Thinking about it I am judging. I’m judging 5-6 beers and a bottle of wine a day to be a lot of alcohol.

What I’m not judging is the individual and their situation. There but for the grace of god and all that.

what people think is ‘acceptable’ and how people feel

The thing is for me, as the OP, I don’t think the amount of beer I have been drinking recently *IS* acceptable and I am sure non-one that drinks similar amount (or more) thinks their intake is acceptable either. Which is kinda the point of the thread and to have someone then question it is not really productive.

I know it is a huge amount. Work it out its over your weeks worth of units in a night and why i’m worried and posting about it and have had to go to zero.
same old story that is probably quite familiar but starts off with an occasional beer midweek, then sharing a bottle with the mrs. To then having a few pre bottle of wine beers, to suddenly realising you are having a few prior to the bottle, I must have been drinking 3/4 of the bottle myself, then one or two beers after the bottle.
Your tolerance really does build up, and feeling hungover becomes the normal.
Most years I abstain for months at a time (generally work related) but not had that chance this year so having to discipline myself.

I don’t think there are hard and fast answers but there have been a lot of these threads over the years and people usually give good advice. For me filling my time, mainly with excercise, works pretty well at keeping me off the booze.

For me filling my time, mainly with excercise, works pretty well at keeping me off the booze.

For me, it was the injury and other external influences stopping me from exercising that led me to drinking more than I should so not dis-similar to you I guess. Now I am back regularly exercising I have found myself wanting to stop and get back to my peak fitness again.

Stuck in NYC for 3 weeks on my own and it’s pretty hard not to drink every night. Waking up at 4am with the Beer fear isn’t doing me any good and I have a constant sheen to me. Plus I’m stacking the weight on…

I’m all for going stone cold sober. I think checking in on here might be a good idea, then I don’t get the ‘oh, I’ll just have a couple’ when I get back to the hotel.

Cool thread.

i am also trying to cut back (basically not drink on school nights)

I find a sodastream machine very handy. I will have a bottle of soad water with a squeeze of lemon instead of a beer.

Good luck guys, stay strong.

I’m thinking Friday is the best day to check in and see how good or bad we’ve all been, what you reckon?

So we can then go away and celebrate how good we’ve been all week 😉

As I said, I’m not here to judge anyone.

That’s a relief.

Crankrider chill, as said above the guy knows he’s caning it too much, and has posted here to help sort himself out.

All good.

So just two glasses of cranberry juice last night then in the gym at 6.30am for an hour spin + weights and a short steam room session. Now sitting at my desk feeling Holier Than Thou 🙂

Its pretty simple isn’t it, if you want to give up then give it up. If you can’t give it up get some help.

If you’re doing something you don’t want to do and you can’t stop it you have a problem.

I love a beer, however I have realised its a time stealer so make it the exception rather than the norm these days.

I drank quite a lot in the evening and so did my other half. Slightly less than the OP. We went cold turkey but after a week or so we started the old habits again. The key for us was recognising we associated having a drink with unwinding after work. You know that feeling where you don’t think you’ve left work till you are out of shirt and tie and put on jeans or shorts et?. well its very similar to that. So our ritual involved opening a bottle as soon as we got in. So by delaying opening the bottle straight away and leaving it for an hour we managed to cut right back. We still drink a lot but its now less than one bottle of red between us most evenings.

Its pretty simple isn’t it, if you want to give up then give it up. If you can’t give it up get some help.

If you’re doing something you don’t want to do and you can’t stop it you have a problem.
I don’t think anyone here has a problem that falls into the ‘can’t stop’ category, rather the ‘I have noticed I have been drinking more than I should and I want to cut down’. If I needed help to control my excessively moderate drinking my wife would have told me by now.

Interestingly last night, after drinking a glass of cranberry juice, my brain was saying ‘I don’t want alcohol’ (I could almost feel a subconscious thought of the two tastes not mixing well if that makes sense)?

I think a lot of us have been there.

I kinda work on a “fine myself” system now, i only have a beer (s) on friday or Saturday, and i have to earn it, so i only have a few beers friday IF i have been on bike for at least 2 hours to earn them etc, a lot of it boredom, sat there with TV on and beer in the fridge, it will go.

