U.S. alcohol-related deaths have doubled, study says
wall o&#x27; text<p>Alcohol kind of creeps up on you over time.<p>I was in Greek Life in college. I don&#x27;t regret a second of it, but the drinking culture was omnipresent (we did have dry brothers but if you drank you drank).<p>After college I moved back home. I had a few concerning episodes that one could &quot;pass&quot; as a mildly embarassing thing (vomiting after a comedy show once I was home, passing out during a family party). The first time my drinking came to a head was when my then-SO called me at a work retreat and I realized I had consumed about 30 drinks in the past 4 days- I was violently hungover and unable to consume food.<p>Several months later, we broke up, a relative died, and I came into enough money to pay off a significant enough chunk of my loans so that I could move out. During this time my therapist suggested I curb my drinking but I didn&#x27;t really take him all that seriously. Dumb things kept happening- the most prominent event during this period was that I vomited while drunk gaming online with friends. Sometime after this I took my therapist&#x27;s advice to quit drinking for a week. My mind cleared up a lot but I resumed after.<p>Things came to a head when I woke up one day after a day-long bout of drinking (I went to a tailgate and ended up going out to bars later that night). I felt like my liver was going to explode. The worst part was that I had errands to do that day and the entire time I felt like I was going to die.<p>I decided to indefinitely quit drinking. This was over this past November and December, and I had a few holiday parties to go to- I mostly teetotaled at them, but one conversation stuck out to me. A college friend who was older than me told me she had to re-calibrate her drinking life post-grad to function normally. I kind of realized that I hadn&#x27;t done that.<p>I&#x27;ve started drinking again but I&#x27;ve kept it much more muted. I don&#x27;t go to my local bar after work anymore. I don&#x27;t really club. I never really drank alone much (the online gaming this was an outlier), so stopping that wasn&#x27;t hard.<p>I do think there&#x27;s a way to curb bad drinking habits, and I think I&#x27;m making headway in doing that, but the key is to recognize that your habits are problematic. Right now my mantra is<p>1) Have a predefined limit
2) Nurse the drink (I drink everything fast, so this is hardest)
3) Don&#x27;t let people pressure you. Don&#x27;t feel the need to drink at someone else&#x27;s pace. Don&#x27;t feel the need to take shots because someone bought them from the group.<p>I know this isn&#x27;t perfect, and I&#x27;m not truly abstaining for good, but I&#x27;m in a way better place than I was before.<p>Don&#x27;t make excuses for yourself. If you feel like alcohol is impacting you, do something about it.