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<main><h1>I did dry January</h1>

<p>I enjoy drinking. I like the taste of alcohol, I like bars, I like social
drinking, I like how drinking makes me feel. Drinking is fun. There are only
two major problems I have with drinking. The first is being hungover. Haruki
Murakami's story "All God's Children Can Dance" begins with a description of a
hangover as being the worst possible thing that a human being can experience:</p>

<blockquote>
His head felt as if it had been stuffed with decaying teeth during the night.
A foul sludge was oozing from his rotting gums and eating away at his brain
from the inside.  If he ignored it, he wouldn't have a brain left.  Which would
be all right.
</blockquote>

<p>
I say with only some exaggeration that this is basically how I feel when I am hungover.
This is why I have for
many years followed what I call the "3(+1) drink limit." I generally follow, more or less, this rule: stick to, at a maximum, 3 drinks, maybe 1 more
if I'm drinking over a very long period of time. This moderation is not a
restriction to me; I've learned from experience that this is the approximate point at
which drinking no longer becomes fun: not just the next day, but the night of — it is too far past this limit that I start feeling rash, reckless, stupid
and annoying. And for me, drinking is about fun.</p>

<p>The second problem with drinking is that it is probably not good for me. I
have read various things that say moderate drinking — defined, apparently, as
less than 14 drinks a week for men, which I almost always have stuck to for the last five
years — is somewhere between "not bad at all for you," "kinda bad for you" or
"really bad for you." Like most important health things, I don't really trust my ability
to determine, through independent research, which one of these is the case.
Instead, I follow some combination of public health recommendations, articles I
read, things I hear from people, and "vibes," and waver between whether I worry about whether I drink too
much or not. There have been times in my life when I drink much more heavily than I do now -- mostly, in
college, and to some degree in my early 20s. I started practicing the 3(+1)
drink limit in my mid-20s and I've basically kept it as a guideline ever since.
</p>

<p>
It's not really clear why I did dry January. I think I just said I was going
to do it and thought, well, if I said I was going to do this, I guess I have to
follow through. I think I tend to make decisions intuitively, without really
understanding my own reasoning. I mostly found doing dry January boring and annoying, but I didn't find it particularly 
challenging. I slept maybe slightly
better. I was less social, and spent more time on writing, reading, and
other projects. I often practiced yoga and meditation in the evening. I learned
to handle social anxiety without alcohol a little better. But mostly, I just
used it as an excuse to be introverted, stay in and read or work on various
projects, which is something I think I do far too much of anyway. However,  I
did start writing more, which I think has been the most important change. I
will probably return to drinking a little bit less, simply out of habit. At the
end of day, I am glad that I did it.</p>
</main>
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