Just done 7 nights on the bounce, never even thought about a drink except for the odd coffee or green tea. 1st night off tonight & there’s a bottle of red in the kitchen & I can hear it calling me, like that bottle in Alice in Wonderland with the label on saying ‘drink me’.
I have a drink every night when I’m not on nights so do you reckon it’s a habit/bingy thing?
I’ve put the bottle in a cupboard but I can still hear it.

I have this habit, seem to have to get a bit lashed every Friday night to get the working week out of my system. I always regret it on Saturday as it kills my motivation to do anything. I see it more as a mental crux than alcohol dependency, but I am going to make an effort to knock it on the head.

Although it doesn’t seem that similar to your situation actually.

It’s Monday, beat it into you!

It’s clearly a problem when you think it’s a problem and drink anyway.

Two bottles of vodka a week and at least 6 beers a day? By my own admission I was an alcoholic, perhaps not by anyone else’s definition but I was aware of my problem.

Behaviour Modifications Required, chaps.

Two bottles of vodka a week and at least 6 beers a day?

😯 That’s a LOT of piss.

I could have written the OP. Was out last weekend, had a bottle of wine in the house, was gifted two more, had pals round, went to a birthday. First no drink in at least 8 days. Only talking a glass or two (ok two) but bought a bottle today for future use. Now it’s talking to me as I type. I’m not opening it for this reason.

Some useful questions to ask yourself:

Link

I have a small glass of wine with my food most days, does that make me an alcy? Three pints and I’m smashed and hungover the next day though.

I have a small glass of wine with my food most days, does that make me an alcy? Three pints and I’m smashed and hungover the next day though.

Not being able to manage without a drink makes you an alcy. A small or large capacity for booze is sort of irrelevant, some of the properly off the rails alcoholics I’ve know can get smashed on very little booze – a can of cooking lager and they’re away, their problem isn’t amount they drink, its just that they can’t cope with not being drunk

Two bottles of vodka a week and at least 6 beers a day?

That’s a LOT of piss.[/quote]

It’s a good bit but there’s those that drink that a day easily.

esselgruntfuttock if you can go 7 nights without one then you’re along way off.

I scored 2 on Shermers linky test. 😕

Some questions in that test make no sense.

2. Can you handle more alcohol now than when you first started to drink?

Of course I can. I’m not 15 anymore.

11. Do you usually have a reason for the occasions when you drink heavily?

Yes. But somehow it’s “better” to drink heavily for no reason at all?

21. Have you recently noticed that you can’t drink as much as you used to?

Yeah, because I don’t drink as much as I used to so have lower tolerance.

I have a small glass of wine with my food most days, does that make me an alcy? Three pints and I’m smashed and hungover the next day though.

I have a glass of very fine homebrew most evenings, a glass of wine instead on Saturdays when having dinner with the parents. Dad has a glass of wine with dinner every night. However I’ve not been drunk since my student days, and I’ve never seen him drunk.

So are we alcoholics? I score zero on that test, by the way.

I scored 2 on Shermers linky test

I scored 5 and I’m not alcoholic. A lot of them questions are bollocks.

It’s american, they still have a vein of a puritanical attitude towards alcohol.

I used to drink half a cup of half pint a night for health, honest to god I do that, but given up because some of them cheap red wine taste like shite. Can’t be arsed anymore. 😀

‘early rising is good for the wealth but early drinking is good for the health’ (Rabelais)

If you’re thinking about drink in the morning, thats when you have a problem. A small drink every night is habit.

BillMC – Member

‘early rising is good for the wealth but early drinking is good for the health’ (Rabelais)

Ya, but not when the wine taste shite. 😡

I now just drink two table spoons of apple cyder vinegar instead which is much cheaper and sometimes not so bad. 😛

A small drink every night is habit.

Question is, can you break the habit though?

I got into the habit of having a drink most nights. It became part of the routine, go make dinner, pour a drink whilst cooking. But I stopped thinking about it, I wasn’t getting a drink because I wanted a drink, it was just what I did.

Thing is, once I’d realised what I was doing, breaking that habit proved to be harder than I’d ever anticipated. I’d go though the day without thinking twice about it, get home and actually really struggle when that step of the evening was removed. I can easily see how it’d creep up on you, for “habit” to become “problem.”

Some questions in that test make no sense.

Quite

Can you drink as much as you used to, I’m in my 50’s and don’t drink as much as I did as a studnet. Guess what? I get drink faster than I used to.

Also, Do you anxious or depressed after a bout of heavy drinking?
I very rarely get hangovers now, not because of phenomenal drinking abilty but because I don’t drink that much. When I do, I lie in bed feeeling sorry myself wasting a day when I could be out in the hills, riding amy bike or doing anything more fun than lying in bed with a hangover. That depresses me.

JUst nailed the benylin and thinking about the toLiet dUck….leaving thE LIghter FLuiD in Case I WAke up…jn.. the niighhhhhhhhhhhhhhttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttt

Thing is, once I’d realised what I was doing, breaking that habit proved to be harder than I’d ever anticipated. I’d go though the day without thinking twice about it, get home and actually really struggle when that step of the evening was removed. I can easily see how it’d creep up on you, for “habit” to become “problem.”

Ditto!

I now drink red wine every night because I like the taste and presumably the effects of the alcohol.Habit yes,but if I’m driving or riding of an evening then of course I wouldn’t have a drink.This does mean I have to manage to squeeze all my driving and riding in during the day 🙂

Can I flip it around and ask how much per night will damage your liver? If your not wrecking your liver and you are controlling the size of your belly, is it a problem?

