Thanks for the inspiration guys! I decided a while ago to lay the booze aside in the new year, and I've been telling everyone so I can't fall back.
I've had too many lost periods on it since I told my crazy ex to go away. It's all too east to 'self medicate' in these situations. My fitness is fubared because of it but I want to go racing in the spring.
Being drunk is fun, but it's damn expensive and my body isn't designed for that constant punishment.

Happy new year everyone!

You know it is possible to enjoy a drink or two without getting drunk

This is true. But I discovered that your head is always clearer the next morning and you feel fresher, if you don't have a couple of pints the night before. It also means that you can sleep all night without having to get up to have a p*ss.

Plus of course having a couple of pints never enhances your mood the next morning – I don't ever recall waking up on a downer because I hadn't had a drink the previous evening. Alcohol always has some sort of effect – that after all, is the whole point……..if it doesn't, then there's no point drinking the stuff. The "I like the taste", is a red herring.

Drinking imo, like many things in life, is one of those things which a lot of people grow out of
……. I also grew out of "I really enjoy eating really really hot curries" WTF was that about FFS ? 😕

13 years, woke up one day and knocked all the drugs on the head. never looked back. no moral issue or danger of spinning out of control, just 'felt' i didnt need it. find i dont go to pubs and see old mates for coffee(mines a decaf) or lunch instead.

…WTF was that about FFS ?

So you had an excuse to drink 6 pints of cold lager with the curry? ❗

Not a teetotaler shall be at the in laws tonight and will be partaking of a few beers and some wine and will get up tomorrow and go and ride my bike no probs

"You know it is possible to enjoy a drink or two without getting drunk"

Depends. For my sister, only total abstinance works.

I don't drink anymore, i'm a total cock when i do…

It took me 40yrs to find out i can't handle my beer. and having my son helped cus waking with a hangover with a child to look after is awful.

@ ernie_lynch

It also means that you can sleep all night without having to get up to have a p*ss.

I just use a plastic sheet on the bed. That means I can sleep all night without having to get up to have a p*ss. Best of both worlds, my son!

don't like the taste or the effect 😀 .

I don't like the taste of alcohol either however I like fitting in with the majority of people and alcohol helps me mix with people I cant stand sober..

😉

No, seriously now. I love the feeling that two double-Jim Beams gives me. No way to describe it. EVERYONE needs a poison otherwise how dull would your life be?
After all, we are only marking time until we wither and die.

What are you saving yourselves for? Be the sprittliest pensioner in the care home? Genetics/DNA/hereditory has something to do with your health as well you know.

Gave up 2yrs ago, great no more hangovers
Felt it was getting boring after 24 years of it
Coincidently started running two years ago too !
Feel much better for it and raring to go each morning
Bike/Run/Work/Family Chores …

To be honest the taste has never been very nice either

😆

Wave
Funnylly enough it's easier to be a teatotal in the UK than in France (if I don't want to explain my choise in the UK the "I am driving works a treat" too).

Never seen the point of drinking. Smell of beer/wine is enough to make me sick. The flat I am in was "deliver with a full up bar" vodka wisky etc etc.

I have so far sip the following (just because I was curious and no more than half a glass of shooter).
vodka (that shit end up as bike cleaner)
Obscure german stuff that makes you blind. No idea what it was so gave it to the expert (LBS) it's a oat stuff made from the lbs'owner's mum place. So they keep it.
Manzana sweet enough but the buring feeling in the throat is yeuurk.

So very disapointed with the actual taste of this stuff. I'll stay and posh tea, expensive coffee fruit juices and coke in glass bottle please.

Yes and No Drinking does not bother me
as I dont need a drink to be happy.
Tonight no drink have to pick me daughter
up from a party.

now that I have read the whole post I am impressed by the number of people on here who don't drink. Plus I am sad to discover I am not technicaly a teatotal.

The paternal side of my family were all heavy drinkers and I just didn't like what I saw. Also drinking any type of alcohol always made me ill.

I've been a teetotal for years. However tonight I am having a small Southern Comfort. The next drink will probably in a years time too.

"You know it is possible to enjoy a drink or two without getting drunk"

As per my post last night, once you reach the point where it isn't, or better said you don't trust yourself any longer that that CAN be the case – that's when you have to give up. Cutting down doesn't work at that point (I know, i tried). You'd set out with good intentions 'Just a couple to be sociable' then someone offers you another and you say yes to be sociable. Then you have to get them one back. So now that's 4, and suddenly the intent doesn't work, and you start having a scotch with every pint just in case you get to closing time and you aren't aresholed.

