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

satchmo1

15/17 AFDs for tonight, but went completely overboard on a night out last night and am paying dearly for it today.

antonic

satchmo1 wrote: »

15/17 AFDs for tonight, but went completely overboard on a night out last night and am paying dearly for it today.

Been there myself many a time before I hitched myself to the wagon !

I hope you enjoyed yourself last night doing it 😊😊

grassgirl

Declaring day 6/20 today don't think I'm going to hit my target of 15/20 as planning Christmas day off and possibly new years eve... But really wanna get a snowman so that'll keep me focused - I can have two more days off and still get the snowman, yay!

Almost can't wait til January to be in the month from the start

Ellsbel

11/22 for today please.
Welcome aboard ellie-gand good luck:)
Honeybear, well done, that's a great achievement:) at the moment I'm moderating, but I'm not kidding myself; for me I know it's a very fine line as I've gone through periods of moderation before and always ended up back in my bad habits; finishing off the bottle, starting the weekend on Thursday instead of Friday, and so on.
Eventually I'd very much like to stop completely. It won't be easy as OH likes me to join him in a few glasses of Wine if we eat out, plus he unwinds at weekends with a couple of pints and I need to get out of the habit of joining him in that (Wine for me though, not pints!)
Family get togethers also always involve a drink, and I'm not a very confident person, to say the least, so it can be a bit of prop for me on Social occasions.
However, I will aim over the next 12 months to have reached the point of stopping for good - I just feel that for me personally it would do me good on so many levels.
As soon as I manage to fit in a dry month, the aim is to go on from there.
Meantime the next few days are about to get quite hectic so I'm not sure if I'll get back on here until after the big day...I'll keep count of any AFDs though.
I'll wish you all a good and peaceful Christmas and see you on the other side!

Honey_Bear

Ellsbel, I wish I'd done this years ago! I'd been thinking about it for several years but I was always frightened of making the commitment to stop and actually couldn't see how I could do it. I managed 20 AF days in January/February, aiming for 100, and then decided one glass wouldn't hurt on a Saturday night with pizza. Five months later I was still drinking. Have a great Christmas and see how you feel afterwards - there are several people who a doing Dry January so you'd be in fantastic company if you decided to give it a go.

Hope you're feeling better Alex.

Healing vibes to anyone under the weather, whether self-inflicted or not.

21/31 please Shaggy. Oooh another smiley - go me!

graemecarter

Honey_Bear wrote: »

Ellie-g, the pressure to drink is immense when people around you want to normalise the fact that they know they are drinking too much.

I'm very polite about it and just say, 'No, thank you.' Anyone hearing you say no, who pretends that means you should be drinking, is bullying you. Knowing that means you can still laugh it off and say, 'No. Really. Thank you.' Would they feel the same right to pressurize you into taking heroin? Or a line of cocaine? And would you then do so just because they thought you should?

To be honest, I've been exceptionally lucky with my friends and not one single one of them has been difficult so far, but I know the crunch will come when a group of us indulge in our annual excessive feast - that day there is one person (possibly two) who I know will find what I'm doing very, very difficult to accept. That's their problem, not mine. If they're offended, again, that's their problem, not mine.

One or two have found it rather odd, I think, and told me they know they drink too much but they don't want to stop completely. I never, ever go down the road of saying anything about their alcohol consumption; all I ever do is tell them I didn't think I could, either, but I'm very relieved I did. That's it, nothing else, ever, unless they ask specific questions. I think some of them are going through the 'moderating' thing, and good luck to them. I wasn't any good at it, and goodness knows, I tried!

I say I've been lucky - my Beloved genuinely did not understand for at least three weeks that I was never going to share a bottle of champagne with him again, never have another gin and tonic with him and not even have one on Christmas Day. I think he thought it meant we'd never 'share' those occasions, but he's absolutely fine with it now.

I don't drink. End of.

Day 148. How cool is that! By Christmas Day I will have made it past 150 days! Whoop whoop! (That's the very first time I have ever counted ahead, and I'm allowing myself that as a Christmas treat.)

Great post HB. Well done you on your AF achievement. .Amazing effort. :T

graemecarter

ellie-g wrote: »

My aim is to stop drinking wine at home and when I do go out just have a couple. Drinking at home has become a habit I need to get out of. I plan to have the rest of the month off drinking with the hope of lowering my tolerance and keeping within weekly units. At the moment I'm way over that limit. I'm in my 50s and really feel the effects in terms of my energy and recovery time. Anyway had last night off and have an afternoon 'do' today next door and plan to drink Schloer. The problem is that I know I will be pressurised to drink -how do people deal with this? Anyway on a positive note I had an AFD last night -hoorah! Feel better already joining this forum. Thanks to all on here.

Read Honey Bear's post - great advice in there.

From my experience, the only thing I would add is that you may want an 'excuse' if it gets boring and people are continually pressurizing you to drink.
The 'I have a condition I want to be discreet about and as a result I am taking antibiotics' line seems to shut people up pretty quickly. :rotfl:
And if it gets really boring, make your excuses and get out of there.

Good luck on your upcoming journey with alcohol. For me it has been worth it, but it has certainly been and up and down ride.....

helena124

Hi Shaggy - not so great 16/21 so far but by my usual standards still ok. Keeping motivated and willing myself not to drop off too much over the festivities.

No doubting its hard just now, very hard but just by being on here and keeping count of AF days is a good grounding for me personally.

Cheers for keeping the scores :A

maman

I'm determined to get a couple more in before Christmas so no drinking today.

8 AFDs please Shaggy.

debjay

15/18 for tonight please. Hoping to make target just this month