🥇Alcohol and Mathematician

This is a complex, controversial, and painful topic. But I want to try to discuss it. I can’t share anything grand and brilliant about myself, so I will refer to a rather sincere presentation by mathematician and Doctor of Science Alexey Savvateev, amidst the hypocrisy and moralizing surrounding this issue. (The video itself is at the end of the post.)

For 36 years, my life was very closely related to alcohol. And I dropped out of the game just five minutes before the waterfall, approximately. I was swimming, swimming, the river was becoming more turbulent, I was a water tourist, I 'took my shot.' I evidently took my shot right before the waterfall. Four years ago, I quit consuming alcohol. I can't say the phrase: 'And I recommend the same to you.' Because I have seen people who drink just fine. But that's not my case.

I can give advice as an old alcoholic with a lot of experience. If you, even in 10% of the cases (not in 100%, and not even in 70%) don’t stop, but drink until you fall under the table, then you need to quit.

For many years, I deluded myself into thinking that I could control myself perfectly; it’s just that sometimes, for some reason, I lose control, but that happens rarely, right? Usually, I sit at the table, drink a shot or two, five, seven... well, I get drunk and curse loudly... All passions follow the alcohol. Just like a train, alcohol pulls along with it the baggage: sinful thoughts, swearing, and everything else. Nevertheless, quite often I would stop, get up, and say, 'That’s it, I’m leaving.' I would go home and sleep. The next morning I would tell myself: 'See, you’re not an alcoholic!' Often I could stop, but not always. Once every two or three months, some super catastrophe would happen. I would do something completely unacceptable; I won’t even list it. When I’m older, I'll write a thriller called 'The Practice of Free Travels' (my response do notto Anton Krotov. I dropped out of the game and haven’t drunk even champagne for four years. I have some true substitutes. Instead of beer, I drink).

non-alcoholic beer, it’s awful, yes. But it reminds me of some celebratory feelings, setting the mood that you can celebrate with the drinking people around you.Ginger instead of vodka. If you mix ginger with lemon very strongly, ten times stronger than usual… Bang! and you go ahhhh!!!.. oh… And it feels as if you’ve drunk vodka. Just what you need.

And in third place —

pomegranate juice. pomegranate juice instead of wine. Good real pomegranate juice, from Crimea or Azerbaijan. The juice is quite expensive, but alcohol is more expensive.

Three pages in the book where I was a co-author, "Combinatorics", about the various ways to reach nausea, interspersing drinks. You need to take 500 grams of vodka equivalent. You have several drinks of varying strengths in different volumes. How many ways can this be done, considering that the order matters. Beer before vodka or vodka before beer — this is very important. All alcoholics understand me perfectly.

In the class of combinatorial problems, order matters. I struggled for a long time to come up with an interpretation of why order is important in mathematics, and I came up with this alcoholic interpretation. And that’s why Andrey Mikhailovich Raygorodsky, the main author of the book (together with Shkredov), included me as the third author for this interpretation.

But in general, goodbye alcohol, my friend, goodbye.

Questions to the Habr community

How are your affairs with alcohol?
How do you connect alcohol and productivity?
If you quit, how?
What life hacks do you have for replacing the 'feelings of celebration' and socializing aspects?
What useful articles or videos have you come across on this topic?