Drinking (especially drinking to excess) is without question unhealthy. But in today’s world, it’s often hard to avoid drinking, especially when times are tough.
As bloggers, we’re often facing hard, stressful times. To cope, many bloggers turn to alcohol.
Blogging is a slow and steady process in which we spend 5 to 15 hours in front of a computer every day. While we probably enjoy all that time spent online, it can very easily become draining.
Drinking is one way of dealing with this stress.
Bloggers are not typically known for taking care of their health. Because they’re so independent and passionate, many bloggers turn to bad habits like doing drugs, smoking, excessive eating, and the most common, drinking alcohol.
This self-medication helps us relax, but it is also very, very bad for our bodies and minds.
Now, before I start talking about how to avoid drinking, it should be said that if you are not drinking excessively and you feel that drinking is not causing you harm, then that’s great. But I would advise you to analyze why you feel like drinking in the first place…
Why Bloggers Indulge
Much of the blogging life is spent alone. We spend a lot of time on the internet, and we have very little time left over for our friends and family.
This isolated life tends to give rise to some bad habits.
But humans are social creatures.
When we feel isolated from others, we feel discontented. That discontent makes us reach for whatever will make us feel better in the moment.
So as we sit and stare at a computer screen, we indulge.
How To Avoid Drinking
If you are really habituated to drinking, it may not be possible to completely stop without the help of a professional. But there are still some things you can do to minimize the addiction and begin to live an alcohol-free life.
Check out: Keep Drunken Self Away From The Internet
1. Don’t Store Alcohol At Home
When alcohol is constantly available, you know you have the opportunity to get it whenever you want.
Start by taking it out of your house (and home office). This way, you won’t just be able to get up and get it whenever you want. You would have to go outside, go to the store, and purchase it.
While it’s not difficult to go to the store, it’s an additional step that you would have to take. That’s time that could be spent being a productive blogger!
Simply by keeping alcohol outside of your house, you’ll be able to cut down significantly.
2. Go To The Pub
If you really do need to drink, again, go outside and do it. Don’t do it at home.
While you’re not going to stop drinking at a bar, it will help you cut down. Bars are typically more expensive, they’re only open during certain hours, they’re further away than your refrigerator, and you can’t be productive when you’re sitting at a bar.
But because you can’t be productive at a bar, make sure you complete all of your work before going!
Don’t let your drinking habit impact your work. Always make sure that work is the first priority.
Eventually, you will find that you simply don’t have the time to go to the bar anymore because work has become so fulfilling. This is how you can replace the good habit of work with the bad habit of drinking.
3. Drink Fruit Juice
If you have a craving to drink alcohol, drink fruit juice instead.
The sugars in the juice will give you an energy rush and help you stay focused and productive.
You can also replace “fruit juice” with any kind of cold beverage. Mineral water also works great.
The cold temperature will give your body a feeling of relief.
But be sure not to overdo this and turn it into another bad habit. Too much sugar is not good for the body or the mind. Again, water also works well.
4. Don’t Drink And Work
You wouldn’t be allowed to go to an office and drink alcohol there. So don’t drink in your home office either.
Simply by maintaining this rule, you’ll be forcing yourself to get serious about your online business. This will be a major step forward to ensuring that your online work is disciplined and focused.
Commit yourself to never drink alcohol during work hours.
5. Don’t Have A Drinking Party At Home
Your home is your office. Don’t taint it with endless amounts of alcohol. Keep it organized, keep it well-maintained, and keep it peaceful. Maintain the dignity of your home office as you would a “normal” office.
It’s important to have friends (and to socialize), but make sure the alcohol stays out of the house. The more time you spend associating your home (and your office) with drinking, the harder it will be to finally give up the habit.
If you’re going to drink with friends, make sure you don’t do it at home.
Blogging And Drinking
The hardest part about quitting drinking is controlling the addiction. Most people think they have everything under control, or they start slowing their alcohol intake, only to realize that things have gotten much worse over time.
So make sure that if you want to give up drinking, you fully get rid of the habit.
If you need moral support, you can take help of a rehab center and/or an addiction or relief group.
Do you drink and blog? What’s keeping you back from kicking the habit? Or maybe you’ve quit drinking in the past; what helped you quit? Let me hear your thoughts in the comments below!
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Today drinking and smoking both are very dangerous for health. Cigarette gives the lung cancer. Today’s social party and marriages are not complete without drinking. It is very bad habit to drink wine. Mostly younger’s start smoking and drinking when they are in the age of 17-25. Our company aim to ban smoking in the Sweden. The smoker can do exercise and yoga regularly to avoid the drinking wine and smoking.
