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

shaggydoo

CuppaTea wrote: »

Can somebody please remind me how the ALD system works? I don't get it! Been frazzled today, sorry.

You just decide how many of your drinking days you want to be low in units - I have set my limit at 4 units or less. (Posters can set them at whatever they want).

For example, for me - this month 7 out of the 8 days we have had in March have been ALDs - 4 units or less - on the one that wasn't an ALD I had 5 units. Last month I had 6 none ALD/AFD days - on 3 of those days I drank 5 units the other 3 were more than 5. In January I also had 6 non ALD/AFD days on 3 of those I drank 5 units on the other 3 more than 5. This helps me to not drink too much on a drinking day.

An AFD also counts as ALD since, say for me, it's less than 4 units.

Hope that helps!

shaggydoo

debjay wrote: »

5/22 AFDs and 2/TF ALDs please shaggy

I think that's correct as I've had 5 days alcohol free and 2 days low alcohol.

I'm counting that as 7 ALDs - as an AFD is also an ALD iyswim.

so 5/22 AFD and 7/TF ALD

becoming with your next post

6/22 AFD and 8/TF ALD

shaggydoo

CountingPenniesClaire wrote: »

Today will be AFD so 6/21 and 1/4 ALDs

I'm counting this as

6/21 AFDs and 7/25 ALDs

shaggydoo

March:

= 7 Days AF

= 14 days AF

= 21 days AF
= 28 days AF

= 31 days AF

= target achieved


Alcohol Free Days

Arkers 5/15

Barny1979 6/26

CathyBird 6/15

CountingPenniesClaire 6/21

CuppaTea 3/19

DebJay 6/22
DizzyImp 8/31

Effyb4 /14
Ellsbel 8/31

ElusiveLucy 4/20
Gabriel 21/30

Gien 5/15
Honey Bear 8/31

Mackeroo 4/10

Maggie 1/13

Maman 2/10

Muser /22

NewMe 5/12

Piggles 3/10Pricey 3/20
Satchmo 7/27

SandyPan 2/21

Shaggy 4/17

SmallHoldingSister 2/21
Smiley_77 7/31
StuPotStu 7/31

WBF 3/14

Yellowmonkey /10

Alcohol Low Days
CountingPennieClaire 7/25
Debjay 8/TF
Shaggy 7/22




Everyone Welcome! It's never too late to join....

Please highlight your AFDs in Red

Don't hesitate to let me know if I've made a mistake!

ElusiveLucy

OK, so my tally for the month now is 5 AFD and 3 AD, so 5/20 for me please, and hopefully another AFD to add tonight

Honey_Bear

maggiesoup1 wrote: »

Strangely I didn't feel FABULOUS when I wasn't drinking and maybe if I did then it would be the trigger to knocking daily drinking on the head but I did have fewer headaches and mentally felt sharper.

I stopped about 19 months ago, MaggieSoup, and I now sleep fabulously well, don't wake up with a headache every day and no longer lose days because I'm feeling too grotty to do anything constructive. I now get more stuff done in a day than I did most weeks when I was drinking.

However, I don't feel fabulous, which I'd really, really like but there we go, I don't. What I also don't feel is ashamed of the way I behaved the night before, hungover and disappointed with myself for letting myself down.

I'd like a lot of energy but I just don't have much. I've cut out caffeine, which has helped, and gluten which has made a much bigger difference, neither of which I would have stuck with if I'd still been drinking.

I didn't actually start to feel a lot better for a few months after I stopped drinking, but it has been a gradual improvement and I wouldn't want to go back to way I lived before. I honestly don't know how I managed to keep up at all, because I just can't cram everything I want to do into the day any more. I think I used to think I'd done well if I cooked and meal and did the washing up.

piggles1 wrote: »

Your comment to stupotstu is also useful, thinking differently about alcohol. It's not the great cure-all we sometimes think it is, but it warps the brain into thinking it is.

I was listening to a bit of You and Yours yesterday which was about health campaigns the govt puts out. Listening to the attitude about booze was really quite astonishing. We wouldn't say these kinds of thing about cocaine, heroin or meth, but we happily trill that, 'Life wouldn't be worth living if I couldn't have a drink' or 'I don't want to live to 100, I'd rather have a fabulous life with booze and fags and die young than live to 100 without them.' That attitude is weirdly ubiquitious, and is never, ever challanged, although Dr Alan Marion Davis had a shot at it, pointing out that if we do over-indulge ourselves, the last bit of our life is likely to be anything but fabulous.

