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

Honey_Bear

Hugely well done Wanna Bee Free! That's more than I could ever manage in my drinking days!


29/30 please Shaggy.

grumpyoldgal

Hello


Can I join please?


For November I ditched the alcohol on 9th November and have had just 3 glasses wine since.


For December I plan to have 28 alcohol free days.


A little about me.......


I have struggled with wine for some time now. Always had that "you've earned it.......you deserve it.......you need it.......etc" mentality. I have grown to hate myself for it, why couldn't I ever find the "off" switch.....the answer generally tended to be because I didn't want to.


I have given up alcohol several times in the past, don't need it every night - as a shift worker I have no problems in going AF for several days and I am not one of those folk who have a drink after night shift (even for me I find that difficult!!) But after 3 months or so have strayed straight back onto it. I even got through my fathers death without a drink, and the eventual pouring a glass had an insignificant trigger.


Willpower is without doubt the key to success, and like many people I can waiver!! And then I start again on that slippery slope. So I am hoping that my joining this thread I may be able to avoid that blip and continue on the straight and narrow!


But my problem has always been drinking at home. I won't buy 1 bottle of wine because I will run out......after all it is only 3 glasses!! (bloody large ones but 3 nevertheless!!) so found that I was regularly drinking bottle and a half.


So my new mantra is that I don't drink at home. I have no alcohol in the house at all. I don't even think of stopping and buying, it is a no-no and in the supermarket I head for soft drinks and AF beer. Therefore I only allow myself a drink if we go out, but now prefer to offer to drive. I have never had 1 drink if driving. So I am curbing my behaviour little by little I think, and it can only be a good thing.


I am sleeping much better than before, but other than that not really noticed any benefits.


For Christmas (my hubbie doesn't touch wine) I have got 2 bottles of champagne in the garage. 1 for Christmas day, 1 for NY Eve. And 1 bottle of Cava for Christmas Eve. He will share those with me because he doesn't ever say no to champagne!! And there will be nothing else in so once it is gone it is gone!! I've had it for about 3 weeks ago when it was on a decent offer in the supermarket, but asked him to hide it in the garage.




As a bye the bye......I can manage fine at home, but if I go out I want something a bit more interesting than coke to drink.....what do you peeps drink when out?


thank you and good luck to all
x

Honey_Bear

Hi there Grumpy Old Gal! And welcome :wave:


I'd like to say your drinking sounds a lot like mine was, but the truth is I never went a third day without having a drink, often rather more than 'a' drink. Like most people I had a shot at moderating for about 15 years, but in my case it was unsuccessful, so I've knocked the drinking on the head completely. It was a tough habit to break initially but it gets much, much easier and I'm really into sobriety now as a way of life.


The issue that plagued me was what to drink instead of wine, because I really enjoyed the sour 'hit' and I don't like sweet things much, having cut out all other sugar over 20 years ago. I've taken to eating Twinks Hobnobs at tea time to replace the sugar hit the wine used to give me in the evenings, and have gone from 6 (!) down to 1 a day, and that's in four months. (I'm losing weight, but very, very slowly and that isn't my concern at the moment.)


Alternatives to booze in the evenings are, I would have thought, a really personal thing but this is what I've found. Tomato juice with a generous belt of Worcester sauce with dinner worked in the initial few days, followed by an early night to steer me away from temptation.


Celebratory drinks (champagne, cava, prosseco) were replaced with Sain$bury's alcohol-free 'wine' at £2.75 a bottle. OH still drinks booze, so he puts the other half of the bottle in the fridge door with a teaspoon in it and it's fine the next evening. My bottle of AF sparkling lasts me a whole evening.


Day to day, I've tried most of the alcohol free beer and of all of them, I like Becks Blue the best - and I really, really enjoy drinking it. It's what makes giving up alcohol completely possible for me; without it, I'd be missing that sour hit I enjoyed. It's also stocked by a lot of restaurant which makes going out really easy.


