Tag Archives: Alcohol

Rant

Horrible Benders

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I wrote about how I went sober (But eventually failed to maintain it), I wanted to reflect back on some of the worst benders I have been through. Why? Maybe just to remind myself why I shouldn’t drink like that anymore.

Below are some of my worst benders over the years:

Nagpur

man in white long sleeved shirt on red window
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Most of my engineering days were about booze. And since I was young, the benders were not that bad. However, there are some incidents I remember.

  • This was when I was living with my senior roommates. For some reason, one day we decided to drink whiskey at 9 AM in the morning. I have never had a good relationship with whiskey, so after many pegs, while I was at Sandeep Kalia’s house, I puked in the toilet. His kindly grandmother (We called her aaji) was very concerned what was happening, but the others told her I had eaten something bad.
  • One time we went drinking at PP’s garage pub and drank too much vodka. While others were puking, I was puzzled why I was lying awake in bed and not able to sleep. This was one of the first times I realised that alcohol affects my sleep so negatively.
  • One time we were returning from a drinking session at one of the dhabas and my motorcycle got tangled in a high tension electricity cable hanging on the road and launched into the air. I remember passing out, but luckily I was back to normal next day.

Delhi & Gurgaon

grayscale photography of bottles on top of table
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Our time in Gurgaon was the first time we had freedom to do what we wanted and we had money to spend because we were earning. Sood sahib was my roommate and very frustrated with his job. So, almost every evening, he and his degenerate colleague would come over and get drunk. It didn’t help me that I worked night shifts and went to work drunk many times. However, this was not the worst part.

  • I remember we gathered together with Chatur after a long time and started pub hopping at Saket. He came all sophisticated in a car, dressed in a suit, which we found funny, but probably helped getting us into fancy places. So we got drunk on cocktails and not being satisfied enough, drank at 2 more thekas over the night. Eventually, Chatur passed out and we somehow got home. Again, I couldn’t sleep all night while Chatur was puking in a pizza box.
  • While working night shifts, it was very common for us to go drinking after our shifts. One morning, after our shift, we went drinking with Amar sir, who was famous for making “lauly (Lovely) pegs”. We were standing on the road outside DLF Phase II Central Arcade (Less than 100m from where my parents were sleeping). Since it was peak winters, we all got drunk on dark rum. My body doesn’t react well to dark rum & I don’t remember getting back home. Next afternoon, I woke up with my knees bruised and vomit all over my bathroom. Somehow, I cleaned everything up before my parents saw but felt terrible. All afternoon I drank water and Gatorade, but there was hardly any pee and it burnt when I tried.
  • We once went on an office party and Karkose (who incidentally doesn’t drink himself) suggested I drink beer buster, which is beer mixed with tabasco sauce. It felt fun drinking it then, but I couldn’t sleep all night because my chest and stomach were burning. Horrible experience.

Xiamen

Baijiu at Zhongshan Road, Xiamen
Baijiu at Zhongshan Road, Xiamen

I was drinking Baijiu at Zhongshan road with my office colleagues. It was very cold, so instead of sipping it like the others, I did shots non-stop. Big mistake! I couldn’t sleep because my chest and stomach were burning all night. I puked many times and next day the pain in my stomach was so bad, I had to see a doctor at the airport (I was travelling back to India). The doctor told me the 60% alcohol volume Baijiu had stripped my stomach of its lining and likely made ulcers. I couldn’t eat anything other than simple rice for at least a week afterwards.

I am just glad I didn’t puke in front of my colleagues.

São Paulo

happy diverse friends clinking bottles on terrace
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I was at São Paulo for the second time and me and my colleague went drinking Caipirinhas at Eu Tu Eles. Now, Caipirinhas are one of the most deceptive drinks I have ever had. They are sweet and tasty, so it is very easy to have too many too fast without realising it. Anyway, I don’t remember how I got back to my hotel and what happened later. But next morning I woke up to find my hotel room smelling of vomit and my brain feeling like it was in a vice. I used many of the hotel towels o clean up the vomit and then hid the towels behind the AC unit on the balcony. One of the most shameful things I have ever done.

Bangkok

Once we moved to Bangkok, I discovered how cheap and easily accessible booze is. But since I have absolutely no friends here, there have not been many social occasions for me to go on benders. There have been just 3 incidents, all with office colleagues. Unlike the other incidents, I drank too much not because I was having fun, but because of peer pressure.

