I don’t drink a huge amount and generally only at the weekends.

However I really do struggle with the whole getting home on a Friday night and cracking open a bottle of something red and slurpy thing. I think I probably ought to have a few weeks off the sauce for no other reason than I can’t remember not drinking for more than about 2 weeks, for quite some time.

Any tips or do I have to get into hardcore super drugs as a replacement?

Thanks

Uncomfortably dry of Sheffield

I reckon the mere fact that you think this… will allow you to do it.

Had the same thoughts a while ago… moved onto 0% beer (becks blue isn’t too bad) but then thought I would never come home and neck 2/3 bottles of pop, why am I bothering with this cr4p beer.

I found sparkling water helps… as you tend to sip that a little more than normal water, so making it a long drink of sorts… add a slice of lemon to make it a little more interesting

Rock n Roll 🙄

Sounds a long way from addiction so if you want to stop you can probably just do it. I used to really enjoy a cold beer when I got in from work. It was nice and I enjoyed it so I did it. After a while it was more habit than anything so decided to stop doing it. It was tempting when I opened the fridge, but not that hard to stop. Maybe a cleverer person wouldn’t have kept them in the fridge.

Horlicks

I think it’s more that if for example I sit down with Mrs RRR to watch a film I’d find it odd not to have a glass of wine precariously balanced on the sofa next to me.

Mrs RRR only really drinks at social events anyway so perhaps I need a paradigm shift or some such waffle..

(i.e. just stop it)

If it’s really only the Friday night, you enjoy it, and you’re not getting hammered: why stop?

I have a drink most evenings. It’s a little treat to look forward to as I drive home.
It is just one though and don’t usually get a craving for more.

If you can do that it won’t do you much harm.

Very soothing imho.

I’d like to stop for a bit because while I generally only drink at the weekend it can end up being a bottle of red on Friday night, 4 beers on Saturday and maybe even another bottle of wine on Sunday. That’s probably not good :-/

Might I recommend lemon chicken from our local Chinese.

It was very nice going in but not long after I felt like I’d been punched in the stomach. Toilet time helped for a n hour or so. Repeat all weekend.

Hence, no drinking.

Sparkling water, with a slice of lime, worked for me too, when I was on meds for a year that stopped me drinking, I also found taking up a new hobby in the evening helped.

Took about a two weeks to crack the cracking a bottle when you get home routine, good luck

go cold turkey in a cabin in the woods with some of your mates…………… read a book found in the aforementioned cabin …by assualted by things from the other side……..okay 650b converters………..

Have major surgery.

Seriously, I couldn’t even contemplate the idea of alcohol right now. Urrrrrgggghhh…

Rachel

Annoyingly your post has just made me fancy breaching a can of beer. 😳

Now I am wondering if I too should go cold turkey. 🙂

Stop buying the stuff.

It’s too easy to grab a bottle of Red, if you don’t have it in, you can’t drink it.

I’m a sparkling water user too & and a tonic water snifter, both ice cold, both with either a lemon or lime in.

I love a pint but I prefer drinking in a real pub.

Why beat yourself up RRR?

Another sparkling water convert here.

I have reduced my alcohol intake to a couple glasses on a Friday, just got fed up of the hangovers there’s not enough hours in a life to spend them like that.

Started drinking sparkling water now drink a bottle a day at work and a couple of glasses on an evening much nicer and the weight seems to be coming of without trying. Try Badoit.

hora – I guess I just don’t like the fact that I rely on alcohol to relax. I think I need to learn to moderate my intake in general as I’m probably drinking more than I should.

I may have to try the sparkly water thing but I think tonic water would just make be obsess about gin :-/

Has anyone ever tried a non alcoholic wine that’s vaguely drinkable?!

Don’t see a problem as long as your off days out number your on days and you drink sensibly. Gov advise 28units max to stay in the safe zone, you’re drinking about 36 units (if you’re telling the truth). Why don’t you just go for lower alcohol ie ditch the 14%abv bottle of OZ red (15 units a bottle) and drink a few 3.8%abv pale ales/blondes (8 units for 4 x 500ml bottles).