A couple more things. Alcohol-free wine doesn't work for me at all, but I'm glad I tried it once. It was worth the price of the bottle just to find that out - it tasted like Ribena which is fine if you want Ribena, but it was just too sugary for me. And if you're perusing the AF beer section of the supermarkets, some of them stack low alcohol with no alcohol beers and muddle them up a bit, so if you want to go going totally AF, only 0.0% or 0.05% is okay, not 0.5%.


There are other people on the thread who have found other things work for them, so no doubt they'll give you their tips. Whatever you decide is right for you, it's great to have you along!

grumpyoldgal

Thanks Honey Bear for a very warm welcome!!


I will take note of the AF / low alcohol issues. At the mo, I have Bavaria 0.0% in the fridge, but it took me an entire night of Strictly and the Jungle to drink the 1 glass haha!! More of a wine drinker but I did try the alcohol free wine and it wasn't good, it went down the sink.


So tend to stick to squash, hot and cold, tea and milk shake. My boredom threshold with these is what makes me wander......I know that from past experience so I am really determined to overcome this. I would love to have sobriety in my life, and I want to get through December with approximately 6 glasses of champers, and then aim for an entirely dry January......who knows if that will give me the emotional boost to press on and crack it!!


Well done on your achievements, highly encouraging x

mackeroo

13 AF please shaggy

Rant about lack of sleep coming up........Argghhhhh I'm really struggling to get decent night sleep when I'm AF. I'm not a great sleeper at the best of time and take an over counter mild sedative nightly which combined with alcohol means I have a great sleep. Without the wine, I'm awake for most of the night and I'm like a bear with a sore head, like today! I think back to last time I joined this forum and I'm sure quite quickly my sleep pattern improved without alcohol. I'm aiming for 3-4 days AF a week but to be honest I'm at the stage where it's a real battle as I look at the wine now as a sleep aid. I know my liver will be thanking me for the AF days but no one around me is in the morning when I don't sleep well. Ok rant over, I feel bit better. Hope you all enjoy your Sunday

mackeroo

Welcome grumpyoldgal....I think I may just steal your name for today lol. I'm not usually this grumpy!

Honey_Bear

Morning Mackeroo!


I went through a horrible phase of not getting to sleep until 5.00am some years ago and decided that being bored was even worse than being overtired. I invested in a radio earpiece and have had talk radio on all night very quietly, every night for the past 14 years. Radio 4 Extra is an absolute godsend, and if there's nothing on that to distract me, the World Service usually works its magic. I've found that the more interested I am in a programme, the faster I go to sleep! (I now can't sleep at all without it.)

maman

grumpyoldgal wrote: »

As a bye the bye......I can manage fine at home, but if I go out I want something a bit more interesting than coke to drink.....what do you peeps drink when out?


thank you and good luck to all
x

Welcome grumpy, good to have you on board.:) I can easily associate with your drinking habits except the shiftwork. One of the main things that got me to cut down was that DH and I were having two bottles of wine a night but I know I was drinking more than my 'half'.


At home I stick to tea or hot Ribena. If I'm out and not drinking then I'd rather just have fizzy water with ice and slice than any soft drink. If I fancy a change I might have tonic. For me, it's more about the mindset of accepting that I'm not going to drink rather than whatever I have instead.


I'm another poor sleeper mackeroo and find that on my drinking nights I can nod off so much more easily. It may be drugged sleep but at least it's sleep. I do much the same as HB but I don't have an earpiece I have a clock radio that I can set to go off after a length of time. Generally I've nodded off before it gets to about 50 mins but sometimes I have to reset it. My preference is Radio 5 Live which is also talk.


Off to football today. Hope I've something to celebrate this evening.;)

grumpyoldgal

mackeroo wrote: »

Welcome grumpyoldgal....I think I may just steal your name for today lol. I'm not usually this grumpy!

you are more than welcome!! I have no need for it today

Barny1979

End of the month and failed massively! 15/23 AFDs this month and next really do it for me, the dark nights etc I think, excuses I know!