I have lost my entire BR because I CONTINUED drinking while playing online. I have stopped drinking at home because of this. My problem - as I have stated before - is that a drink makes a new man out of me, but that man wants to play poker and cant. But seriously, I play a live local tournament and will have a few beers, but pace myself and its no problem. On my computer, I pop one after the other, and soon start playing like an idiot. And I do stuff like play higher stakes to recap my losses, we all know how that will end. I do agree that a small buzz helps to make that risky play that we know we should cause we are playing to win, not just get ITM, but when stone cold sober, we sometimes play scared. But since I have repeatedly shown myself that I wont stop at 3 when online at home, I stopped drinking at home. I still run the danger of coming home after drinking and my PC is here, and that still happens ( I live in Munich, the Oktoberfest was expensive for me, as you dont come home from the fest just a bit buzzed.........groan) but I am actually not drinking at all at the moment, and it is only because of poker lol.
And lol at the running to the bathroom before you are dealt out. I have it pretty good in my local game as the bathroom is 30 feet from the tables. so I can usually make it. I also have an understanding with the barmaid there, and she brings me alcohol free beer on signal, so it looks like I am downing a lot of beer when in reality it is 2 or 3, and at the moment I only drink the alk-free stuff. I prefer it to water simply because a lot of players dont drink, and I want them to think I am.