  • I was just visiting Bangkok and it was my farewell party. 6 of us finished many crates of beers within a few hours. I don’t remember how I got back to the hotel.
Stacks of beer bottles
Stacks of beer bottles
  • We (the wife, the kid and the dog) went to the kid’s friend’s house, whose parents are north indian. He doubted from the beginning, if me, as a Bengali would be able to drink much. To prove him wrong, I got shit-faced. Soon, I proved him correct by missing my step in the dark, losing my balance and falling into their building fountain. Again, I don’t remember how I got back home. Next day I cursed myself and promised I will never get into such a situation while out with the kid or the dog.
  • The last and most recent incident was when I went out to drink with my colleagues. 3 of us went through 8 bottles of wine in 6 hours. I came to, next day covered in bruises and my room smelling of vomit and me still drunk and stumbling about. Unfortunately, soon, the AC servicing guys came and saw the state the bathroom was in. I have never felt worse in my life than that day. My nails, my room etc all smelt of booze and I felt sick. It was truly the worst day of my life & the day I decided to give up alcohol for good.

I am still not at a stage where I can look back at all this and laugh about it. But just the act of typing all this out has strengthened my resolve to not get drunk ever again.

Food & Beverage, Rant

Bye Bye Alcohol!

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I have had a long relationship with alcohol, full of ups and downs. When I was young, the “ups” far outweighed the “downs”. Nearing 40, that is unfortunately not true anymore. It fucks up my sleep pretty badly and the after effects get worse every year. Notably, 2 very bad recent experiences recently led me to take steps.

Many times, I have tried to drink in moderation, which is all well and good before one starts, but after a few, everything goes out the window. After wondering why I do something that causes so much grief, I decided to give up on alcohol altogether.

What Next?

The most difficult part was, I had been conditioned to hold a bottle or can while doing certain things – watching TV, sitting on my balcony. And it felt weird to do these things empty handed. So I decided to swap alcohol with non-alcoholic drinks.

Drinks, but without alcohol
Drinks, but without alcohol

So now I have stocked my refrigerator with non-alcoholic drinks. Eventually, I would wean off these, too, as they have lots of sugar. One particular drink I really like is Bundaberg Root beer. Everyone around me seems to hate them, but I can’t get over how tasty they are.

I had assumed that the hardest part would be social events, but it is much easier to tell people you don’t drink (No one tries to coerce you) than to say you want to stop drinking after a few (Come on, just one more). For pure booze events, I decline them altogether now.

As of today, 1 month sober and counting, I notice these changes in my life:

  1. I am spending less time in bed on weekends, but still waking up more refreshed and have more energy throughout the day.
  2. I am not waking up to pee in the middle of the night anymore.
  3. I have more energy while running. Especially, my weekend runs now feel much easier.

Let’s see how long it lasts.

Rant

Just stop with the bullshit studies already!

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I read news everyday. At least some of the news articles are about bullshit studies telling you what is good or bad for your health. Over time, I started seeing a pattern. Most of these bullshit studies contradicted each other clearly. Below are some examples I found very recently.

Vitamins

photo medication pills on white plastic container
Photo by Anna Shvets on Pexels.com

This study says that Vitamins are good for you and can slow cognitive decline.

Then, this article cites several studies that say that Vitamins increase the risk of cancer appreciably and will kill you faster.

This study says the Vitamins are neither good nor bad for you, but completely useless.

Alcohol

three cocktail drinks
Photo by Prem Pal Singh Tanwar on Pexels.com

This article cites multiple studies which say that moderate alcohol consumption is good for you (and me).

This study proves that drinking even moderate amounts of alcohol will shrink your brain.

Egg Yolk

adding of egg on a heap flour
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We all know in the last decade there were several studies advising you not to eat egg yolk, because they are high in cholesterol.

Thankfully, it was recently conclusively proven that eating food high in cholesterol doesn’t cause higher levels of blood cholesterol.

Ketamine

This study proves that Ketamine helps with Depression and Anxiety Disorders.

This study proves the exact opposite, Ketamine can cause your Anxiety to become worse.

Psilocybin (Magic mushrooms)

wild mushroom
Photo by Fazlul Kader Chowdhury on Pexels.com

This article cites multiple studies which provide that Psilocybin can alleviate depressive symptoms for up to a year.

This study says that Psilocybin is in fact, bad for mental health.

Marijuana

dark green leafed plant
Photo by Washarapol D BinYo Jundang on Pexels.com

This study cites that cannabis is effective in treating mental disorders. There are many studies claiming cannabis is effective for pain management.

This study (among many others) cites the exact opposite. In fact, I, myself have seen marijuana crazed people in mental distress.

