Sometimes ideas or conclusions or insights strike like lightning or appear a long time afterwards. I want to share one I had today about my own relationship with social media and alcohol consumption.

I don’t mean an abusive way of consuming social media after quitting drinking, in which I compensated for my alcohol consumption with social media doom scrolling.

I mean consuming social media parallel to consuming alcohol, even at the same time. This is one dead sure trap you will have problems climbing out of. Let me explain:

Drinking alcohol can be pretty boring, but having something dumb and idle to do at the same time is a great waste of time: Sitting in my car on a parking space, having a can of beer in one hand (and three in the middle console) and a smartphone in my other, scrolling down until my fingers were sore. And even then I didn’t stop. And here’s the cloven hoof: You are short of finishing your last can, but then you have that one funny reel that keeps you watching and scrolling on. Your beer is empty (and the three others in the middle console, too). You go to the next gas station to pick up the next three (you can always stop tomorrow, but today is too late to quit anyways). So you drink on. Scroll on. Force yourself to stop, because you must be able to somehow get your car home without crashing it.

This self-fueling cycle is, of course, not the only thin about social media. Once you find your reels of funny topics around your interests (mainly booze) you find it too funny not to drink and the more you get down the rabbit hole, the more you will end up in that Upside Down and all the nice rabbits turn into demons feeding on the rest of your dopamins until it spits you out with a bedazzling feeling of emptiness and gloomy anxiety.

Which, in the end, makes you want more alcohol. And then your opinion bubble adds on your fears and depressing feelings, making you feel as if the world is crashing down on you, because all you see is doom and gloom, so all you want is your bed, you get aggressive towards your family. You sleep off your daze. You go to work and look forward to the end of your wok day, because you can boost your dopamine which you rellay need now, because you’re feeling down and don’t know why, because all you could have remembered is obfuscated by the “bad advisor” and a blackout you had after drinking too much the day before. So you drink and get into the same habit loop again.

Finally quitting broke the loop. But doom scrolling prevailed.

I just today realized that a lot of my after holiday depression had to do with the fact that I still used social media (without alcohol, but still doom scrolling). The only thing that changed was that I didn’t drink anymore and I could escape the doom loop earlier. But the hollow feeling stayed.

And that triggered a hollow feeling each time I came home from band rehearsal, because, even though I stopped drinking, the cues and triggers of hollow feelings due to doom scrolling remained even after I stopped using social media.

Only since I changed the cue after band rehearsal (going home directly after work), the triggers that echoed these doom scrolling hollow emotions it stopped. I am still working on a new habit loop to enjoy rehearsal without a hollow feeling afterwards. THAT hollow feeling wasn’t the alcohol anymore. It was doom scrolling. The echos start to fade.

Until next time: Keep up the faith in yourself and take one step at a time.