On Drinking Alcohol: Chapter 1 - Introduction

This is the first of what I hope to be a long, brutally-honest continuing series on alcohol and drinking.

I have a drinking problem.

A lot of what I do in the name of health and a lot of what I suffer from, health-wise, are most likely related to my consumption of alcohol, mainly beer.  And I usually ignore, side-step, or cover up the issues.  Lately (over the last few years) I have tried to be more honest and to address it head-on, in some cases even in this blog.  I have a few earlier posts that are pretty honest.  Some examples of my side-stepping are as follows.  The first time I ever realized that I was getting out of shape was in the mid '90's and I decided to start eating less and running every day.  I remember at the time that I wanted to select behavioral changes that would allow me to leave my beer-consumption intact.  A few years ago when I tried my first Whole30 Challenge I couched it as overall health improvement but it really was an excuse to try to quit drinking for 30 days without calling it that.  Any time I've tried to strictly observe lent it's really been about not drinking for 40 days.

My health problems in no particular order are asthma, high blood pressure, persistent allergy symptoms and a host of digestive issues.  These come from leaky gut and possibly SIBO (will be testing for this soon).  These come largely from my decades-long daily drinking of beer and sometimes Irish Whisky.  I don't abuse much else.

I started drinking in college as a social lubricant which then became a way to overcome social anxiety (or mask it) which has now become a way to overcome or mask existential anxiety.  I live, I feel, I fear, I love, I am in pain, I blunt myself.  I routinely batter the edges.  This habit started with about two or three units a night and has gradually and consistently grown to five or more over the last 30 some years.  Hardly ever more than ten but seldom less than five.

Parts of this blog have been a gradual acceptance and growing honesty about this problem and THAT I need to do something about it and just what to do and how and how often and when and where and why.

Unlike pregnancy, I don't think alcoholism is on a Boolean scale.  Either you are or you aren't pregnant and I think conventional wisdom would say the same thing for alcoholism but I really think otherwise.  It's an infinite and analog thing.  Many would say either you are or you aren't and if you are you need to quit entirely by way of some 12 step program in which you surrender any notions that you have any control.  This has helped many but it does not resonate with me.  That said, I think a quest for moderation might also be doomed to fail.  AA gets all the press and is the default setting for most on the issue but I really think the truth is silent and is somewhere else.

I don't know if I'm an alcoholic but I am certainly dependent on alcohol.  I don't think I'm addicted because the times that I do take a break are not difficult for me other than mentally.  I don't get DUIs or make a fool of myself on social media or in public but that may just be because I don't use social media and don't go out and certainly don't drive to or from a drinking session.  Not useful to think of things in this way.

I do hide my consumption and I have blacked out.

What I'd like to do here is lay it all out and maybe come up with a strategy.  Or at least some clarity.

Last night I had 7 beers.  I did about the same the night before.  I also had a nip from a brandy bottle.

I think the most important first things for me would be to understand what alcohol appears to be to me and to understand my relationship with it.  Messaging is important.  Messaging coming into my brain and messaging leaving it.


I am a pretty good BS detector but I think alcohol got a free pass with me for a long time.  That is starting to change.  Whereas I used to think otherwise, I now think alcohol is mostly bad and damaging.  It is nearly universally understood that moderate drinking is healthy but I am now starting to question this and suspect that the health benefits are coming from something else and are enjoyed EVEN THOUGH moderate drinking occurs.  Put another way, it's easy for me to imagine a teetotaler who's very sick and a heavy drinker who's not because of other factors.

I'm not going to demonize alcohol and drinking.  It's my own behavior and understanding of it and the things around me that are of interest.  It's a behavior pattern and thinking pattern that are dangerous, not the drink per se.

I want to get at the behavior and thinking patterns.

Escalating Density Training: How Long to Do ....

The first time I tried this was about two weeks ago, so maybe 5/14/18, and I did 25 chin ups in 2 minutes and 22 seconds.

The second time I tried it, somewhere around 5/20/18, I did  25 chin ups (5 x 5) in 1 minute, 56 seconds.

Today (5/28/18), 25 chin-ups in various reps per set in 1 minute 34 seconds.  Let's see if we can get this down to a minute.

I wonder if this would be a good way to work up to a set of 20?

Escalating Density Training (EDT): Push Ups

Last time I tried this I did 174 in 15 minutes.  My goal today is to beat that total in 12 minutes.

Today:  193 push ups in 12 minutes

Today, 72 Chin Ups in 12 Minutes

Mostly in sets of 3, 2, 1

WOW, that's one more than last time.

Dialing Back the Century to 75 Years Or So

Why is it called a "Century"?  Isn't that supposed to be years?  Anyway, I did a couple of days of this and now have decided to dial it back again and focus on rep quality.  I'm pretty tired from these high rep days and want to make sure form returns.  The pull ups are still strong at 10 but the pushing stuff and especially the squatting are labored, so I've reduced the reps significantly.  To about 20-25 for push ups and 20 - 25 for squats.  This feels right. 

Milestone: A Century!

Today, in round 2, I decided to go for it:

10 pull ups
20 dips
30 push ups
40 squats

I am going to try for 8 of these today, and 10 tomorrow (1000 reps).  The last time I tried 1000 reps was on 12/17/17, and I failed.  Then I will take another day to do 1000 reps but with a concentration on form (1000 really GOOD reps).  Then I'll move to the next hardest version of the moves and dial the reps back down.

About Two Weeks In, A Couple of Milestones

I'm on a journey to build back up to at least 10 sets a day of pull, push, and squat, but this time with better form. And when I reach rep goals within each without compromising form, I move to a harder version of each move and build that one up. 

I'm about two weeks in and have kept true to the mission of keeping the reps real and not worrying about totals.  So far pull ups have felt best and squats worst.  But I'm making progress.

For a few days now I have met the 10 set a day criterion without much difficulty.  I am largely doing three or fewer "rounds" at a time spaced throughout the day.  Usually by late afternoon or evening I've had enough.  I don't rush these and don't worry about rest.

The reps have remained in the neighborhood of 6 or 7 for pull, 12 to 18 for push and stubbornly stuck at 12-15 for squat.  The squats are feeling ok but I don't feel like they're getting any easier and I'm having a bit of tweakiness around the knees, particularly the left knee.  But I still feel like I'm doing the right thing here.

Today I hit the 10 set mark early so I decided to add for the remainder of the day a single round whenever I feel like it but where I try to hit a higher rep total.  To that end I just completed a round of ten chin ups, 30 push ups and 25 squats.  Two of those (pull and push) are at criterion and squat is coming close (goal is 40).  Pull feels very strong, push up feels great, squat is getting better.  Dips are still around 10-12 and are not improving much.  Overall I'll take it.  Very happy.

I would guess that I will easily be at criteria in the next week or so, which means it will have taken me about a month to move to the next level.  Which is, chest to the bar pulls, diamond push up, forward lean dip, and maybe a deep squat jump.  I think that's the best place to take the squat.  I really want to try to postpone trying the one legged stuff for as long as possible because I know that if I rush into it I will start hurting.