Let me push that stool in for you: the off-topic thread

I just visited The Beer Nut's blog after not looking at it for quite a while. Bravo! Still going strong, and I enjoyed reading back several pages.

I would have a few drinks 3-5 days of the week. I really feel like I want to jump in here and say "but if it's 5 days of the week then that's when I'd have very little!", but that's probably what a problem drinker would say, right?

In terms of beer consumption I would have 1-2 cans of beer maybe 2-3 of those days, in the early evening when I'm cooking dinner.

The majority of my drinks these days would be 1-2 whiskies or negronis later in the evening.

I do think this is more than is medically advised, it's hard to argue otherwise frankly. I would be more concerned about slightly elevating my odds of cancer or whatever else more than the calorie intake implications of drinking.

If you're gaining weight because of what you're drinking, the option is there to rein it in or adjust your calorie intake across other areas to put yourself in a deficit until you bring your weight under control. Of course you can exercise (I train 4 days per week, sometimes 5) but it's easier to have a sense of what your calorie intake is and deal with that than to attempt to 'out train' your bad diet. Training can help offset, however.

I think the risk with this kind of drinking is when it becomes a habit, and there is a slow creep. I have a wife and I guess we keep each other honest, but I have read accounts of people's slide into alcoholism and I can see that in the right circumstances, where perhaps you have problems in your life and the social stigma or concern you might have just goes out the window... Yeah, I can see how someone could comfort drink the way some people comfort eat.

There was one account I heard on a podcast which related to a guy who had been disabled in a war. He was in an office job and was generally unfulfilled and dealing with trauma. He got to a position where he was living for the weekends, when he would have a bottle of wine each night. That was the highlight of the week. So then that weekend bottle became a glass of wine every night. Then that became several glasses of wine every night, and eventually a bottle a night. Then two bottles a night. Then he started drinking during the day on the weekends. Then he started coming up with fake trips to leave his family to go away drinking heavily for full days on the weekend. Gradually he started having wine at lunchtime during the week, but when this wasn't enough anymore he started drinking vodka early in the morning when he got up, to get himself to lunchtime. Then he had to have vodka in the toilets at work. So, eventually, he reached a position where he was drinking constantly throughout every day of the week. And it had just crept up on him over the course of this long period, and all the while at each stage he was under the (mistaken) belief that the people around him didn't notice because he was being discreet. But of course... Most of us have encountered an alcoholic in our lives, maybe at work or even at school, who thinks they are flying under the radar... But they're not...