Well stated points. To keep alcohol at home can actually make a person regular drinker so better to go to pubs and enjoy drink.
Thanks for your comment Stefan but I am not agree with you that Fruit juice evr make any harm to a body, you may choose any juice according to your choice, if you are a patient of diabetes then you should take a fruit juice with low content of fructose corn syrup such as Cranberry juice.
Drink a lot of water. If possible, drink oxygenated water. I learnt from a book about fact of the brain. The brain needs main fuel to make it work. They are “water”, “oxygen” and “glucose”. You can’t write any good posts if you keep on yawning in front of your computer. Having a mug of glucosed cereal also fresh you up.
I enjoy a cold beer while writing. it relaxes me. I would never commnet while drinking. Thats no fun. Spelling errors while drinking. LOL
“write drunk, edit sober” Ernest Hemingway
Bit of a fan of ol’ Ernest myself. Some of the greatest creative minds used various forms of stimulants, whether these are natural, chemical, legal or regulated I don;t suppose it matters unless they are advocating the use of ilegal or unhealthy products as being healthy or hip.
Yes in deed bloggers likes to stay alone. I don’t find any problem in mentioning that they take something to relax themselves.
Himanshu,
“I accept your premise, but I reject your conclusion.”
(Sheldon Cooper, The Big Bang Theory)
Being “alone” in front of the computer is usually not why people start drinking and smoking – I’d suggest there’s something else wrong somewhere (a disease, social issues, poor upbringing?, etc.). No, the fact is that 20-30% of the population (in the US at least) are introverts. While there’s nothing wrong with that, it just means that introverts get their “energy” from being alone. They recharge when alone, then they have energy to spend time with other people.
Extraverts are the other way around. They get energy and recharge from being with other people and don’t like being alone.
Both “sides” are great and it’s not supposed to put people in a box or anything, it’s just a matter of knowing what type you are and use it as a tool.
I don’t think it’s wrong to assume that most bloggers are introverts, since it does take some a great deal of your time to actually blog and extraverts wants to be out in the world and experience with real life people. I don’t have any proof though, so it’s only based on my own experience and how I feel it currently is.
Here’s a great ressource for more introvert knowledge:
http://introvertzone.com/
I don’t hope you took this personally, I just don’t think it’s correct to say that people smoke/drink etc. to make their alone time more interesting.
Now I’ll go back to enjoying my friday beer, lunch break is over 🙂
Hey Klaus!
Lots or regards for such a big input! I never said that bloggers are introvert, i said that bloggers love to live alone, this might be somewhere true because bloggers want to concentrate on their own work without being disturbed.
World is not same every side, drinking is not a habit, its a problem which lots of bloggers develop while work. It should be avoided because that ultimately effect their work and they never realize the exact problem.
Bloggers are extrovert more than any normal person because they have a unique quality to interact with people. Remember the time when we attend bloggers meet, we don’t need people really, we never met them before but we love to talk ad interact with them.
Thanks for the resource, I am surely going to check it out.
Best regards.
This doesn’t happen in my case. But, I’m really surprised to see this post to know that there are people who does this ( involve smoking, drinking alcohol, eating junk foods). Good one.
I have started actually setting a small amount of time in the afternoon, to leave the pc, and have a break and a snack, its easy to eat junk and drink too much when your active on the pc,
Well I for one was a heavy drinker and a smoker too.. I quit all that by an easy method lol. Promised my new Girl that I would not. Cos I just love her too much. I know this may sound silly or old. It worked for me. All I do now is Drink lots and lots of water, Jog everyday for an hour, lots of fruits and vegetables. And ofcourse work 😉
blogging may cause side effects which is true but deviating and motivating our self to spiritual practices may help us in diverting our mind..
Fortunately for me, my wife doesn’t drink much so we don’t keep much alcohol around the house (and what we do have, i don’t like). I think taking time out to go work out, even if it’s just a few pushups and situps is important not only for your health, but it can also really increase your energy level and make you more productive.
Well, its not like only bloggers do drink and are at the risk of becoming alcoholic, and its also not like every blogger starts drinking once he takes up to regular blogging. Any demanding job without regulation (that’s what blog is right, a job without the regulation of an office, you are at liberty of your home) can have that affect. But your posts definitely makes some good point about a less discuss aspect of blogging.
It’s not about bloggers – I guess, most programmers drink and smoke. Of late this trend is coming down, I guess.
