WHY YOU SHOULD STOP TAKING ALCOHOL
I’m 30 and I have been drinking for the past ten years (2006-2017). That’s enough time for a habit to become second nature. By 2012 (for a couple of years), it did become my second nature as I often used to drink every other day – most of the time with friends on the pretext of socializing, sometimes on my own after work to unwind after a rough day, etc. In the process, I became a self-proclaimed beer connoisseur at one point (it was really more to appear cool than anything else).
It’s a little interesting how I started drinking – one of my very good friends, Kaimal, spiked my Sprite with Vodka when I went for a washroom break (as I was opposed to alcohol for no logical reason when I was ~20 years old). When I had Vodka for the first time, I couldn’t taste anything distinct so I thought I might as well try different kinds of alcoholic beverages out there the next time we go out. Soon, I realized that alcohol was more of an acquired taste but I was willing to develop my taste buds, as it would give me a buzz/happy feeling. That’s how it all started.
My mother had been asking me to stop drinking for the better part of the past decade but I never saw a reason to stop and neither could she give me a solid reason other than some deep-rooted sentimental/superstitious reasons. It wasn’t until I got married, did I ever give it a serious thought on the whys and what-ifs of drinking. As with a lot of habits, I never questioned this habit until Shravani’s nagging. We’ve all been through it with one habit or the other. It didn’t help that I spent a better part of my adult life in the North American financial services sector (known for it’s drinking culture).
After some deep introspection over the past few months, I’ve come to a point where I don’t think drinking is the most fun/productive way of spending one’s time, money or energy. It takes a toll on you mentally, physically, and spiritually. Below, I’ll elicit a few of the reasons.
Philosophical reasons
Man’s true nature is to be happy. Motive behind man’s every single action can be classified into two broad categories – 1) to derive happiness and 2) to avoid sorrow (same as #1 in a way).
Dependent Happiness (pleasure) vs Independent Happiness
If a person chooses to be happy, he can be happy regardless of the circumstances. One shouldn’t give charge of their happiness to external things, people, situations, etc. (easier said than done). Happiness is something that comes from within (part of our mind). Let’s apply this to alcohol. If you derive happiness by drinking, you are giving alcohol the control of your happiness. You are sort of dependent on alcohol for happiness (at least at times). Whereas if you take charge of your happiness, you have control of your happiness and your happiness is not dependent on a “substance”.
Substance dependent happiness usually has a beginning and an end (also called as pleasure). Whereas, independent happiness is eternal as it doesn’t end. This perspective can truly be appreciated only if you don’t have an urge to drink (or use substances) anymore – not something that should happen overnight, usually should happen through introspection over a period of time.
A question might arise – what a mundane way of leading life! Should people really lead such a subdued life? These questions arise because one doesn’t have a higher ideal to live/aspire for. All unnecessary distractions (including drinking, fascination with a lot of unnecessary things) are due to lack of purpose or goal in one’s life. Hence, people keep trying to derive pleasure from hundred different sources (perennially changing). The more effective way would be to look at things functionally based on your life’s goal and approach every aspect of life in line with the goal.
True happiness comes/should come from within!!
Note all the views expressed in this section are based on my extensive study of eastern philosophy in the past few years.
Medical reasons
If you look at alcohol from a medical perspective, no doctor would ever recommend consuming alcohol (even in small quantities). In fact, most of the doctors would recommend avoiding alcohol while recovering from most ailments and there is a good reason for it. Our body treats alcohol like a poison – it doesn’t want it to stay in the body. Our liver and digestive system have to work extra hard to remove it from the body. So, if the body is fighting off any ailment, and if it also needs to remove alcohol from the body, it becomes taxing and the recovery becomes prolonged due to the extra burden on the body. Basically, the idea is – you never know what/when your body is fighting off against an ailment, why risk the body of taxing it with the additional load of removing alcohol from your system.
I won’t even go into the obvious reasons to avoid alcohol – high and empty carbohydrate content, risk of diabetes, drinking under influence, etc. If one believes in the rationale of alcohol helping people in getting rid of kidney stones, cholesterol from heart, etc. then one should look at the impact of alcohol holistically on body instead of quoting these two studies.