Grain free Dog/Cat Food

photo of person feeding dog outside
Photo by Ricky Esquivel on Pexels.com

There was a fad a couple of years ago where all pet parents started feeding their pets grain free food. The logic was, the ancestors of these animals lived in the jungle and hunted for food, so never had access to grain.

All was well, till grain-free pets started dying from heart failure. Now there’s an FDA alert against grain free food.

Ozempic

This article says that if you use Ozempic to lose weight and then you stop taking it, you gain back more than you had lost.

This study says the exact opposite.

Blue Light

Remember all the studies that told you that blue light in the evenings and at night is bad for you and your sleep? How every OS there is actually baked in a feature to turn your screen warm after sunset? Remember that they even sell lasses that block blue light?

This study linked from this article states all that is bullshit, it is now yellow light which is bad for you and your sleep.

I wonder what is the reason for such contradictory studies. I can think of the following cases

  1. Both studies are in fact correct, people are different and everyone reacts to things differently.
  2. Some of these studies are bullshit/unscientific.
  3. The entire mechanism of studies is inherently wrong.

Rant

New Year’s Resolutions – A Status Report

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This is a status report on the resolutions I made. Let’s see how I did with my New Year’s Resolutions last year:

Successes

  1. I was able to lower my time on Social Networks – Deleted my Quora & Reddit accounts. Was able to lower my screen time somewhat.
  2. I was able to restart my donations after a break of few years.
  3. I was able to go bald for good.
  4. I took much fewer sick leaves this year. Almost all genuine.
  5. I have been FaceTiming my parents daily.
  6. I have been able to mostly maintain a healthy reading habit.
  7. I was able to close all 3 rings on my watch for 301 days straight, before Influenza derailed my efforts. Still, was able to close them at least 3 days a week. I even did my first 10k run.

Partial Successes

  1. I cut down on my Anxiety medication somewhat. There were some rough patches, but I am taking less medication now, than I was, at the beginning of the year.
  3. I was able to listen to music more. But I wasn’t able to get into new music, even when recommended by friends.
  4. I was able to cut some toxic people out of my life. Need to do more next year
  5. I was able to cut back on my alcohol consumption somewhat.

Failures

  1. Epic Fail – I did so well about not wasting money till August, then ate shit. I bought an iPad Air in August. By December, I started hating it and bought an iPad Pro 11″. In a couple of weeks, I started hating it, too and bought an iPad Pro 12.9″. Basically, exact opposite of what happened here and here.
  2. I wasted somewhat less money this year compared to before. For the first time in many years, I was even able to save some money.

Overall, I am quite happy with my progress last year. This year I am not making any new resolutions, would rather make sure I complete the ones I already made last year.

Rant

New Year’s Resolutions

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I am not one for New Year’s resolutions. Never made them. However, recently I have been quite unhappy with how some aspects of my life have been going. So I decided to make some changes. And now seems like a good time to start as any. So here are my New Year’s Resolutions for 2023. Nothing too ambitious

  1. I will try my best to cut down on my Anxiety medication. No set targets, no time bindings, will just do my best without being miserable and see how it goes.
  2. I will stop wasting money this year. I will spend money as much as I want, within my means, but will stop wasting like here and here. I have made a comprehensive list of the mistakes and lessons learnt from last year. I will also try to start saving some money. No set goals.
  3. I will not consume alcohol except when the occasion calls for it. Not mindlessly when I am getting bored and have nothing else to do.
  4. I will listen to music more. Will give new music a chance.
  5. I will shave my head for good once I get a SIM card replacement and spend 0 effort or money on my hair. Finished.
  6. I will take less sick leaves.
  7. I will be more grateful for what I have in life.
  8. I will cut toxic people out of my life.
  9. I will start reading books again. Again, no set target. Will read as much as I enjoy.
  10. I will lower my time on Social Networks – especially Quora and Reddit. Will replace the time mindlessly scrolling these apps with book reading. Will lower my screen time.
  11. I will close the rings on my watch at least 6 days a week. Will run at least 4 days a week.
  12. I will call my parents, especially my father more.

Let’s see how many I can actually go through with.

Rant

Lockdown Day 54 – Freedom!

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Last week, the lockdown rules were slightly relaxed in Gurgaon and it is now allowed to go out and do some things. Freedom at last!

I had been waiting to see my ENT, so I used this chance to step out of my apartment for the first time in almost 2 months.

It was a surreal experience driving after so many days; I had a continuous feeling of guilt, as if I was doing something wrong.

