The giving up/cutting down alcohol support thread! Part 5

Of the many times I have tried to cut down & stop....now is different. Before I know I wanted to stop because of health, family,work etc.....but something happened this time & now I WANT to stop for ME.....& thats a whole different feeling & has somehow made total abstinence much more a life style change rather than something I should do because of other influences such as other people,health.wealth etc.

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Hi All- how many pages???? will try and catch up later and thank everyone.....

SSAngel- you've hit the nail on the head here I think, for many of us abusing alcohol is a socially acceptable form of self harm or way of getting some dutch courage in situations which make us anxious because we don't value ourselves very highly...but in the end you have to learn to like yourself without alcohol if you want to stop, and thats scarier than a lot of people realise.

I thought I could only be good company, funny, calm, relaxed, brave etc when I had alcohol inside me, and I am a lot quieter now,nervous and shy, but people have gradually got used to it, and I've accepted that thats who I am. I now know (from being sober in drunk places) that actually drunk people aren't the life and soul of the party we think we are- we can be boring, loud, aggressive, argumentative, opinionated, unkind, indiscreet. I don't go to boozy places now, not because I'd be tempted to drink, but because being around crowds of drunk people makes me feel intimidated and I can feel the tension rising and I start to think theres going to be a fight or something and I just want to go. I don't go to boozy dinner parties with old freinds because I know they will fall out about something or get so loud and silly I'm just watching the clock. I think the worst one is freinds that phone you drunk late at night and just go on and on, repeat themselves, cry etc......just realised I used to be like (and worse) than all the people I 've just described...thank goodness I got out when I could.

Best of luck to everyone today, whether you are drinking or not.

maman wrote: »

Have a good day everyone, I am going to have a seriously AF Thursday.

You CANNOT be serious :rotfl:

Blimey..lively interesting stuff...it just shows how complicated this issue is and the broad spectrum of difficulties and opinions it covers..keep it up guys.

Oh, and in my constant attempts to prevent relapse I came across this website, thought it was quite interesting, especially the stuff about sugar as I remember terrible sugar cravings when I stopped drinking
http://www.alternatives-for-alcoholism.com/natural-cures-for-alcoholism.html.

Have we got any clever people that can comment...?

I am in a similar situation to Maman with my drinking.. For me it is a habit that after a usually fairly stressful day with the children a bottle of wine is very attractive and I just get into a habit of quite easily drinking a bottle most nights... If I go out and drink I never get 'bladdered' usually just merry, I can tell I have had a drink as I talk ten to the dozen and get a bit 'luvvy' I don't forget what went on or how I got home, or colapse drunk..

So it is the habit I need to break, I would just love to be one of those people who has the odd drink at parties etc. instead of 'self medicating' at home so that is my aim....

Thank you to all who post on here with your thoughts/feelings, it really is a great thread :T

That's OK fay, you're doing a sterling job