In short, alcohol diminishes our body’s immunity.
Spiritual reasons
All major religions in the world insist on meditation in some form or the other. Goal of various meditative practices is to raise one’s consciousness (to put it in an extremely simplistic terms – being aware of your own awareness/thoughts at every moment). Consuming any substance or food that interacts with the central nervous system is a major drawback for meditation. If you ask me for a scientific proof of it, it’s probably not possible (given the billions of dollars spent on lobbying by both the coffee and the alcohol beverage industries). But I will tell you this – if you are open to trying it out on your own without any bias or pre-conceived notions, observe your energy levels after a few hours of consuming alcohol/high dose of caffeine. It can’t be helpful in any way for meditators – it messes with your energy levels and reduces the calmness of your mind (however small amount of alcohol it may be). This change in energy levels impacts the overall consciousness.
Moreover, meditation can give a person the same affect of consuming alcohol – relaxation, happiness, tipsy, etc. Only difference is that while meditating, you are under complete control and not dependent on a substance to induce these. And it’s a lot better experience while meditating than through substances.
Social reasons
Most people like to have a drink or two socially in North America. Trust me I’ve done it myself way too many times over the years. But it doesn’t have to be that way – lots of countries don’t have this culture. You could replace alcohol with other beverages and find alternatives to bars as places to hang out. Even if you are in a bar, it’s totally fine to not order an alcoholic beverage. You might get questioned a couple of times by your friends for your abstinence, but if your reasoning is good, people would either understand or give up bothering you soon enough.
Most people are puppets of pop culture without questioning the basis to the fullest extent. And it’s applicable to most aspects of our life. What it does is it clouds our decision making process which could harm us and harm people we care about (knowingly or unknowingly).
Moreover, every grown up adult is responsible for bringing up the next generation (whether one accepts it or not). So it becomes really important to act like a role model at all times. Children usually learn by observing things around them. Not just children, even most grown-ups follow what certain strong individuals (leaders?) do in the society. So, it’s advisable to avoid alcohol (or any useless activity as matter of fact) unless one finds a worthy cause for it.
Other obvious reasons – risk of becoming an addict, dysfunctional behavior post a binge drinking session, losing inhibitions makes you do stupid stuff (DUI, fights, beer goggles), makes one lazy, hangovers, bad sleeping aid, etc.
Economic reasons
The amount of money and time wasted in drinking is ridiculous. If you are so concerned about economics, you can use the drinking time and money to learn a new skill, read up on management/philosophy/leadership, etc. which would get one much farther in career.
One argument I’ve heard a lot and used it myself numerous times is alcohol’s assistance with networking, helps you lose your inhibitions, etc. If you really think about it, it’s a mere excuse to use it as a tool to network. People can network without drinking. In fact the best networking I’ve done is without alcohol (specially in the last 6 months or so). And even if drinking alcohol is the only reason you get hired for your next role, do you really want to be in that role/work for such a team in the long run?
Government ban
Another question worth discussing – if it’s really that bad/harmful, why doesn’t the government ban it? That’s a very naïve question J.
Alcoholic beverage industry is a large source of government’s revenue. It’s a way for businesses to make high margin profits and for government to collect taxes on them. There is a lot of lobbying involved to make this model work. You should watch the movie Thank You For Smoking for some insights into the lobbying mechanisms.
If you look at history, lot of things that were considered safe in the past have now been deemed unsafe/harmful. One example that comes to mind easily is tobacco/smoking. It wasn’t considered harmful until the 80’s or the 90’s but now government’s stance has changed on it. Government’s view on things is neither absolute nor correct at all times. Things keep evolving. What is the certainty that major governments won’t change their current stance on alcohol too?
Closing thoughts
Please bear in mind that all this is all coming from a person who used to love drinking, drank in probably 20 different countries (trying out the best each country has to offer), convinced 10-15 people to start drinking, at one point fully convinced (without any proper rationale of course) that abstaining from alcohol was for suckers, etc.
I’ve never written a blog before. So, this piece is really for people who have started drinking after getting influenced by me. I would like to urge them to think through their decision of drinking (socially, habitually, etc. doesn’t matter) again and re-evaluate their choice. And re-evaluate that choice every few years.