The Zen of Drinking Alone

Re:The Zen of Drinking Alone by delusional on Saturday January 15, 2022 @06:02PM (#29951343)

This magazine or blog or whatever seems to either be an elaborate joke or bait or something:

  >Are you guys for real?
  >Yes. While there is some satire involved, we believe to the very core of our >souls every word we write.

  >Who are you?
  >We are a group of functional alcoholics based primarily in Denver, CO. Included in our ranks are published novelists, filmmakers, English gentlemen, barflies, punk rock musicians, comedians, outright dastards and admitted boozeheads.

  >Do you mind the word alcoholic?
  >No. We are taking it back from the fascists. Soon it will be considered a compliment.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:The Zen of Drinking Alone by coldtea on Saturday January 15, 2022 @07:25PM (#29951962)

>This magazine or blog or whatever seems to either be an elaborate joke or bait or something

Or you know, part of the once respected in some circles tradition of self-destruction with style, before everybody started jogging and going vegan to live to 100 years old as a "productive" boring member of society...

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:The Zen of Drinking Alone by rainonmoon on Sunday January 16, 2022 @03:24AM (#29954301)

There's nothing stylish about being an alcoholic, but people often conflate the two because plenty of prominent, stylish people were also alcoholics. Drinking didn't make them stylish, and anyone who thinks getting lit will turn them into Keith Richards is probably a massive burden on everyone who has to put up with them.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:The Zen of Drinking Alone by Szpadel on Sunday January 16, 2022 @04:21AM (#29954522)

Some people could consider drugs in the same way, just look how many celebrities do/did drugs. And many of them was famous to death thanks to drugs (as they died young, but this point like to be omitted)

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:The Zen of Drinking Alone by coldtea on Sunday January 16, 2022 @10:50AM (#29956924)

>as they died young, but this point like to be omitted

Why "like to be omitted"? It's actually part of the allure.

The slogan was "Live fast, die young, and leave a good looking corpse".

Not "Eat kale, be productive, use a task management program, live to 100".

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:The Zen of Drinking Alone by ruined on Sunday January 16, 2022 @02:14AM (#29954082)

but alcohol is so pedestrian. and socially acceptable. this is somehow even more pathetic than being a weed guy.

style would require an edgier, more risque substance, and a narrative. but you'll never see it. i think even tweakers know better than to spend energy justifying choices to strangers

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:The Zen of Drinking Alone by archibaldJ on Sunday January 16, 2022 @05:46AM (#29954925)

exactly; why not look forwards to new industries in 2100s like that of designer drugs and dance-theatres exploring the discourse of higher dimensional manifolds and the holistic feeling that is existence itself

It is for these that I'm giving up alchol for other things [1]

[1]: https://idp.nature.com/authorize?response_type=cookie&client...

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:The Zen of Drinking Alone by oconnor663 on Sunday January 16, 2022 @01:00AM (#29953800)

Before we came up with jogging there was church :)

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:The Zen of Drinking Alone by tenpies on Sunday January 16, 2022 @01:36AM (#29953946)

If anything, most of organized religion is about preparing to die. The complete opposite of our current materialism and obsession with keeping personal entropy at bay.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:The Zen of Drinking Alone by fsloth on Sunday January 16, 2022 @07:51AM (#29955585)

There is nothing exciting about drinking. It's a substance, and the only reason people like to associate with famous and interesting people is twofold. a) it gives you an excuse to drink b) it takes the famous person down a notch.

The famous people did not become famous because they drank, but due to other reasons - working their arse off, talent, ambition, networks etc. The reason they are also famous alcholics is just an correlation and not causation.

I don't judge alcohol use but it's an end in itself, and it does not improve anything.

It's nice to enjoy a drink once in a while, but it does not improve a person in any way.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:The Zen of Drinking Alone by fuzzfactor on Saturday January 15, 2022 @09:20PM (#29952653)

There's always lots of other industrial solvents that are even more toxic by the gram or even relatively few milligrams.

OTOH real decadence has been more sustainable forever the less toxic it is.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:The Zen of Drinking Alone by felipemnoa on Saturday January 15, 2022 @09:26PM (#29952689)

Being productive can be lots of fun. To each their own of course.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:The Zen of Drinking Alone by Spinnaker_ on Saturday January 15, 2022 @09:06PM (#29952585)

I definitely used to think that way. It's the type of thing that is a lot of fun to be a part of, until it isn't anymore. It's a thrilling way to self identify, until it becomes your entire identity.

I hope they all end up ok.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:The Zen of Drinking Alone by nefitty on Saturday January 15, 2022 @09:45PM (#29952775)

I was sort of forced out of that identity by COVID lockdown and domestic imperatives. I used to be proud of how many cans I could pound in a session before I got kicked out of a bar. Now, if I or anyone else do that, it's a huge pain in the ass.

I still don't trust people that have never been drunks, though. There's something about the forceful rejection of social norms involved in becoming an alcoholic that I find resonates with me. It's akin to the punk ethos. The problem definitely is when people mistake being a drunk dickhead with being punk.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:The Zen of Drinking Alone by fennecfoxen on Saturday January 15, 2022 @10:37PM (#29953028)

> There's something about the forceful rejection of social norms involved in becoming an alcoholic that I find resonates with me. It's akin to the punk ethos.

