The Giving Up/ Cutting Down alcohol support thread - number 13

Honey_Bear

CuppaTea wrote: »

What I can't figure out is why I caved on Tuesday when I had to defrost the wine to drink it, yet when it was under my nos on offer yesterday, I resisted. Oh well....

Oh if only we knew! No matter how long I spent trying to work out why I drank more than I should, or just more frequently than I should, I never worked that one out. In the end I just decided that if I didn't have the first, I wouldn't have the second and that dealt with it once and for all. A bit drastic, I grant you, but it works for me.

fakeplastictwee wrote: »

Thanks Honey Bear. I think it's this B12 thing. I've had 3 injections and I'm realising that I feel good around 12 hours afterwards, and then on the run up to getting the next one I feel really dreadful. I'm having another one at 4pm which is good. What's scaring me is that there's only 2 left after today, and I'm worried that I'm going to continue being up and down. The doctors don't seem to take this problem very seriously at all and it was a fight just to get the treatment I'm receiving now, despite there being a history of it in the family.
I think I should just take your advice on living in the moment for now though, there's no point trying to predict how I'll feel in a week's time.

Hopefully the end result will be cumulative FPW and you'll learn to adjust how much you do when you feel great so that when you don't have so much energy you don't feel depressed by it. Would taking a hefty B12 supplement help? How old are you, because I've found I have markedly less energy as I get older. The other thing to consider is your general fitness level. If you haven't been able to do much for a good long time you're unlikely to be fit, which means you'll get tired pretty quickly if you're buzzing around when you're feeling energetic.

Last summer Shaggy also pointed out that eating a breakfast and lunch of high GI foods might be causing some of my energy problems and she was absolutely right. I'll never give up some of the things I can't resist but I have them later in the day and that helps enormously.

'Tired all the time' is apparently one of the patient conditions that GPs dread hearing someone say because it seems there can be multiple causes. I'm still working my way through any and every of the possible ones because I would dearly love to be able to do all of the things I want to do and I'm still not there yet. I put it all down to the booze but clearly there was more going on. (A video link has appeared on my Facebook page which is a three hour film of something I did along with about 500 other people 30 years ago. It reminded me how energetic I was and compared to now I'm a slug.)

13/31 please, Shaggy.

fakeplastictwee

Honey Bear, I'm 32 and just over a month ago I was training to run the Manchester 10k. Exercise isn't something that has always featured in my life but I was getting on OK with it, using an app to build me up. Fatigue is something that has come and gone all through my 20s, but I don't have it all the time. Whatever this is now is different though, I'm short of breath and my arms and legs feel like dead weights. I don't mind being a bit tired or sleepy as that's almost normal to me but this is absolutely draining. I just made myself some breakfast and found myself out of breath doing it.

I have read a lot about B12 deficiency recently and I do seem to tick a lot of the boxes for it. It affects all the different systems in your body, including your nervous system. Unfortunately, it seems to be one of those things that doctors don't take seriously. My level is at 142, and 'deficiency' here is anything under 150. Somewhere else in the UK, it might be 180 or 200. Over in Japan it is anything under 500! There are huge discrepancies and grey areas. You can present with neurological symptoms before it will show as low in your blood. There is also something called functional B12 deficiency, where you have enough in your blood but your body can't use it. So a blood test will not flag this up.

If you're still trying to get to the bottom of your own health issues it might be worth asking for a test for it, and asking for your results on paper when they come back. If you have a look at the Pernicious Anaemia society website there's lots of info on there from people who have been ill on and off for years and have eventually found B12 to be the problem. Given that alcohol strips the B vitamins out of your system, it wouldn't be all that suprising.

I will definitely look into the GI thing though, thank you.

Arkers

Hi everyone,
PSL - Reading Do No Harm by the neurosurgeon Henry Marsh. I'm always slightly in awe of people like him, I knew I should have worked harder in school and paid more attention to Mrs Treccani in biology!

Anyhoo, read for two hours and remained AFD. 10 AFD in total please Shaggy.I'm tempted by the lure of gin, but I am going to resist as my DH is away and I find it easier to resist when he's not about. He's back on Tuesday and I bet on Wednesday I'll cave. .

Hope everyone has a good Saturday.

Arkers x

CuppaTea

1 more for me pls shaggy. Resisted again despite a friend bringing wine round. As she was leaving I put the leftover bottle in her bag to take away and avoid temptation.

I drank a whole bottle last night. Because I didn't want it in the fridge. Result was I've felt crap today. I need to rethink the AF days versus units in one go. This system isn't working.

fakeplastictwee

13/25 please

CuppaTea

I've been thinking this morning about why I drank the rest of the bottle o Friday night. It was because I didn't want it in the fridge tempting me on a AF day, so it seemed easier to get rid of it. This resulted in overdoing the units. It seems more logical and healthier to have 2 non AF days and half a bottle on each day, which means no hangover.

So basically me wanting to have more AF days is resulting me on over indulging when I do.

The way to avoid this is to limit myself to one bottle a week and have half over two nights. Although its hard to stop at two glasses. HB's words of not having the first means you don't have the second etc, is still ringing in my ears. I am spending a lot of time analysing this, which isn't a bad thing. Constantly challenging and questioning myself keeps me accountable to what I should be doing, even if I don't always do it.

I am slightly worried about a friend of mine, who is slipping back into drinking most days. Not to be helped by her partner who is always at the pub and they both smoke. I haven't said anything as I'm not sure its my place. I'm just a little concerned that she had cut back but I think her lifestyle and stresses at the moment are hindering her. Not that I can talk either........

cathybird

Morning all, 11/21 for me please.

