7d ago

What long-standing tradition, ritual, habit .etc have you finally parted from?

Mine is coffee. As of today, my coffee drinking days are over. I've had been drinking coffee for what feels like 14 some odd years. I used to have, on average, 2 ~ 4 mugs and on some days where I just pushed myself, 6 mugs. I would always have my coffee coupled with powdered creamer because I can never drink coffee straight.

However and for the past 4 years now, I've been noticing some health issues with it both mentally and physically. Mentally, I've noticed my anxiety is driven up the wall after having had coffee. Physically, I could not stop going to the bathroom to piss, for coffee accelerates your need to go to the bathroom since it is also a laxative.

And also in turn, kept interrupting my naps and times where I had a nice string of hours to sleep to. A few weeks back, I had thought that it was maybe the usual caffeine-based coffee grounds that was causing it. So I discarded them. I went to Decaf because I felt I wasn't just ready to discard coffee entirely. But since the same stuff is happening again with even Decaf, even when trying to be more moderate about my intake, I've officially tapped out.

I'm going to miss it, all the times where when I was in a place of solitude and a nice warm mug of joe added to the feeling, helped make things feel right. And all the times when coffee actually did help me, but I guess I just over-indulged and spoiled badly what was.

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Masking; I dropped my facade in October and have been working on finding my true self.
- EDIT: Multiple people asked me to clarify that OC may be speaking to neurodivergent/autistic masking rather than COVID masking.
  Wearing a respirator (not a cloth/surgical mask) in public is my true self. The self who takes airborne diseases, my health, and more importantly the health of others seriously. The self who knows that COVID-19 & long COVID aren’t over and that measles is back thanks to anti-vaxxers and prohibitively expensive healthcare. The one who still follows Violet Blue’s weekly updates.
  
  I'm pretty sure they weren't talking about masks in the medical sense, so this is honestly a really inappropriate response.
  
  This isn’t what they’re talking about Davel… they’re finding themselves not anti masking ;)

Smoking. Smoked a pack a day for 14 years. Been smoke free for over 20 years now.

Drinking soda. I drank it pretty much to the exclusion of all else for decades, it helped ruin my teeth and probably contributed to my developing diabetes at age 50. How it happened was kinda weird, one day I just felt like drinking something else, got some sweet tea at a restaurant or something, and it tasted great without being syrupy or too sweet and just perfectly hit the spot. That day I bought a tea maker and by the end of the week I poured out what was left of my soda stash and never looked back. Once in a great while I'll have a craving for Barq's root beer or something, but it's all soooo gassy and syrupy.
Also quit smoking 2 years ago.
- When I was young and worked in a supermarket, I'd buy a 1.5l coke at the beginning of my shift, I'd finish it before I went home.
  4 days a week, for years.
  Stopped around 20 year ago, I still have it occasionally, but it is like a glass or two a month.
  
  Yeah same, I'll buy like a 6-pack of small bottles of Barq's like once every few months maybe, and drink it over the course of a week or so, or I'll have a coke with a meal at a restaurant or something.
  Nowadays, I make a gallon of tea every couple days, I have a 40oz water bottle that I drink ~1.5-2.5 of a day.
- Gosh, I'm a little jealous. My soda addiction has got a right hold on me. Specifically Barq's root beer lol. I'm trying to wean myself off slowly by cutting caffeine first and then hopefully transitioning to the less sugar sodas and then off soda entirely.
  But hey, I'm happy for you, that's excellent!
  
  Try making your own sweet drinks just boil up some water dissolve the amount of sugar you want and add sparkly water and lemon. You can make really good ice teas or lemonade like that. You’ll be consuming a lot less sugar. I love sweet drinks as well luckily I was raised in a pretty strict house where my parents usually refused to buy me sodas or they were a very special treat, hell when I was a kid even Orange juices or whatever was diluted with water.
  
  I wouldn't really say I was addicted to soda, I just don't like the taste of water and soda was kinda the only alternative that I liked until my body decided 'nah fuck it, let's do something different' on me.
  And yeah I drank mostly Mt Dew, so the super sugary/caffeine-loaded stuff. Blech. I can still drink it, but only in small quantities, vs where I was before, going through 4 2L bottles a week of the stuff.