Some Beverages

I returned back home soon enough, but at least it gave me a chance to stock on some beverages. There were very limited brands available, but I wasn’t complaining.

Health & Fitness, Rant

How to beat a Hangover

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Tonight’s party can be tomorrow’s nightmare. While heavy consumption of alcohol can liven up even the most boring parties, it can make the next day horrible and completely un-productive and make your head feel like a throbbing mass of shit.
Being a victim of this phenomena many times, I have found out a few ways you can salvage the next day.
First of all, we must know why a Hangover occurs. A hangover is simply dehydration (loss of water and salt from cells) caused due to alcohol.  Dehydration is caused by alcohol’s ability to inhibit the effect of anti-diuretic hormone on kidney tubules, which leads to a hyperosmolar state, which in turn causes shrinking of (by loss of water) the brain cells which causes hangover. Here’re a few tips which can be observed (while still proving to your friends that you’re a man) during and after Alcohol consumption


During:-

  1. Drink large quantities of water. Alcohol consumption does cause excessive urination, and drinking even more water will cause even more frequent urination, but it does help. I generally have one glass of water after every full mug of Beer (or a peg of vodka/whiskey).
  2. Don’t mix different drink types or different types of the same drink type (Hop-based beer with wheat-based beer, beer with vodka, beer with wine etc.)
  3. Eat well. Prefer starchy slow-digesting foods like rice and potato, just don’t sleep empty stomached.
 
After(If you already had too much to drink and now its time to go home):-
 
  1. If you feel nauseous and feel like you want to throw up, do so. Don’t hold the vomit back; instead let go and remove all the excess alcohol from your stomach. This will not only reduce the hangover duration, but will also lead to a good night’s sleep. Do remember to re-hydrate yourself properly though.
  2. Keep a bottle of Gatorade (or similar) next to your bed. You are bound to wake up at night to urinate /feeling thirsty and drinking Gatorade helps. If possible, keep a couple of Dispirins (Aspirin) next to the bed as well and have them during one of the mid-sleep urine sessions. Most of the times, I feel this cures the headache by the time you wake up.
  3. Have plenty of fluids and salts the next day. Avoid having more diuretics like coffee and soft drinks; which will cause more de-hydration.
  4. Do some light exercise. Go running (not in the heat) or do some cardios. This will increase the metabolism rate of your body and metabolize the alcohol faster.
Consuming a large quantity of plain water may cause it to drain more salts out of the body causing a salt imbalance in cells. If Gatorade is not present, Lemonade helps (with lots of salt). 
 
After a lot of unpleasant hangover days, I feel that these days I can get rid of my hangover by the time I wake up or by mid-afternoon max(If I have passed out and don’t wake up in the middle of the night). 
 
Hope this helps a few people out.
Rant

Alcohol blues

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I really envy those people who, after having enormous quantities of alcohol just pass out and then sleep for hours without any care in the world. I, myself am not so lucky. Each time I have a lot of alcohol, especially a cocktail of different types, after a disturbed sleep of a few hours, I wake up with a headache and a hunger unable to sleep anymore however hard I try. The few hours of sleep I get are full of bad dreams(my bike being stolen, my bike’s engine seizing, my guitar dying) and I’m tossing and turning most of the time. I have tried everything, anti hangover pills, eating a lot, eating a lot of rice, saturating myself with water, sucking lemons(though I like doing that anyways) nothing seems to help. The whole day after that, I feel tired and exhausted and i yawn all the time. I’ve learnt with experience that during such times, instead of trying to sleep, I should just wake up and do stuff and sleep later. Today’s one of those days. My eyes are hurting, my stomach is hurting with hunger and my head is hurting. There’s nothing to eat at home and I’m too lazy to go out. I guess I’ll just read my book.

Education, Rant

What I have been doing..

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Had my sessional examinations whole week. Got free yesterday with high hopes of watching movies to find my motherboard dead. It won’t power ON at all and changing the SMPS didnt help at all. Since most of my next month’s allowance will be gone in paying debts, I don’t think I can get a new one till after my exams. So I am back at reliace shitworld(A cyber cafe with good internet speed and locals playing counter strike and shouting obscenities..) Also, all my hopes of boozing after the exams are crushed as I don’t have any cash left 🙁 and ain’t expecting any till 3rd or 4th. Also, spent up all the fuel in my bike in a drag race with Neeraj. So, now I am just gonna buy some magazines in the next few days and spend time at home reading them. Maybe will also take up membership of a Library to read some novels. Anyways, will blog soon as soon as I fond something to blog about..