Improved health and lifestyle from quitting drinking

The Sandbox Fitness
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I forgot…when I made it, I did use a filter on the hops, so it might want to buy some empty tea bags and steep it overnight. Hop varieties can vary quite a bit in flavor, so check out the uses/descriptions online and look for ones intended to be flavor/aroma hops. It should be fun experimenting with the different types and even different combinations.

I am not sure what Lagunitas uses in their hop water…it might just be a hop extract as I don’t think it tastes much like real hops. Your home made version will be quite different.

Another fun thing to do with carbonated water is to try it with soda extracts or even different flavors of candy/baking extracts. I stopped drinking soda/pop/coke a long time ago since I did not want the sugar or artificial sweeteners, but you make a nice seltzer style cream soda or root beer or really just about anything you can think of. It will take a little bit of getting used to it, just like going from a sprite to a lemon lime sparkling water, but not much of a leap if you are already there with the other flavors of sparkling water.

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My plan for now was to buy those “flavor drops” that Bubly and other makers do, but I see there’s a lot of possibility!

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I’m addicted to regular water. Either way, it’s a great substitute for alcohol!

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For those looking for beer and cocktail replacements - chef who has gone N/A started a series taste testing different options

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Never ended up getting those replacement N/A beers, I got different ones and actually haven’t had a desire to try them yet.

They tried to give me grief over returning a case with 1 beer missing. I said, “I’m 6 months and 4 days sober and that beer is the one that almost made me relapse.” They got real helpful then.

Sober through one family Christmas and now approaching the (mostly) alcoholic in-laws’ Christmas. It should be fine. They’ll get wasted, I’ll go to bed. Same as Thanksgiving.

Turns out my weight hasn’t plateau’d as I thought. Down 33 pounds now, as of my lowest weigh-in. I’ve also been running further and further distances within my treadmill walking. 6.5 months sober exactly.

We also got our SodaStream! Mostly have just done water or added some lemon or lime so far. Carbonated some orange juice - really interesting, much frothier than expected. Going to try carbonating cold brew coffee tomorrow.

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Downside: I used to be a “cold doesn’t bother me” person. Now that I’m at my lightest, I get cold so much more easily!

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I can’t say I am missing my evening drinks at all. Sleep continues to improve, although I am still not a great sleeper. Sometimes its 5.5 hours, occasionally close to 7 hours. The variance doesn’t seem to have much impact on mood/energy for the day. I just need to find the motivation to be productive at 4am when it happens.

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At this rate, I’ll see you at the Summer Games of Paris 2024! (not sarcastic, great job)

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Did you try this? I have carbonated tea, chai is nice with bubbles.

Always on the treadmill or do you get outside? I find focusing on a physical target to reach a lot more motivating than a timed goal.

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Have yet to make the cold brew but still going to! I have 7 flavor drops arriving this week, one is Diet Pepsi and then 6 fruit flavors.

I’ve mostly been on the treadmill. I do outdoor running and plan to despite the winter, but I have colitis and sometimes being outside isn’t appealing. Nonetheless it’s good for me to get out of my comfort zone and face my anxiety of being away from toilets.

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Carbonated coffee - no.

Tried it with a pear & caramel flavored coffee with a bit of milk and extra caramel syrup. No need to try other flavors.

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I had a coffee drink with yuzu, once. My conclusion was that i should look for a yuzu seltzer, but i didn’t want to mix coffee and citrus.

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Some sites / articles are telling me to do organic coffee + a tsp tumeric

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I bought a bag of limes on sale and have been doing 1/2 lime to 24 ounces water. I can easily down 48 ounces over a few hours so just leave the half-cut lime out until I use it later.

Comes out to about $0.09 per 12 ounces not counting cost of carbonation. It would be cheaper just buying bottled lime juice, regardless. There isn’t really a benefit from the fresh lime except it goes bad.

Ready to get all the flavoring drops, though.

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Why not get True Lime instead? Doesn’t go bad and tastes just as good (imo).

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Now that I have a Soda Stream, I want to look into making my own hop water.

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Never had heard of it. Maybe will do!

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The lime juice from the same people who sell “true lemon”?

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Yes…they also have grapefruit and orange.

Also, they have a whole bunch of sweetened and energy drinks

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So i am done for good.

I learned about the Kindling Effect. Basically each cycle of binge drinking followed by reduced consumption leads to increasingly worse withdrawal symptoms.

I think this is what i have been fighting for over a year, probably two now. While i was generally being responsible during the weekdays, i too often had too many on the weekends. I thought i was just getting old (this is true regardless).

But i was making gradual cutbacks for a while now. First, hard alcohol, next, Sunday afternoon drinks, then higher abv beers. These weren’t absolute cutbacks, they were just removed from the daily habit. I felt better for a while after each step, but then generally ran into the same crappy feeling in the early part of the week.

I was pretty good throughout most of December, getting to just having a few on the weekends and nothing during the weeks.

Then the holidays hit. I thought i could enjoy a few more with family and friends through all the gatherings and then just go back to the pattern i established last month.

I’ll just say, that was terrible. The anxiety, sleep, everything that comes with it was the worst ever. I pushed through it all and haven’t had a drink in a week, but I am not sure what the next step up would lead to.

So that’s it. My decision to try occasional moderate drinking after years of daily drinking isn’t feasible, it’s dangerous. It’s a bit of a painful irony that trying to be better is what led to it.

I haven’t seen the Kindling Effect mentioned here previously, maybe some similar experiences, but if you are finding yourself on a similar pattern, do look into it and understand what it leads to.

Happy dry January (and a dry 2024+)!

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