Goddamn. Good luck Cheese, it will be worth it.

Now taking bets on whether this makes Cheese more or less of an arsehole.

Very proud of you, Cheese. And if you need the powers of a black-belt nagger, my services are available.
To quote the 10 year old: "Beer makes your brains fall out."

Best of luck with this one JC, you'll be doing yourself some real good.

I went through my own "beer-off" about 10 years ago, after an alcohol-related scare forced me to take a serious look at the ridiculous amount I was drinking. I went through all the usual side-effects (restlessness, irritability, etc.), but I came out the other side much better for it (as I hope you will). I still have the occasional beer, but nothing like the sheer volume I used to drink.

And yeah, the money I saved was pretty significant.

Well, since I'm not much of a drinker I am going to have a junk-food-off because I'm getting way to addicted to cheap easy food. But to address your personal beer off; I hope this works out for you man, I've read your comedy for years, so good luck and though my challenge won't be as hard as yours I'll be here for support if I'm wanted.

Gosh, that sounds like a pretty serious problem, nak. I eagerly await your video.

Also, good luck Cheese.

Well, according to <a href="http://www.globalrph.com/bac.cgi">this blood/alcohol calculator</a> Cheese is officially an unkillable, marinaded zombie.

If you have a naturally addictive personality, damn near anything can be addictive. It can apply to food, video games, drugs etc.

While junk food is not physically addicting to some I can understand where it's habit forming. It's cheap, fast and obviously easy to get. But where it may seem cheap at the moment, you can cut your food spending down drastically by buying ingredients to food you enjoy and preparing them at home. Try making a few things at once, so you can freeze and re heat them (quickly) at a later time.

I've fought through a few drug addictions. When I was 18 my coke habit was so bad, I moved to another state and cut all ties with friends and other people I knew who seemed to always be around with it. It may not take something that drastic to another person, but I knew if I stayed, I'd always be able to find it when I needed it. Moving to somewhere that I didn't know anyone (at the time) seemed to be the best option.

A year later, I got pretty heavy into Oxy. It's a very strong opiate used for extreme pain, and my boyfriend at the time had given it to me to relieve a migraine. He always had it around for his personal use and I wound up taking his entire stash plus more in a very short period. I was doing about 80-100 mgs a day for months. I then went through the worst physical and emotional pain I had ever been in. I thought I was going to die from the physical pain, or kill myself from the emotional. I never thought it would end. It didn't get better as time went on, it got worse. But I broke it. I was so scared from that experience, I haven't done anything that wasn't prescribed to me from the surgery. I haven't smoked pot, or put anything up my nose and I drink so rarely you have to judge it on a monthly scale.

I know if I ever got into either of those things, I'd go nuts with it. If I have it around me on a constant basis, I'm going to do it. Even after all the shitty, fucked up things that happened to me because of it. Because when you're high, none of that seems real. You think "Oh this is going to be the last line" but it takes you more and more to get high and you end up crashing harder and harder each time.

This is something I take pretty seriously, not only because it's something I've been through, but many people I love have as well. Only they never got out of it. But because of the fact that I've been there, and I've watched people go from one side to the other and right back to using again it's prepared me more to help Mack through this. This is an important thing in both of our lives right now.

If anyone wants to talk in the thread or a less public place about any addiction problem, I'm more than willing to be there. It sucks when you're going through it, but it sucks way more when you're alone.

Good luck, John.  Also, you've inspired me.  Putting things in perspective like paying utilities with beer money is something I'd never thought of; I don't drink (much) so here's to giving up cigarettes when I'm done with this carton.

When you're dealing with an addiction problem, the best thing you can have is someone to help talk you through the bad times.

Best of luck, dude.

So when is the baby due, Mack?

I'm not much of a drinker so I'd be trivialising everything by taking part, but I'm more than willing to sit on the sidelines and shout encouragement. Good luck Mack.

By the way, haha you have tits.

I think if/when Mack watches this video 5-10 years from now, he's going to physically wince every time he hears this:

"So I've decided to quit drinking..."

(pause)

"...for a while."

For me, knowing Mack's family history and his own health situation, it's like hearing a friend with a heart condition say, "So I went to the doctor and he gave me these pills that will keep my heart beating. So I figure I'll take them... for a while."

Because Mack's not going to be a guy who ever regulates his drinking, smooths it out so that he can just drink socially and everything will be fine. Those people exist. Mack is not one of them. There is a genetic component to it. It will kill him.

It's different for most of you. It's different for his drinking friends. They're not in that situation. He is. He's the kid with a peanut allergy at a birthday party where everybody's trying to get him to eat just a little bit of peanut butter, because it's soooooo good. Alcoholics are different, the alcohol works differently in his system than it does yours. So if Mack comes back a month or six weeks from now and makes video about how he's started drinking again and it was an interesting experiment and he hopes you all learned from it, understand that what you're watching isn't just a guy picking up a bad habit again. It's a guy who has put a shotgun in his mouth. A guy who has three young children.

Mack knows very well that his drinking is basically slow suicide.

Keep that in mind.

Good luck with this. I recognise the angst in your video. I gave up heavy drinking four years ago, and after a few missteps I haven't had a drink at all in over two years, so I know how hard it's going to be. This video was a good idea - I did something similar in that I wrote down how bad I felt the last time I got drunk to remind myself. I would never have the balls to put it up for public consumption though, so I have to give you a lot of kudos for doing this.

On a more superficial note: you'll probably drop some weight by doing this, but if you want to lose the beer gut you'll probably have to do some serious exercise. It's a bastard to get rid of.

John, I don't know if you remember, but you and I have had conversations about this before, on these boards. I asked you at that time what you were doing to occupy your time in the small hours of the night, the times when you'd normally be up drinking.

Anyway, I am in, along with you.

By the way... do you still smoke?

I don't know if this is going to a help or a hindrance, but here I go...

As some of you will know my daughter took her own life a month ago. What I didn't tell anyone was that alcohol was involved.

She hung herself.

As some of you may also know, I gave up smoking a while back. After many long years of it.
The day I found out about my daughter I went out and bought a pack.
Until I read Wong's post about John Cheese, the pack sat, unopened, on my computer tower. 'Just in case.' I threw it out, I may have ruined the gargage disposal.
Because of them:


John Cheese/Mack needs our help, support and nagging. More importantly, his three kids need their Dad, in all his frothing glory, alive and well.

I hope he/ lets us help.

Good luck cheese, I know you have a lot of support here and I hope you can get whatever it is you need to clean up.





side note #1 -  It amazes me how much tolerance some peope have to alcohol. I'm about the same weight as JC and I gotta say, 17 beers in I would be a lot less composed than John is in this video. 30+ beers a night? That would kill me pretty quickly. 


side note #2 - the cost of living where I'm at is WAY too high

Last night I decided to give up cigarettes because I'm an addict. So I'm with you on this.

Good luck with this. I quit smoking almost three years ago, and I don't know if it's the same in this sense but I assume it is: even when you're done with it the cravings don't stop. Thats what kills me, I haven't touched a cigarette in almost three fucking years and yesterday at work I wanted one all day. The worst craving I've ever had for anything...I'm not saying that smoking is as bad as a drinking problem, I've seen what an alcoholic can do to a(read: my) family and I know it's serious, and I know it's hard to get by. You just gotta keep your chin up and muscle through the hard times.
Never forget that sometimes things have to get worse before they can get better.