Funny. I've run into many more social norms that promote drinking while socializing, especially at universities and in tech.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:The Zen of Drinking Alone by nefitty on Sunday January 16, 2022 @12:58AM (#29953794)

That makes sense! I never went to college and have never really been in "tech". Of my several dozen close friends, only one went to college and he definitely became markedly different than us as his studies went on.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:The Zen of Drinking Alone by rainonmoon on Sunday January 16, 2022 @03:35AM (#29954337)

Drinking is so normative that not drinking became the punk ethos via the hardcore scene, straight edge etc. Two of the most punk guys alive (Ian MacKaye and Henry Rollins) have been sober longer than some people in this thread have been alive. Getting blackout has more in common with hair metal so if your hero is Nikki Sixx, more power to you.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:The Zen of Drinking Alone by nefitty on Sunday January 16, 2022 @05:25AM (#29954823)

Haha I get that. I love MacKaye and Rollins.

As I was growing up I found that "straight edge" and "hardcore Christian" overlapped too much for my comfort. I chalked it up to kids trying to exude a rebellious attitude within the safe confines of the Christian narrative. That didn't seem as authentic to me as the kids who started anarchist punk or satanic grind bands.

Basically, there were some behaviors that served as the narc test. Straight edge kids had a self-declared pass because of their morals. "I don't drink, see? I have an x tattooed on my hand." Those morals conspicuously seemed to align with what "good Christian kids" were taught to believe. This was outlined in stark relief as I realized more and more bands around me labeled themselves as "Christian".

I hadn't revisited that conclusion in a long time, but a cursory glance signals to me that the logic is still sound. It seems like it was my own allergic reaction to cynicism, which I think MacKaye et al might at least respect.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:The Zen of Drinking Alone by dagw on Sunday January 16, 2022 @06:25AM (#29955095)

As I was growing up I found that "straight edge" and "hardcore Christian" overlapped too much for my comfort.

While both "straight edge" and "hardcore Christian" would not drink I never found them to have much overlap or common ground beyond that. When I was growing up people who self-identified as "straight edge" where far more likely to involved in the far left, anarchist and/or anti fascist scene. I never knew someone who didn't drink for purely religious reasons to describe themselves as "straight edge".

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:The Zen of Drinking Alone by SyzygistSix on Sunday January 16, 2022 @06:18AM (#29955063)

I found the straight-edge scene intellectually lightweight and often insufferable. Substance abuse is common among artists for a reason; many are psychonauts. Merely being a drinker does not a psychonaut make, but then again, Hemmingway wasn't just another drunk. Producing art is akin to shamanism.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:The Zen of Drinking Alone by biztos on Sunday January 16, 2022 @09:58AM (#29956463)

Hemingway (claimed he) never wrote a word while drunk. In fact he was highly critical of contemporaries who drank and wrote.

Hemingway wrote, and Hemingway drank, but in that order on any given day.

[edit: I agree with your point, I just wanted to clarify re: Hemingway specifically]

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:The Zen of Drinking Alone by joejerryronnie on Saturday January 15, 2022 @10:51PM (#29953093)

Reminds me of my first year in college. A big group of us all thrown into a wild party town, on our own for the first time, learning about ourselves and each other. Only it wasn’t centered around alcohol, it was centered around crystal meth. Of course alcohol, weed, and various hallucinogens were always present but the big thing tying us together was the meth.

Everything was great, if a bit intense, for the first few months. It felt like it was us against the world and we were invincible. Slowly but surely, though, cracks began to emerge. One of us would hit a rough patch, drop out, and move home (sometimes after totaling a vehicle). Others started getting into petty crime and became convinced the FBI was after us - it didn’t help that one girl’s Father actually was a fed who became increasingly concerned about his daughter’s erratic behavior. I think all of us started seeing shadow people and realized the downward spiral we were in.

Things kind of ended after that first year when most of the group couldn’t handle the lifestyle and school simultaneously. The few of us who didn’t drop out went on to varying degrees of success from solid middle and upper middle class lives to one guy who started a company and is now worth a couple hundred million. It was a crazy time with some pretty wild memories that I wouldn’t take back - but certainly wouldn’t recommend.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:The Zen of Drinking Alone by LaundroMat on Sunday January 16, 2022 @02:56AM (#29954202)

This is what made Pete Hamill stop drinking. After decades of hard drinking, he realized he had always been putting on an act. In fact, he inadvertently started to step out of himself to watch himself not be himself. That realization bothered him so much, he just quit.

I've given away the ending, but his book ("This Drinking Life") is well worth reading. (As a biography, not as a guide to help anyone quit drinking).

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:The Zen of Drinking Alone by kayodelycaon on Saturday January 15, 2022 @06:11PM (#29951425)

I’d just take them at their word they are functional alcoholics who formed a community around being alcoholics. If you think of it as a religion, maybe it makes more sense?

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:The Zen of Drinking Alone by delusional on Sunday January 16, 2022 @04:46AM (#29954638)

The "taking it back from the fascists" is just too much for me.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:The Zen of Drinking Alone by totetsu on Saturday January 15, 2022 @08:15PM (#29952295)

maybe its the inebriati https://youtu.be/VTSCppeFzX4

[ Parent | on HN ]