One really important thing to remember is whether you are driving the next day, if you do the sums:

4 beers (taking a weaker one like Fosters) is 1.8 units a can, so four is 7.2 units

1 bottle of wine at 14% is 7 units.

Therefore you consume the lot, you have consumed 14.2 units, so that is just over 14 hours to be alcohol free. You finish drinking at 10pm, then at 8am when you get in car for work you still have 5 units on board, and you are over the limit, even if you “feel” sober……..

1 bottle of wine at 14% is 7 units.

I think it is a bit more than that for a 14% wine

Yes, 10 units in a standard bottle of 13.5% wine.

Point stands though despite my wonky maths, was a bit of an eye opener when i read that and in my heavier drinking days realised the number of times, i felt a bit groggy next day but thought i was fine driving to work.

Another thing i found worked, for every beer, follow that with a pint of water, you’ll feel bloated and get sick of walking to the loo!

Haven’t had a drink the last two nights, going to just keep going one day at a time and see how I feel. But if I do have a drink then try and follow the guidelines of sticking below 6 units in one session, and logging my drinking throughout the week.

Scud has made a very good point there.
A lot of people feel fine the next day to drive but are still well over.
Getting into the habit of measuring units and the time it takes for each unit of alcohol to leave the system is good practice.
I have found non alcoholic Bavaria is my go to drink if I fancy one and adding lemonade to something weak and tasteless (fosters) makes for a refreshing drink and spreads out the alcohol consumption.
It still feels like ‘having a drink ‘ in front of the tele and winding down.

You finish drinking at 10pm, then at 8am when you get in car for work you still have 5 units on board, and you are over the limit, even if you “feel” sober.

You should count the time from when you started drinking, not when you stopped. Your body does not wait until you finish drinking to start processing alcohol it starts once it has hit your stomach. So if you had 14 units starting at 6pm you should be fine* by 8am the next morning.

* Lots of things can affect your bodies ability to process alcohol and “a bloke on the web said I’d be fine” is not much of a defence.

So after a weekend of enjoying a few drinks I was going to have none this week. But it’s my father in law’s birthday meal tomorrow and Wednesday is the new Friday as we are going for a long weekend in Rome on Thursday morning.

So do I even bother staying dry tonight? (I know the sensible answer but that is, well, sensible).

yes, if nothing else to give your liver a break for 24 hours as you know you’ll defo be drinking tomorrow

and to show that you can 😉

yep ^^^ that!

we do Sensible Mondays. No meat, no booze. It’s small but it’s a start 😉

So do I even bother staying dry tonight?

You don’t “need” to drink. Its just become a habit. Make it a habit not to, starting now. Replace the £5 you were about to spend on this:

It has been promoted on here by others.

Fifteen minutes to happy hour, troops assemble! 😀

I’m going for a tall one. Chocolate milkshake

I’ve never yet found an alchohol free beer that tastes like anything I’d actually want to pay to drink. Normally I might have enough beer in the house for one bottle an evening, with maybe a bottle or two of single malt for seeing me through cold winter evenings, but I now have a girlfriend who’s got an alcohol dependence problem, she’s living with me, so there’s no alchohol in the house.
Yes, I miss having a couple of beers around should I want one, but her health takes precedence over a minor enjoyment of mine, at least for the foreseeable future.
I’ll enjo the couple of beers I have with a mate in the pub all the more.

So ….in a similar position. I’ve been doing Stoptober to give my liver a rest and its mostly working (I have one lapse a week!) ….but its hard.

As others have said just record what you drink …it can be frightening! I use the drinkaware app which is great. Apparently your only allowed 14 units a week which could be one night! I try not to exceed 7 in a night which is a beer and half a bottle of wine.

Overall I’m sleeping better, feel more alert and after a the second week I don’t always feel like a beer/wine at dinner time.

Nanny State is ok as well as this German beer (not becks) that Tesco sell. Non-alcoholic wine … just don’t go there! (Although Tesco/Co-op do do quite a nice non-alcoholic sparkling Muskat).

