helped with that.

just dont go this far

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Since the breakup, my heart's price peaked to the moon and my brain is out of order...

But hey, huge discount in store, buy one cheek get both for free.

Kinda sounds like prostitution tbh.

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I have loved drinking both the variety of flavors and the effects of alcohol. But I kinda got out of hand during the pandemic. Long story short, my Garmin watch provided me with data about how alcohol was affecting my life, especially sleep and stress. It totally kills the idea that alcohol provides some kind of stress relief, in fact it is exactly the opposite, and you can see it in real time on your watch. You can choos to ignore it but now you’ll have some hard eta, which has helped me to give up alcohol going from daily to once or twice a year.