365+ Days Without Alcohol: What I've Learned

The importance of running experiments of n=1 (where the number of participants is 1, you) is underrated.

Twice this week this week I listened to Dr. K. talk about the differences in Eastern and Western medicine.

The main difference: Western medicine is practiced at the population level. Eastern medicine is practiced at the individual level. n=1.

The tangent this led down is the idea that we often try to apply population level fixes to individual problems. In the case of administering antibiotics, that’s a good thing. In the case of determining things like sleep, diet and exercise — preventative medicine — we give blanket statements that work for 80-90% of people.

What happens if you’re in the 10%?

And yes I know most people in the 90% don’t follow it anyways, that’s not the point.

The point is, running personal experiments is the only way to optimize your life.

• Do you work best at night or in the morning?

• Do you need to eat breakfast or did commercials want to sell you sugary breakfast cereals?

• What exercise do you feel the best after?

The more of these things you test, the more you can shape your environment to benefit you.

That brings me to my latest experiment: I was sober for all of 2023.

Here are my observations:

1. I’ve never been more productive building a personal project.

Right now it is the newsletter, podcast and associated business planning…

Before that is was photography and videography…

Before that it was streaming video games or esports writing…

…I’ve never made this much forward progress in a year.

I even backtracked on things I found out weren’t right and still feel ahead.

2. My social life shank considerably.

There are some other conflating factors here but not drinking added to it. Putting more effort into both my relationship and business. Oh, also all my friends moved away. 😅

My social life consisted of 2 things:

1. Video games with friends

2. Going for a night out, house party or afternoon couple of beers

The 2nd reason disappeared because I didn’t have anything to contribute to those social situations.

Related to this, I also get bad second hand embarrassment from people with zero social awareness. Drunk people, especially drunk single people have zero social awareness.

3. I don’t like the feeling of being helpless.

This was a realization I had a few weeks back unrelated to alcohol but also applies to alcohol.

The idea that being under the influence of a substance could lead to not being able to help if my family needed me was a harsh realization.

This goes together with my continued push to be more agentic. Knowing that I’m in control even if something bad happens.

4. I miss the ability to order a bottle of wine or cocktail on date night.

I don’t know if I’ll ever go back to drinking alcoholic beer outside of a craft sour.

Heineken 0.0 and Corona Sunbrew have been the best discoveries of the year. 

I do miss the simple luxury of ordering a bottle of wine or a cocktail at a restaurant. It makes a regular dinner feel 10x classier. That’s my obsession to pay more money for experiences and convenience.

Go run some of your own experiments!