And the wife tries to remind you that you shouldn't and you get abusive to her because you're an arsehole when you've had a few. And then you're angry 'cos you hate being told what to do so you make the next one a double out of spite.

And the next morning your bed is full of cold sick, which could easily have killed you last night, you can't remember what you said to who, and you HATE yourself. But you can't cut down so you do it again next time round.

I'm back in control now, and can have a couple to be sociable, but it took 4 years of continually being the driver to get there.

I'm teetotal -I've just never liked the taste of the stuff, and never saw the point of spending money drinking stuff that tastes nasty, particularly when I've perfectly capable of making a complete tit of myself sober.

I do sometimes wonder what it'd be like to be drunk though.

And up pops the voice of reason once more! Oh God, is there anything you've ever not got a (totally unjustified and totally wrong) opinion on?

Steady on matey – I'd like to think that on sober (see what I did there?) reflection you'll see that your comment is a wee bit overboard. I limit my opinions here these days, mostly because somebody always overreacts and paints one as some kind of opinionated moron…even without the influence of alcohol. Do you know anybody that would do that MaverickBoy?

At the same time, you do seem to be spending a lot of time giving your reasons. And hey, don't worry, given enough time, I'm sure we'll find something on which we'll agree. 😀

Haven't drunk for over 20years. Used to get into trouble everytime I was drunk so stopped it. Don't miss it and it's easy for my mates when I do go out as I don't mind driving them about in their cars and its a free night out for me!

Same here Mrs. Toast – Always making a fool of myself sober, especially on the dancefloor.

I've been a teetotal for years. However tonight I am having a small ……

So you won't be a teetotaller any more then.

The "tee" is to emphasise the "T" in Total, ie, total abstention. A term coined by temperance movement for those who had made the pledge. Because just saying that were abstaining, wasn't enough. Otherwise everyone could fairly claim to be 'teetotaller'…… between drinks.

It's a bit like those people who say they vegetarian, except for when they have a bacon sani.

Oooh 'Gus' get you. 😉

I know, italics, bold, a bit of

quoting

, the whole shazzam!

Cannot see a time or reason when or why i will drink alcohol again. No great reason why, but it's never been important, and the last few years it has just seemed to be more irrelevent to me.

Used to like a few in my younger years though, so not a stranger to driving the porcelain bus 😕

the whole shazzam

Yep, that's 'cause some people can't seem to figure out what 'teetotaller' means (maybe they think it's something to do with drinking lots of cups of tea?) So it's presumably necessary to spell it out. Carefully. And precisely. 😉

After all, I don't drink, but I'm not a teetotaller. I don't eat meat, but I'm not a vegetarian:-)

I've been starightedge for about 25 years. I don't use any recreational drugs, regardless of whether they are legal or not.
I normally try to avoid the subject in conversation. Most people seem disappointed that I don't fit their preconception of teetotallers as recovering alcoholics. 🙄

Not teetotal as had a couple ofdrinks this Christmas but they are the first in over a year. Easiest thing in the world for me to give up.

1. Never enjoyed being drunk (like to be in control)
2. Never enjoyed hangovers
3. Not particulally fussed about the taste of alcoholic drinks

It still surprises me the amount of people who can not understand why I do not drink and usually follow it up with a suggestion that you need to drink on a night out 'to have a good time'.

At my Dads 60th last year he paid a £100 taxi fare for a friend to get home, just so his friend did not need to drive and could 'have a good time' I thought that was obscene.

You know it is possible to enjoy a drink or two without getting drunk

Unfortunately this is not true for everyone…

I got to the stage where I was sick and tired of being sick and tired

It was a situation ( I now know ) where 1 drink was too many and 2 was not enough so stopped ( with help ) just over 17 years ago.

Over time my circle of friends has mostly changed and the folks I hang out with now just accept that I don't drink, they don't know or care why and I don't make a fuss about it and all is well.

I'd like to stop drinking. I gave up speed and cigarettes but the drink one is difficult. Unlike most of the posters here, I like it, like the taste, like the feeling. Also, I get anxious about social situations so use alcohol as a crutch. I seem to have something in my mind that it's romantic or cool. Anyway, I have finished Dr Burns' Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy and am just starting on Dr Burns' The Feeling Good Handbook which I hope will help me with the underlying issues.

I did stop for six weeks. Felt exactly the same. Oh, and how boring that everyone else quizzes you on why. In the end I just said I was driving – people don't push alcoholic drinks on you if you say that.

BTW, when I say drinking I mean 2 – 3 bottles of wine a week and occasionally some JD.

My gf is teatotal. Its good to have a black box recorder to recall all the previous nights activities 🙄