Keep it up!

…sticking my neck out, how much is too much?

14 Government Recommended
21 Old Government Recommended
30 Not recommended but not high risk and relatively normal for regular drinkers.
40 Increasing risk.
50+ High risk you will probably suffer ill health with time?

Yeah . But even the Government admitted the 21 units a week recomendation was just a guess .

Well this is an easy one for me, zero units since this time last week – due to getting a nasty dose of flu.

Since getting back from NYC I’ve not touched a drop (just over a week), however it was my birthday yesterday so had a bottle of beer with dinner. Feel so much better for not drinking, I’ve got the option of our usual Friday piss-up at work and for once I’m planning to abstain. We’ll see if that happens!

Worth looking at this particularly the graph It shows that drinker have a greater life expectancy than teetotallers,up to approximately 35-50 units a week,it is excessive consumption that is inherently dangerous,sensible consumption appears to be healthy.

I’ve been drinking too much, for a little while (ahem) – just started a new job that means I’m away from home during the week, and hey presto, in a different environment I find it really easy to not drink, had a few unexpected WFH days this week and wanted a beer every evening (but have been good and not drunk! 🙂 ). Interested that a change in routine made it easier to break the habit – got a week in Manchester next week and looking forward to getting lots of reading done.

(On reflection that makes it sound like I have a helacious home life that’s driven me to drink and it’s not that, I’m positive it’s purely down to habit!)

ok, i havnt read the rest of the posts and i’ve seen many similar posts on here. for what its worth then, and without getting into discussions about what constitutes alcoholism etc…

i really do like a drink. i’ve never been a massive drinker but i’m someone who does like a tipple every night. that may be a bottle of wine or a half bottle of scotch. i can’t have one glass but nor do i keep going.

once i did stop drinking for a couple of years and felt good for it. the reason i stopped was that i was getting incredible hangovers very regularly.

3 years ago on jan 1st, about to go into 4th year, i used dry january to stop for a month as i needed a break and i havnt drunk since.

now this isnt a sermon, and believe me it was damn hard work to stop (focus on one day at a time, my trick was to think how good i’d feel next morning), and its still an effort not to drink (it does lessen with time plus i fully know that one glass on a weekend would lead to me starting again), but my point of posting is that, in my experience and for me, it was and is so worth the effort.

apart from being financially better off, fitness/weight much better off, the greatest tying is not being tied to booze and its surprising how much of a grasp it has on your life without you being aware.

thats it really, being sober is cool and its also funny because people who drink just don’t get it and also many many people, when you say i stopped drinking, instantly think you usded to be a wino under the bridge somewhere sucking on a bottle of brasso.

Worth looking at this particularly the graph It shows that drinker have a greater life expectancy than teetotallers,up to approximately 35-50 units a week

That article is positing that the drinking guidelines are (at least in part) a conspiracy serving the political agenda of the ‘public health’ lobby, with all its taxes, bans and gruesome warnings. For an alternative take it’s worth having a listen to the piece on the new Scottish alcohol guidelines in the second half of this podcast.
…new guidance in Scotland challenges the so called ‘J-shaped curve’ – evidence that moderate drinking is good for the heart. Naveed Sattar, Professor of Metabolic Medicine at the University of Glasgow and part of the committee that produced the updated guidance, talks to Mark Porter about the changes.

Just read this thread after the link from today’s drinking thread…

Being an ex drug user/addict I do worry about alcoholism.

You should worry – I was in the same boat and the easy availability of alcohol and the fact that it’s acceptable in polite society… I found out too late and it’s only fairly recently that I’ve sorted out the mess which was threatening to engulf my life.

Allan Carr’s Easy Way to Control Alcohol is a very good read but it’s (deliberately) mis-titled. The end goal is to stop you drinking and it worked for me.

It’s also seriously flawed in some ways but so long as you’re able and willing to ignore the bullshit moments and concentrate on the effective chapters, it really is helpful.

At some future point, I may allow myself the odd beer but right now, I just have zero desire to drink which suits me fine 🙂