There are 1 million small vodka bottles sold in Poland every day before noon. Then another 2 million after noon.
These small bottles we call „the monkey” here.
It illustrates the environment I grew up in.
But…
It’s been exactly six years since I stopped drinking alcohol. That single decision changed my life in extreme ways. Some pretty unexpected.
I 10x my income in those 6 years. It was because of quitting alcohol. I’ll tell you what changed and how, but we need a bit of a background first.
Peer pressure
I was born in Poland. Poland is one of those heavy drinking countries. The consumption is one of the highest in developed economies in the world. Remember the „monkeys”?
It’s natural to drink some beers daily, after work.
It’s natural to get wasted on the weekends. Many people I know say a beer after work is like a reward after a hard day.
To relax, destress and wrap up the day. When someone says they’re not drinking, they’re looked at as an oddity.
There’s a saying that if you don’t drink you’re not trustworthy.
Not drinking is lame among most age groups.
Alcohol was natural
My parents were very occasional drinkers. I never saw any member of my family drunk when I was young. As a teenager it was obvious I had to rebel.
Most of my teenage years was with neighbourhood friends drinking beer. When I got my first job in early 2000s, every night culminated with drinking at a local park. Yes, outside. Even in the winter.
Our small friend group had an SMS group to meet up around 8pm. Bring your own beer. We stood in that tiny park and were throwing beer bottles in the bushes. Yeah, I know. I was stupid.
We stood there almost every evening. 2-3 beers each. Talking about our days, enjoying ourselves. And drinking. Always drinking.
We had this game, where we threw empty bottles in tall grass. You scored points if the bottle clinked on another one from before. After a while there were so many, the game stopped being fun.
We didn’t get drunk. Our speech was not affected. It felt normal. A group of friends talking about their day. Discussing life events. With a few beers.
Can’t argue with free
When I was in my early 20s, I had a band. It was electro-punk and we weren’t very good. But we were good enough to have some fans and get booked to play shows across the country.
We also played a couple of shows abroad.
The cash kinda lovered travel costs but there was an incentive that was more important to us.
Open bar.
Every venue had an open bar for „artists”. That means we can drink all we want without paying. Both before and after the show. Those four years of gigs upped my beer consumption multiple-fold.
Some reflection in my 30s
At 32 I noticed I’m getting fat. Beer and fast food, with little movement had taken a toll on my health. I felt slow. Tired. Easily annoyed.
I was rarely really drunk, but a good evening was a beer evening. This is how I looked like back then.
Quitting drinking was out of the question, but around that time I started to limit my intake. Participated in Dry January every year. Tried not to drink during the week.
But on February first, I was the first one back at the bar.
I switched to craft beer and thought of myself as a hipster. Drinking the „quality stuff” only. It was craft after all, right? Still %.
Started to run a bit. Lost the weight, but the habit was still there.
37
At 37 I met a guy who already had 5 years of not drinking behind him. He said he doesn’t miss it at all. His arguments were compelling. I thought to take a break for a couple months first and see the difference.
In June of 2019 I had my last alcoholic beer. It was a corona and it didn’t even taste that good.
The initial few months turned into the whole year. Then I started noticing some long term changes.
Superficial stuff
I stopped snoring. I would say „overnight”, but let’s not go into the pun territory.
But then I noticed more effects.
You know, how in some video games you can find alcohol bottles? 99% of the time, consuming one will result in blurry vision. The game becomes harder and there are no benefits.
In most games the effect disappears in under a minute. You get a de-buff and then it’s gone.
The most interesting thing I found was that in real life that de-buff stays with you much longer. A couple beers will last over a week. The result is a small, single-digit percentage drop in concentration, motivation, energy.
The big stuff
That seemingly small drop compounds. Just three months after I quit drinking I noticed I’m more motivated.
Work comes easier. The results are better.
It’s small but it adds up. I was coming up with new ideas like crazy. Stopped snoring and slept better.
Felt better physically, mentally, emotionally.
Alcohol is literally poison. When you put it into your body, it gets preoccupied with fighting the poison and shuts off some other parts of your brain.
This is why we feel „light” and „funny” – because part of us are shut off to deal with the poison.
In those 6 years I learned to hold my breath for 6 minutes, cycled all across Poland’s shore (420km), swam with the icebergs above the arctic circle, climbed a mountain in shorts at -20°C and more. Ran a marathon.
Built 5 businesses. Got to my first $1M.
The list goes on.
Would it all happen if I kept on drinking? Definitely not all of it.
Quitting was the best decision ever. You’re not really quitting alcohol here. You’re quitting a de-buff.
It’s like playing life on cheat codes.