In fact, controlled drinking – one glass of wine every night or one drink per week or so – is good for health as it helps the dilation process. But smoking – even one cigarette a day – is bad. Unfortunately, many people who drink, do smoke as well and they smoke more when they drink.
Of late, I have quit smoking due to high blood pressure and reduced on drinking as well. And I do not spend a lot of time for blogging.
Surprisingly, I actually don’t have time to do anything else but blog when I’m blogging! I’m trying to cut back on drinking anything (non-alcoholic) just to reduce the number of bio breaks!
Himanshu you are an excellent writer, I lov ur Posts … But some of them are quite CREEPY… esp. this one.
Drinking is an Addictive thing …. blogging has nothing to do with it….
and people who love blogging are not mentally stressed by it.
Sorry to Disagree…..
Thanks Mate for your insights, I always takes my readers words as a positive criticism.
Actually you are right, blogging has nothing to do with drinking problem as I never dope in my life and never want to try any doping habits in future too. But World is not always same for everyone. The idea of this article came in my mind after reading an article on Mashable written by incredible writer Joel Falconer. http://mashable.com/2008/11/14/drunken-emails/
Also I mentioned Junk food habits in my article which has nothing to do with doping and most of people gain this habit while passing time on internet , even I am also a victim of that.
Yes, you are right. If you love something and you are passionate about it, you donate all your time to that work and do not indulge in this kind of bad habits.
Sometime stressed.With workload our mind can get freeze.
Nice article 🙂 . I know some bloggers get into the habit of taking alcohol and drugs to increase their working capabilities which is bad. Getting addicted to these things will only hamper your work in long run.
I usually drink carbonated water if i feel the need to drink something other than water. I am also in a habit of having a burger before writing my blogposts at times .
@himanshu
Hmmm….At last you are blogging about your personal experience. Am I right ?
I agree completely. I am nearly 40 years old, and have spent the last 3 years blogging. Too many hours spent in front of the computer was making me feel sluggish and unhealthy. I don’t drink alcohol, and I don’t smoke, but I did have the habit of skipping meals and then gorging on junk food. In the last few weeks, I have changed that. I have a juicer, and a make my own fresh fruit and vegetable juices. I also have a mini-trampoline in my office, and I jump on it for 6-10 minutes every single hour. I set my timer for 54 minutes and I work. When the timer goes off, I jump on the trampoline. When I am finished, I set my timer to work once again. I am exercising my lungs and heart in ways that I have not done during my workdays for the past 3 years. 🙂
Interesting ideas. I’m not officially a professional blogger. Perhaps I’m on my way there. But because Ihaven’t had a job, my health habits are well above the average person. I get up early, I surf 6 hours a day, and I’m getting in great shape. I also think spending all day in front of the computer is an awful habit that many bloggers develop. I try to setup my publishing schedule ahead of time so I can have the rest of the week to surf. But that’s just me. Re, not havhing alcohol at all, I don’t know if I agree. I think the occasional drink is fine. But if you have absolutely no discipline and drink while you work, that’s when it becomes a problem.
Alcoholic practice is very harmful for blogger in any ways. There is no place of these kind of activities in their life. Otherwise they will pay a lot in terms of health and work dissatisfaction.
Hey Harsh,
You are right that some bloggers use alcohol,drugs and caffeine to stimulate their capacity of Working.
But continue use of the above said things can harm to body.
Your suggestions are really helpful for every blogger,Even every Netizen.
To be fair I disagree with the part about replacing your drink with fruit juice. Sure it is much better than alcohol, but it is still packet with sugar if you do not press it by yourself. Personally I have replaced all my drinking with water. If I’m thirsty I drink regularly water from the tap and if I want to taste something good I take carbonated water.
Thanks for your comment Stefan but I am not agree with you that Fruit juice evr make any harm to a body, you may choose any juice according to your choice, if you are a patient of diabetes then you should take a fruit juice with low content of fructose corn syrup such as Cranberry juice.
Drinking water is a nice habit as it always good for health but avoiding tap water will be a better practice 🙂
Well, here are one of the sources showing how much sugar you have in juice: Link
I drink fruit juice but water it down and have half fruit juice and half water or carbonated water, , keeps the sugar content down 🙂
I agree too, that drinking mineral water is the best idea. I also prefer herbal tea, but it must be without caffeine. Sometimes after drinking a few beers earlier in the evening I realise it’s wise to keep your keyboard shut for a while. I learned this the hard way, gradually over a long period of time.