Welcome, we're glad to have you here.

Alcohol is physically and mentally addictive. It's habit-forming, you get used to consuming, and your body and brain start expecting, alcohol in certain circumstances.

"It's Friday, time for a glass of wine." "It's a sunny Saturday, wheres my chilled glass of rosè?" etc. It will take time to overlay the old habits, the old neural pathways, with new habits. It sounds like you have some old hobbies you can pick up again? That will definitely help. My one rule I never broke, even when I was drinking a bottle of wine a night, was "no drinking and sewing, that's dangerous." And I saved up my booze money and my 1 year sobriety present was a very fancy sewing machine.

Cross-posting my comment from the other community:

I think what our mate Darin is referring to by “e-bikes” is throttle-operated, no need to pedal, capable of going 30-60mph electric motorbike which, like any other motorbike, you need a licence and protective gear to ride, and no, they’ve got no business being in the bike lane with people noodling along at 10-15mph, and definitely not on the pavement with pedestrians.

Unfortunately, Darin is an idiot who can’t string a sentence together and so he’s just told everyone that my electric assist pedal cycle, top assisted speed of 15.5mph, no need for a licence or insurance, is also illegal. Thanks, Darin.

This House of Commons briefing from 2019 lays out what the issues are with e-scooters, in that because they’re not legally classed as a bicycle, they have the same legal requirements as a motorbike, which is clearly nonsense for a scooter with a top speed of 15.5mph, however, the law has not yet caught up with reality. Since that briefing was written, various trials have started in cities with hired e-scooters provided by third parties to see how the law needs to be updated and what needs to change in order to make them legal on UK roads, but the trials seem to just keep getting extended with no conclusions drawn. As we’re currently in election purdah, nothing’s going to happen until July anyway, and I highly doubt that “sorting out e-scooter legality” will be top of the new government’s priority list.

The office where I work in central London, UK has bike parking for 300 and only eight vehicle parking spaces. We also have a fitness suite. There's two (male and female) locker rooms with showers, towels provided, a drying room.

At least one of the green building standards doesn't give you the top rating unless you have provision for active travel, institutional investors won't buy your shiny new building unless it's rated "Excellent" or "Platinum", tenants are looking for added extras which encourage their staff to come to the office rather than WFH.

And Westminster Council charges business rates (property tax) on parking spaces.

the New World Order, the World Economic Forum, you won't be allowed to leave your neighbourhood because 15 minute cities are coming with guards and checkpoints.

I think what our mate Darin is referring to by "e-bikes" is throttle-operated, no need to pedal, capable of going 30-60mph electric motorbike which, like any other motorbike, you need a licence and protective gear to ride, and no, they've got no business being in the bike lane with people noodling along at 10-15mph, and definitely not on the pavement with pedestrians.

Unfortunately, Darin is an idiot who can't string a sentence together and so he's just told everyone that my electric assist pedal cycle, top assisted speed of 15.5mph, no need for a licence or insurance, is also illegal. Thanks, Darin.

This House of Commons briefing from 2019 lays out what the issues are with e-scooters, in that because they're not legally classed as a bicycle, they have the same legal requirements as a motorbike, which is clearly nonsense for a scooter with a top speed of 15.5mph, however, the law has not yet caught up with reality. Since that briefing was written, various trials have started in cities with hired e-scooters provided by third parties to see how the law needs to be updated and what needs to change in order to make them legal on UK roads, but the trials seem to just keep getting extended with no conclusions drawn. As we're currently in election purdah, nothing's going to happen until July anyway, and I highly doubt that "sorting out e-scooter legality" will be top of the new government's priority list.

Emergency services vehicles' journeys are faster and easier if the roads aren't cluttered with private vehicles.

They can get closer to the scene if they aren't having to negotiate on-street parking full of cars.

They will be called to fewer severe road traffic accidents.

"Oh, I'm on this new medication and I can't drink on it", may or may not be a useful fib for your beer festival. There's a surprisingly long list of medication where alcohol is contraindicated, including some common antihistamines.

It's what one of my friends did, said she couldn't drink because of medication and then "Oh, remember when I couldn't drink? When I could drink again, I decided that I didn't want to, so I've stopped."

I live in one of the most deprived London boroughs. The council is installing LTNs, school streets, and a borough-wide 20mph limit. Many of the existing housing estates are already LTNs, but because that's how the estate was built, people don't recognise it as an LTN, it's just the estate.

They're doing something like that in France - all new and existing car parks with space for more than 80 cars have to have solar panels https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/nov/09/france-to-require-all-large-car-parks-to-be-covered-by-solar-panels

I'm so sorry you've got bad stuff to deal with.

I think you've already realised the main thing about booze, which is that pouring it on bad situations makes the bad situation worse.

Can you pour the rest of the alcohol down the sink?

Can you arrange to see a friend tomorrow, somewhere without alcohol, just to talk over the issue, or if you don't want to, just talk about anything but that? I always find getting out of my own head is useful for dealing with stuff.

Not all e-bikes are illegal to use on the public road, so Darin is also wrong.

Do not offer street homeless people shelter unless you have the skills, training and abilities necessary to support them long term, including dealing with the underlying issues which led to the person becoming street homeless in the first place and the subsequent issues which have kept them there.

It's not my first, my advice is to make sure you've got some nice drinks in (Saicho sparkling tea, here), and remember that if it all gets a bit much, you can slip away for some quiet moments, or just leave if you need to.

Good morning, fellow sobernauts, IWNDWYT 😁!

Day 638 checking in.

Different political parties.

Red = Labour (new governing party).

Gold = Liberal Democrat.

Blue = Tory (former governing party).

Grey = Independent (but he used to be Labour and was leader of the Labour party for a bit).

Good morning, fellow sobernauts, IWNDWYT 😁!

Congratulations!

Good morning, fellow sobernauts, IWNDWYT 😁!

Good morning, fellow sobernauts, IWNDWYT 😁!

Good morning, fellow sobernauts, IWNDWYT 😁!