1) Agree on drinking. When I was living in the far north for job reasons, in the middle of the minus 30 winter, I started drinking too much. After drinking a whole bottle of wine on a weeknight I asked a substance abuse counselor I worked with at a hospital if tat was too much and if I was going off the deep end. He said I'd have to be up to a half-gallon to be really fucking up.
"What IS alcohol good for?" I asked him.
"As a social lubricant" he answered.
That seems about the only good use to me. You should be able to relax with exercise or meditation -- the only worthwhile reason for taking the cognitive hit-- the hours lost in not being able to productively THINK--are only justified if you are getting to know a valuable contact-- a hot chick, a professional associate. Just hanging out with the same people and saying the same things... waste of time. Couldn't you be doing something productive with that time? Practicing music, planning biz-- SOMETHING?
I kind of look at it like that now If you are trying to do anything intellectual-- making music, learning languages, learning programming-- any alcohol you drink will reduce the time per day you an study the stuff. It just takes time to recover from the dumbing down alcohol does to you.
2) I'm not sure about cold baths. While I was in Ukraine, one of my friends had a friend who died while doing the macho jumping-in-a-frozen-river thing.
"What IS alcohol good for?" I asked him.
"As a social lubricant" he answered.
That seems about the only good use to me. You should be able to relax with exercise or meditation -- the only worthwhile reason for taking the cognitive hit-- the hours lost in not being able to productively THINK--are only justified if you are getting to know a valuable contact-- a hot chick, a professional associate. Just hanging out with the same people and saying the same things... waste of time. Couldn't you be doing something productive with that time? Practicing music, planning biz-- SOMETHING?
I kind of look at it like that now If you are trying to do anything intellectual-- making music, learning languages, learning programming-- any alcohol you drink will reduce the time per day you an study the stuff. It just takes time to recover from the dumbing down alcohol does to you.
2) I'm not sure about cold baths. While I was in Ukraine, one of my friends had a friend who died while doing the macho jumping-in-a-frozen-river thing.