My one-six pack-a-week challenge

I'm not here to debate other BA's, I'm here to let this guy know he has my support for whatever realization has led him to this decision.

 

You were drinking a six pack a night?

 

Great to hear @fx20736 . Keep at it, and remember that there are bigger and better things than beer.

 

If anything, you'll definitely lose some weight!

 

If you can take a week off on a whim, I really bet you will be able to drink with as much moderation as you want

 

I applaud the Original Poster and all those who have contributed such constructive comments in this post, and also at 51 years old, wanted to offer my experience, probably not much different than many, but with an interesting twist.

A number of years ago, I was drinking lots of gin - at the same time I went on a drug called allopurinol to control my gout (an extremely painful arthritic condition known to afflict people like Ben Franklin, King Henry, Leonardo da Vinci, etc. - google it - it's quite entertaining). Today, its totally controllable - but allopurinol challenges your liver just like alcohol does. So the gin / alcohol combination created havoc and my liver test counts shot up skyward. I went cold turkey and haven't touched gin again since then.

After some time though, I went back to my old favorite from college and Dead show days - beer. Did a fair amount of homebrewing too. And here I am on Beer Advocate. I was able to limit my consumption to weekends and find the right balance that kept my liver tests within a decent range. Well, over the past couple years, I've found my liver tests creeping up (have to do blood tests once every year or so for the gout...) - and understandably so given that I'm underemployed and have started drinking a little more during non-weekend nights. Furthermore, there seems to be a skew in Beer Advocate ratings to rate beers those that at high ABV, higher - and I want to drink them. So not only am I drinking more in quantity, but also more in ABV. And I go whole hog on the weekends trying this and that - just can't get into session beers either.

The net net is that this has caused me some concern and I'm now again watching my consumption. I read this whole posting with interest. Thanks to the OP for raising awareness, and looking forward to working my way into my cellar more judiciously...so, now my more pressing question is, should I, or shouldn't I put that Avery Uncle Jacob's Stout in the frig...it's 16.53% ABV and rated 113 on the top 250...or should it be the Bell's Black Note I just traded for logging in at 10.2% ABV and #22 on the list...?? Either will be a good notch on my BA street cred, but either way, each will be drunk over several sittings. Cheers!

 

Just share with a friend (s) & protect that organ a bit more...

 

Great choice!!! I don't have your strength.