I drink before I post on HN, so I appreciate the honesty. It's gotten me rate limited more than once, though.
I think some of us, especially caffeine addicts with high social anxiety, can benefit from a drink before making that business call we don't want to deal with. I often think better and am more lucid (and way chiller) after one or two beers. Self medicating isn't the end of the world; other medications for anxiety are a lot harder to dial in correctly. But you do have to watch out and make sure you haven't overmedicated, which is difficult. Alcohol has a way of driving your gauge for yourself out of whack very slowly in a way you don't notice.
An anecdote from my father, who was a lawyer in the 1960s. He never ate breakfast or lunch. He just drank coffee. He let himself get ramped up all day and waited until 3pm to start calling opposing lawyers to negotiate settlements. By that point, he said, they'd all had a martini or two at lunch and just wanted to go home, giving him the edge. Of course, at 5pm sharp he was a regular alcoholic like everyone else. To him, though, this represented a very high level of self control.
I think some of us, especially caffeine addicts with high social anxiety, can benefit from a drink before making that business call we don't want to deal with. I often think better and am more lucid (and way chiller) after one or two beers. Self medicating isn't the end of the world; other medications for anxiety are a lot harder to dial in correctly. But you do have to watch out and make sure you haven't overmedicated, which is difficult. Alcohol has a way of driving your gauge for yourself out of whack very slowly in a way you don't notice.
An anecdote from my father, who was a lawyer in the 1960s. He never ate breakfast or lunch. He just drank coffee. He let himself get ramped up all day and waited until 3pm to start calling opposing lawyers to negotiate settlements. By that point, he said, they'd all had a martini or two at lunch and just wanted to go home, giving him the edge. Of course, at 5pm sharp he was a regular alcoholic like everyone else. To him, though, this represented a very high level of self control.