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Q: Anybody stopped drinking while living in China and wish they had not?
So I have been sober now for about 8 months. I have read some stories about people who stopped drinking and are so happy now that they stopped drinking. Well, not me. When I was drinking it was easier to put up with all the stupid crap we see here in this country. Now that I am sober, I hear every disgusting slurp, see every snot rocket that graces the sidewalk, and notice every kid with crotchless pants taking a dump on the street while his mother squats beside him coaching the newly birthed turd into the world. I don't miss the hangovers from drinking, but it seems that I was a little more blind to what was going on around me. So, anyone else wish they hadn't stopped drinking?
You quit drinking? Good move, now quit China to preserve your sanity.
laowaigentleman:
Haha, mate I worry about you sometimes. This place drives me crazy too, I just hope it isn't causing you too much stress. You're in Guangdong, let this comfort you: you don't live in Hebei. I can't wait to leave, but I have another year to go until my better half completes her study so I do my best to find things to keep me occupied. There is truly NOTHING up here except malls filled with overpriced, poorly woven clothing and shitty snacks which cost something like 3 kuai per 50 grams or whatever.
Go to Hong Kong as much as you can. I genuinely envy you for the proximity you're living within that great place. Nicht am Ende selbst über Kopf
timjames:
Thanks for the good advice, that's exactly what I plan to do.
Sorry to hear this, dude. Is there no chance of a halfway for you?
I don't binge drink anymore. I'll typically have a beer with my dinner three times a week or so.
timjames:
Well, I'm an alcoholic, so no middle ground, it's either all or nothing. If I have one beer, I will drink 10 or more. Then the massive hangover comes, which is unlike anything I experienced back home. In the states I was a rum man, i'd drink Captain Morgan Black, it was 96 proof and I almost never got a hangover.
Before I was in China, I would have wine and cocktails in the week-end with a few good friends. No binge drinking or overall drunkness, just chilling out. I went almost dry for two years... Now, I have a drink once in a while (a few glasses in a week), without ever knocking myself down. I regret the two years of dryness, such a waste...
I've never met anyone who quit drinking after coming to China but I have met people who became raging alcoholics in China.
RachelDiD:
I had never even been drunk before I came to China. It's not like I am an alcoholic or anything, but I have been sloppy drunk more than a few times.
timjames:
I didn't want to stop drinking, but the hangovers were so brutal that I finally quit. I like the alcohol back home, sometimes I got hangovers, but they were much easier to cope with. If I drink the stuff they call beer here I am guaranteed to have a massive hangover the next day.
Strange, I started drinking in China.
timjames:
I agree, it is strange to stop drinking here in China, but I was never completely normal.
after about 3 years of sobriety and 2 years of not smoking.....I came to China.
1 Year here and I was thinking, "why the hell not" ....smokes are cheap
so I started smoking again ..... soon came a beer ... I like to have a beer with my smoke, and a smoke with my beer.
so.. today, I am smoking and drinking just about as much as I was when I was all stressed out over my stressful job. thank GOD, I don't have to go to work.
so.. I guess... I too started smoking and drinking in China .... but only just re-started..
now in my pleasant retirement , my beer is quite well regulated...most of the time... the smoking is a fuckin pain in the ass.....cause I really do want to quit, but I have no balls or something...... nicotine antidote required ASAP ..
If anything, I started drinking more. However I tend to only stick to one drink because of the gross inability in bars to serve anything well unless it comes out of a tap or bottle. Cocktails here taste like they should be used to strip paint and simple things like a spirit + mixer costs around 60rmb because they treat it as a "cocktail". So I do miss the variety and freedom of choice that I had back at home, but that hasn't stopped me from chinning a few.
I'm not sure I can condone drinking as a way to put up with China's problems. That could be a dark road to go down. I gave up drinking for health reasons a few years ago. I occasionally have a beer if someone offers me one at dinner or something.
I can't say it's affected me either way really. I never depended on it to be happy, and so I don't really miss it.
I don't drink at all, simply because the grog here really makes your body feel like it is breaking down. The alcohol quality is probably the most suitable for being used as a fuel source for crude Soviet era machines. It goes in and out of my internal machinery faster than Mc Donald's.
My mental state, far from being great, perhaps still isn't effected enough to turn me to drinking. Anyway, if I have a bad mood, it can easily be worsened by feeling bad physically too. I don't want to make a bad mood compounded by feeling and looking like crap physically, so I try to keep that poison out of my body. There's enough of it in the air and food already.
I just order the goods I need to make my own White Russians at home.
I may drink too much, but sometimes it is either that or a nervous break down.
the quality of the alcohol has limited my consumption drastically, even the same beer can taste different in the same case. headaches i have never gotten before pop up with very little intoxification, simply if i trusted the alcohol, i would drink more.
imported scotch(i bring in myself) and an occasional beer is about my limit now
laowaigentleman:
I had a kronenbourg after work and then I bought a Tsingdao. The latter tasted so watery that I couldn't be bothered finishing it.
A good Chinese beer is Taiwan Beer. I'm puzzled because it's in the same aisle as the imported beers and the price of it suggests that it has had import duties put upon it... Racking my brains here...
hi2u:
It really gives me cause for concern that the flavor of qingdao is not consistent even though I drink the same bottle from the same store.
I've been sober for about 15 hrs and I look forward to rectifying that shortly.
Life would be better here if you could buy a decent bottle of dry white for less than 100 kuai.
The beer here is piss but beggars can't be choosers.
If not for guzzling enormous quantities of beer here there'd be NOTHING GOING ON.
But in your case, stick with your plan.
For same reasons, I am afraid to stop drinking here.
I am not alcoholic, but regularly i get myself few beers or bottle of whiskey for weekend, sometimes for dinner. I am going to buy one hip flask now, to keep me warm while working outside 
Hey, you're doing really well! I think you should stay off it. Drinking will in no way resolve the issues you have with living in China