Buy a few packs of cranberry juice or if you are feeling flush something like Schloer – crack on of them open, pour into a wine glass and drink as you would have with a cheeky Rioja.
Kept me dry for 9 months – bit like an e-cig but with more vitamins. 😀

Gov advise 28units max to stay in the safe zone, you’re drinking about 36 units. Why don’t you just go for lower alcohol ie ditch the 14%abv bottle of OZ red (15 units a bottle) and drink a few 3.8%abv pale ales/blondes (8 units for 4 x 500ml bottles).

No they don’t, they advise 21 units per week, and no more than 4 units per day. So 4 bottles of beer in a night is double the recommendation. If you drink a whole bottle of wine, that is obviously binge drinking and a bad idea.

My wife had to stop drinking, and in part thanks to that I just don’t really bother drinking any more. I’d never drink a whole bottle of wine by myself. I drink every so often with meals out, and every so often at friends houses on special occasions, and sometimes a single beer at home. I absolutely don’t drink if I’m driving, so no drinks at the pub after hockey or anything.

It isn’t really that hard if you don’t have tons of social occasions that are structured around drinking – if you’re only drinking at home, whilst hanging out with someone who isn’t drinking herself, there’s no real reason to be drinking, it isn’t like doing rounds in the pub.

Just have 2 nights of wine/relaxation. Ffs lifes too short. Healthy people keel over.

The biggest killer is worry and stewss. Again ffs.

Stews can kill?!? 😀
The dumplings at school could have been classed as offensive weapons, but no one died.
The odd concussion maybe.

Oh and OP – self abuse. You know it makes sense.

Self abuse? You advocate masterbation? 🙂

I recommend doing a Dryathlon – one month of no alcohol.
It recalibrates your relationship with alcohol.

Since doing this in January, I have kept my level down (2 bottles of wine a week between me and the wife) and enjoy it more when I do drink.

I think chronic low level drinking can contribute to making you a couch potato in the evenings, even if its not particularly bad for your health.

OP – take May off the booze!

Agree. If I dont drink Im bloody hyperactive in the evenings!

They can’t touch you for it Hora. 😀

Mind you, there’s a couple of branches of McDonalds I can’t go in again.

Just finished my second glass of Languedoc. I never binge drink though. Good wine is one of the main reasons that I can be arsed to go to work 🙂

I think I may take er May off the merry-juice. It fits nicely between the wife’s birthday and a wedding and would probably do me some good.

I know I probably shouldn’t drink a bottle of 14% wine on my own but as I’m quite er large I never feel particularly tipsy so don’t really think to stop :-S

Just stop buying it, then there’ll be none in the house to tempt you. Try tonic or sparkling water. Or just make a cup of tea – peppermint tea is good too.

I have a beer now and again 😉 but I don’t sweat over how much or how often, and go without for weeks at a time without a thought.

Now biscuits and chocolate, that’s another matter. So we don’t buy any when we do the shopping, and buy fruit instead. <angel>

a bottle of red on Friday night, 4 beers on Saturday and maybe even another bottle of wine on Sunday

The two bottles of wine are shared fairly equally?

RRR, have kids. You’ll want it more but the hangover with added kid is enough to force you not to drink again the following evening.

Failing that, shame on you – you work in a bank and are a BMW driver – you should be drinking something noteworthingly exclusive / expensive with the words “XO” on it from a crystal tumbler, on a regular basis, and posting up a thread about it once in a while. 😉

Try fizzy water water wit ice lemon and Angostura bitters, will be a savoury style drink rather than switching to something sweet.

don’t buy it…it’s easier to resist buying in the supermarket than to drink on a friday night. I take this approach with chocolate hobnobs.

Sound counter productive, but if you just want to cut down, buy a box.

That way you can (in theory) just have a glass without the incentive to ‘finish the bottle’. Works best for us if the box is kept in the pantry, so you can’t just top up the glasses without thinking either.

…if the box is kept in the pantry

Hmmmm….. we have, in the past, brought the box through to the lounge with us.

Buy a box? 😯 You’d cane the lot and think ‘blimey that 3ltrs of redwine went quick’!!!!!!!!

Hmmmm….. we have, in the past, brought the box through to the lounge with us.

😀

That is a risk…

Buy a box? You’d cane the lot and think ‘blimey that 3ltrs of redwine went quick’!!!!!!!!

Have we met? 😉

You’d know it if we had…

Not too long ago I bought a box of organic cider with the idea of making it last…..

….it went down like water on a hot summers day.

marijuana?