Poor_Single_lady

14/31 please

I love reading Arkers. It makes you feel so content and relaxed. I'm very slow reader but I'll check out your book and also on my "list reasons to stay alive" which a lot of people have enjoyed.

Cuppatea your post about your friends drinking made me nod. I think this about people at work but then drink a lot myself.

Work Drinking expected at both Fridays in a row. Plus a lunch where I would usually drink so 3 big challenges to come. Going to use your advice HB. And thank you. xx

CuppaTea

Poor_Single_lady wrote: »

11/31

HB I think you are my hero and my inspiration

Mine too :T:T

Honey_Bear

Thank you very much for the kind words. I know how desperate the struggle with alcohol sometimes feels, so if anything I say helps anyone that's just great.

Is it also okay to say that when I was stopping drinking one of the things that helped me stay on the straight and narrow was the fear of being someone who, later in life, was utterly helpless about, around and with alcohol? I've always known there are people who are firmly held in alcohol's grip and I didn't want to be one of them just about enough to resist the first drink. Any strategies anyone can use are helpful if they keep us AF, but I don't like focussing on the ones that are about fear. Posting lengthily over the past few days has made me realise that quite a bit of 'stuff' around alcohol is about fear and I hadn't fully understood that until now. It really helps me sometimes to be able to put words down about the subject, so I'm very glad some people find them helpful.

fakeplastictwee wrote: »

I'm short of breath and my arms and legs feel like dead weights. I don't mind being a bit tired or sleepy as that's almost normal to me but this is absolutely draining. I just made myself some breakfast and found myself out of breath doing it.

Wow. That sounds utterly horrendous to live with, so good on you for taking the matter into your own hands and looking for a solution. As you've had good days recently you know you can, so that's a brilliant start. And you're quite right, at 32 you shouldn't be feeling like this.

I have to admit that only when I started to clean up my act did I realise there were multiple causes to feeling more than a tad carp most of the time, so I'm gradually weeding out things and seeing if that makes a difference; some have, some haven't. I take a few supplements that are particularly recommended for older people and I've tried exclusion diets with varying results, none of which have any long-lasting effect.

An interesting factoid surfaced the other day while I was dibbling about on google. 50% of all people referred to sleep centres to help with persistent sleep problems were cured overnight when they gave up all caffeine. I can believe that, to be honest. I think without realising it we put a lot of stuff into our bodies that some of us just can't cope with, so that's what I focus on.

I've recently had a sort of Health Overhaul because I reached a milestone birthday last year and I'm pleased to say I got a pretty clean bill of health other than my bad cholesterol is a tad higher than it should be. Not high enough to treat on the NHS (good, because I wouldn't take statins anyway) but high enough to give me a 10% heart attack or stroke within 10 years - let's just say the NHS isn't too worried about me! I've got to lower the amount of animal fat in my diet and have another blood test in a year's time, and that's it. Fine by me.

In the meantime I'm having another go at tackling my sugar addiction which is seriously out of control again, so so much for the low GI diet! And it totally explains my lethargic inertia, obviously.

Arkers wrote: »

Reading Do No Harm by the neurosurgeon Henry Marsh. I'm always slightly in awe of people like him, I knew I should have worked harder in school and paid more attention to Mrs Treccani in biology!

I heard him talking on Radio 4 when the book came out and he absolutely blew me away. Really must get around to reading that book. And I too felt more than a tad inadequate listening to him.

CuppaTea wrote: »

1 more for me pls shaggy. Resisted again despite a friend bringing wine round. As she was leaving I put the leftover bottle in her bag to take away and avoid temptation.

I drank a whole bottle last night. Because I didn't want it in the fridge. Result was I've felt crap today. I need to rethink the AF days versus units in one go. This system isn't working.

Well done on giving the rest of the bottle to your friend, but sad about feeling carp following the bottle of wine. Tolerance is a bit of a devil. If you drink quite a bit for a long time you gradually build up a level of tolerance that would floor people who drink less, but it catches up with everyone in the end. Cutting it down and getting it sort of under control means that when you suddenly drink more than you're used to, the results will feel very painful. Bingeing is especially bad for you, and nothing at all for a while followed by a whole bottle would feel like a binge the morning after, sad to say.

CuppaTea wrote: »

I am slightly worried about a friend of mine, who is slipping back into drinking most days. Not to be helped by her partner who is always at the pub and they both smoke. I haven't said anything as I'm not sure its my place. I'm just a little concerned that she had cut back but I think her lifestyle and stresses at the moment are hindering her. Not that I can talk either........

I don't know how to deal with this either. I absolutely know, 100%, that anyone who tried to tell me I might have an issue around booze, no matter how gently, wasn't thanked for it and I wasn't in the least bit grateful.

I think everyone who has a problem knows they do, but won't admit it to themselves to begin with and even when they do, it's humiliating when someone you trust and like says anything about it. They certainly wouldn't admit it to a friend until they were well on the way to actually doing something about it. The only thing that works is keeping an open mind and not building your socialising with them around alcohol - but that's much easier said than done.

Even leading by example doesn't work until someone's really ready. I've got a couple of friends I absolutely know drink too much, one of whom is overweight, highly stressed and a walking heart attack/stroke risk. Nothing I can say or do will ever change that - I know him too well - but his doctor telling him he was pre-daibetic has made a profound effect on him. Let's hope it lasts, otherwise I know I'll lose him.

14/31 please, Shaggy, Oh Wonderous One.