Weed. Had to quit for an extended family holiday. I've had t-breaks like that a dozen times or so over the past 20 years, but was otherwise smoking daily. When I got home last September, I smoked a couple of bowls I had left behind and then just... stopped.
I don't really have much to say about it. I don't feel significantly clearer-headed or motivated. No profound physiological impact. Same as when I took breaks from it, had super weird and vivid dreams for a short while after stopping.
I'll partake when I'm offered a doobie at a party, but I probably won't go back to my old habits.
I think the reason I stopped is because I started taking (non-stimulant) ADHD meds a couple years back and the increase in dopamine made me just not feel like it anymore.
- I'm super ADHD. Don't take meds. High functioning job. Weed causes severe groggyness and widens my focus beam too wide. I need a sharp focus cone. It makes me feel stupid for 2 or 3 days. Raises anxiety. Not much it does help. Lessens motivation. I actually can't think if any positives.
  
  It would previous help me to regulate my appetite, helping with my comorbid binge eating disorder. I could get dopamine from smoking weed that I'd otherwise get from food. Of course, I'd usually get it from both, but having a good time stoned was definitely a fun thing for me that'd reduce my general cravings for other stimulation. But the meds are more effective (and specifically kill appetite as a side effect)

Diuretic not laxative.

Unhealthy eating. I'm down 50 pounds and my liver and kidneys are doing much better.

Using an alarm to wake up. Actually, I got rid of all electronics in my bedroom aside from lights.
I had a coffee situation many years ago. I was having heart palpitations (skipping a beat) while sitting at rest and my doctor said the 20 ounces of coffee I drank was way too much. I have never believed him but I did cut back just in case. In recent years, I've observed that the more I get some regular amount of exercise in, those palpitations go away. I started going for walks and also noticed my at-rest heart rate drop noticeably. And, while few to begin with, anxiety attacks went away. I usually drink a 10 ounce cup of coffee in the morning - freshly ground, aeropress, black. A bit more on the weekends. Never past 10am.
The next issue I have regarding better sleep is breaking my habit of being enthralled with digital content. I read too much on my iPad at night. Been trying to read physical books and magazines more but the dopamine addiction is rough.
Additionally, I've been from trying to be more proactive and get shit done asap to leave more time for being bored. I believe boredom leaves time for creativity and leisure and better sleep. There's just far too much to distract us from existing as calm and creative human beings today.

Auto erotic asphyxiation. No more spider games for me!
- Wait, no more blue-face blastoff? You stopped doing the strokey chokey? No more two-neck squeeze?
  
  No absolutely none, no playing funky spiderman ever again.

I gave up coffee recently too, stopped about halfway through March and I don't really miss it at all. It was playing havoc with my digestion and energy levels.
I replaced the ritual with making cups of tea which has really helped, granted it did take me a little while to fully engage with it like I did coffee but it's taken away missing the "ceremony" for me.
My skins cleared up, my bowels are regular again for the first time in what feels like forever and I'm sleeping so much better too. I hope it goes much the same for you pal!

I've been on a similar coffee journey. I used to drink it nonstop throughout the day, like 5-6 cups of black coffee most days. Then one day I was physically assaulted and chased by a drugged out guy at a train station (never take transit in Denver, it's a total fucking shitshow). I thought I was going to get stabbed or killed that day and I guess that event caused some trauma because I started getting panic attacks shortly after. I realized that my panic attacks were more frequent and lasted longer on the days that I drank more coffee, so I quickly cut all caffeine out of my life. Now I've been without caffeinated coffee for over a year and don't miss it at all, although I still enjoy a decaf espresso most days.
Same thing happened with weed. I used to love weed and smoked/vaped it pretty frequently, but started getting panic attacks from it around the same time so I cut it almost entirely out of my life. Every few months I'll buy a pack of pre-rolls to enjoy, but it literally takes me like five days to finish a single joint because I smoke one tiny puff at a time to avoid panic attacks.
Honestly though, even if I didn't deal with panic attacks, I'm probably better off having no caffeine and only a tiny amount of weed.

Alcohol. After smoking and obesity it's the third highest preventable cause of cancer. I have every reason to live a long and healthy life. Why jeopardize that?

Celebrating my birthday and receiving gifts on other occasions where it’s usual

vim, fvwm and Debian after 10 years of use.
I found firenvim which allowed me to edit text boxes in Firefox using neovim. couldn't do it with vim, so I switched. love it
I bought a new laptop with a 4k screen. had to have different scaling on my external monitor and laptop screen. fvwm wouldn't handle it... switched to kde/plasma and arch.
not sure if this is the kind of habits u were looking for 😃
- I also just switched to KDE/plasma on my Pop!_OS machine after historically using either its built-in GNOME, or before that I would use I guess Unity on Ubuntu. I've tried KDE in passing in the past but I've never fully appreciated its delighfulness before. The widgets, the configurability, the clipboard history!

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