He then suggested that if anyone wanted to stop smoking they should see their GP. Absolutely nothing for people who thought they might drink a bit too much about getting help.

I had to turn the radio off before I started shouting at it because that upsets the dog.

Dizzy_Imp wrote: »

Afternoon everyone :wave:

Getting back in the swing of not drinking this month but have yet to notice the improved sleep I experienced in January. I'm finding it easier this time than in January - not sure why, but whatever the reason, I'm glad. My thoughts on drinking seem to have turned on their head. Previously I saw it as a reward or treat or as a way of "coping", now it's more likely a disturbed night and icky feeling the next day. Have I turned a corner?

Yes. Alcohol is addictive, but despite me thinking I had a major problem with it, it turns out - I wasn't addicted (no withdrawal at all) and most of my day to day exhaustion which I put down to hangovers was a reaction to gluten. For me, and it sounds as though probably for you - it's a habit. Once we break the habit, we're capable of recognising our behaviour for what it actually is.

I love not having to think about booze any more; it makes life so much simpler.

And I'm very happy to report that I might occasionally think a glass of red wine or a G&T would be lovely, but I don't get cravings any more. If I did, I'd do what I've done ever since I stopped - I'd just ignore them.

I hope you're pleased with the way things are going for you - you're doing amazingly well.

Mackeroo, I used to pour myself a large, up to the brim glass of red wine while I was doing the washing up. I never told OH or anyone else I did, so I suppose I was starting to go down the secret drinking road. That went on for about five years.

I hope your OH carries on being a decent sort of a bloke, Satchmo.

9/31 plesae, Shaggy.

maman

Honey_Bear wrote: »

I had to turn the radio off before I started shouting at it because that upsets the dog.

:rotfl::rotfl:


Thanks for telling us about the 'secret' drinking mackeroo. I suppose many of us have a version to share. What I used to do was pour myself a sherry when I was in the kitchen or DH out of the room to eke out the bottle that I was drinking that night. Then I could kid myself I was 'only' drinking a bottle.


Definitely AF today. I'm having a slow start to March and with Easter coming up it'll be a struggle.


3 AFDs please Shaggy.

Dizzy_Imp

maggiesoup1 wrote: »

Strangely I didn't feel FABULOUS when I wasn't drinking and maybe if I did then it would be the trigger to knocking daily drinking on the head

This is exactly the same for me. I had hoped to have a surge of energy and for the weight to fall off me and it's not I am worried now that I'm substituting chocolate biscuits for wine, which doesn't feel any healthier...

mackeroo wrote: »

..So why did I feel the need to secretly drink a bottle of wine last night? I planked a tumbler of wine in bedroom and the bottle outside in shed so throughout the eve I popped outside to swig from the bottle :eek: and pop upstairs to drink from the tumbler. She never suspected a thing. I can't believe I did it.

I've done something similar on occasion as I've known the quantity I've drunk would be commented on. Hiding the amount of alcohol I was drinking avoided criticism by close friends and family (and, of course, far more importantly, at the time, having to face up to it)

Honey_Bear wrote: »

Alcohol is addictive, but despite me thinking I had a major problem with it, it turns out - I wasn't addicted (no withdrawal at all) and most of my day to day exhaustion which I put down to hangovers was a reaction to gluten. For me, and it sounds as though probably for you - it's a habit. Once we break the habit, we're capable of recognising our behaviour for what it actually is...I hope you're pleased with the way things are going for you - you're doing amazingly well.

Thank you. I do feel far more in control now than this time last year. I can't claim my tiredness is due to any medical condition, but my life is super stressed at present and it could be due to adrenalin burn-out :rotfl:

Anyway, not drinking today, so 9/31 for me please x

gabriel1980

Reading through this thread, it seems a lot of people are doing really well, which is great. I'm on day 23 of my 30 days off booze month (I'm going from the 15th -15th). 23/30 AFD


I wouldn't classify myself as a big drinker, but I do have the tendency to drink heavily when a problem arises, so I guess I could be called a problem-drinker.

Barny1979

7/26 AFDs today