I ask that as someone who has drunk 1 pint of homebrew, 1 tescos finest DIPA, 1 V&T, 1 large Punk IPA & 1 Adnams Broadside over the last 5 1/2 hrs.
These days I have Tuesdays & Thursdays off, I rarely get drunk (once a year, maybe) but I definitely drink more when my wife’s on late’s.

If I had 24 cans of cold Carling/Fosters/… in the fridge I’d drink herbal tea or milk. I just love the taste of great beers

If you answered “yes” to more than 8 questions, you may have a serious level of alcohol-related problems requiring immediate attention and possible treatment. You should seek professional guidance. You should consider contacting the NCADD affiliate office nearest to you. A representative will be happy to assist you in the scheduling of a professional evaluation.

That test really needs re-calibrated for Irish people.

If I had 24 cans of cold Carling/Fosters/… in the fridge I’d drink herbal tea or milk. I just love the taste of great beers

Very much so. Well I won’t drink herbal tea you big poof, but I know where you are coming from. People have left 6 packs of Harp,Carlsberg,Tennets etc in my fridge for 6-months to a year…until I next see them and they can have them. I’d rather not drink anything at all than drinky cheap pissy beer.

Honest question: what’s different about an alcohol habit that makes it worse than other habits?

I have a cup of coffee every morning, that’s a habit I’ve had for decades. Is by beer every evening a worse habit than my cup of coffee in the morning?

To put it another way, I’ve stopped smoking, taking drugs & shagging women apart from my wife. Surely drinking beer 5 nights a week is ok

Do you really want to live till your brain turns to mush and your legs stop working…?

5 for me on that test

2. Can you handle more alcohol now than when you first started to drink? Yes
3. Have you ever been unable to remember part of the previous evening, even though
your friends say you didn’t pass out? Yes
11. Do you usually have a reason for the occasions when you drink heavily? Yes, it’s generally a piss up with my mates, I don’t drink otherwise!
12. When you’re sober, do you sometimes regret things you did or said while drinking? Yes
26. Have any of your blood relatives ever had a problem with alcohol? Yes

Pretty much par for the course, very few people I know wouldn’t answer yes to the above? 😆

Mugboo – Member
Do you really want to live till your brain turns to mush and your legs stop working…?

That shit happens much quicker with heavy alcohol abuse! 😆

bencooper – Member
Honest question: what’s different about an alcohol habit that makes it worse than other habits?

I have a cup of coffee every morning, that’s a habit I’ve had for decades. Is by beer every evening a worse habit than my cup of coffee in the morning?cirrhosis of the liver and things like that! 😆

We were down the pub and one of my friends said: “when was the last time you went 72 hours without a drink” the answer was that I had no idea, but I can frequently go weeks without a drink or I can drink every night. It depends on the circumstances. The fact that he could remember exactly when it was for him implies to me that he has a problem. Why should it matter when you abstained? It should be like asking when was the last time you had macaroni cheese? The answer should not be a significant event in your life.

Honest question: what’s different about an alcohol habit that makes it worse than other habits?

I have a cup of coffee every morning, that’s a habit I’ve had for decades. Is by beer every evening a worse habit than my cup of coffee in the morning?
The difference is firstly the risk that you can’t actually control the habit and secondly that people often end up drinking more than they think/are willing to say with the resultant medical effects.

i use ‘dry january’ as a measure of whether im an alcy or not 😀

if i can go a month after christmas with no alcohol then i figure i can do without it if i have to and im ok. if i ever give in before the months out, then thats when ill start asking a few more questions of myself…..

Cost in terms of money not spent on the bike or time out on the bike or with family

Once you realise that alcohol is actually poison and your body does everything it can to get rid of it, it kind of gives you a different perspective on booze.

I like wine and beer and the socialising that goes with them but I look at that attractively designed label and then what’s in the bottle and think again

Good health

Too much coffee harms the liver too – too much of anything isn’t good for you. My question is why a moderate amount of alcohol is different to a moderate amount of coffee.

I guess it’s more a Puritanical point about whether addiction to any substance is a bad thing – in which case sugar and fatty foods should be on the list too.

I saw a very good analogy recently about how drinking damages your liver. Every drink is like pricking your hand with a needle. A couple a night and you will recover. Loads at once, and with rest, it will be sore for a while but you will recover. 20 every day and your hand will get gangrene and drop off.

I am fully persuaded of the evils of drinking large amounts, or modest amounts regularly. But stuff like that self-addiction checklist that was linked earlier are (at best) of questionable use.

“Has a family member ever complained about your drinking?”

Yes, obviously. My wife, every time I come home at 11pm after having 3 pints, so drunk that I bought some chips and now find my own farts hilarious. That isn’t necessarily a symptom of problem drinking, it could just be further evidence that my wife is annoying.

I get the sense that most people answer “yes” to the question “do you usually have a reason when you drink heavily?”. Because, yes, I do have a reason. Like “it was the Christmas party”. I’d feel odd if the answer was “no, I drink all the time, I don’t need a reason”.

So that’s two strikes straight away, and we’re into “you should be worried about your drinking”. which of course makes it more likely that my wife will complain about my drinking, reinforcing the spiral of depravity into which my life is sinking, and before we know it I have to answer “yes” to questions like “does your drinking harm your relationships?” because after the first time I took the quiz and scored a 2 my wife has got annoyed every time I look at a bottle of sherry.

Hey ho. Better safe than sorry! 🙂