Cutting Down Alcohol Thread

arsenalbarnie

Hello can I join again? Am aiming for one day at a time. Just back from holiday and need a break from the demon drink. So am saying that today is 1/1 AFD. Am going to take a photo of myself every morning to see if my complexion improves, today I look a bit scary! :cool:

cathybird

Morning all, 6/21 for me today thanks.

CuppaTea

Pollyanna, my DrinkLess app doesn't beep at me at all. So I am wondering if there is a setting that needs to be changed. I've had a quick look but can't find anything obvious though.

Im up to 4 days for March please.

Welcome to all the new people. Good luck.

I'm off to read that link about cancer and alcohol now. Thanks

pollyanna24

loveasale wrote: »

10 am beep ??
Crikey I really would have a problem if was drinking at that time of the day ,,,,, unless on holiday of course !
Watch that Sheridan smith series when she’s a cleaner addicted to gambling ,, funny really don’t get that , but I’m sure a lot of gamblers don’t drink ,,,,, then some poor souls have an addiction to it all ,, drink fags gambling drugs sex,,,,,,,, !?!

Haha. No, it beeps as me to complete my diary for the day at 10am, but that's too early for me to commit to definitely not having an AFD, if that makes sense. I wouldn't want to call it an AFD only to get in from work and cave.

I am up to 4/5 for the SNC, 4/16 for the month and 48/183 for the year!

CuppaTea

Oh and I meant to ask for some advice please, if anyone can help?

I have friends coming round tomorrow for drinks and nibbles. Orginally I was planning on having wine with my friends, but now I've changed my mind. I've been experiencing stomach pains lately in my side and back. Could be liver or kidneys, but I know they will subside if I stay off the booze for a bit. Ive done two days, I won't be drinking Saturday or Sunday as I am driving. I never drink on Mondays, so that would be a week break. If I can not drink Friday.

I don't want to be answering questions, but I expect to get spoilsport comments. What can I say, that isn't related to antibiotics (I can't take them anyway) or being pregnant? "Im not drinking tonight as I've a busy weekend ahead?" and then changed the subject before they get a chance to push?

cathybird

CuppaTea, I'd tell more or less the truth, that you're not really feeling well and your body is telling you to stay off the booze (or something similar). I usually say that when I'm out and don't want to drink. "I haven't been feeling so well lately, think I ought to take a break from it, you know when you have the flu and don't feel like drinking", something like that. If anyone asks me for details I just play it vague, "Yeah, just under the weather, you know. It's probably nothing." That would be my tack

cathybird

I noticed something yesterday, a drinking day, had a couple of drinks with a friend at lunchtime. I was a little tiddly in the afternoon, nothing major. About 3pm I got an email about a sale of dvds at half price. Now these are dvds I would definitely use and watch, in the "favourite films" category, so I tried to buy some but when I went to check out realised the supplier only ships to the US and Canada, so that was the end of that. It was about £50 that I would have spent. It would not have been wasted money per se as they would have been repeatedly used but these were still purchases I didn't need, and I added them to the online basket with gay abandon, partly because I had been drinking and felt more reckless than I would have done otherwise and was thinking "why not" - the brakes in my brain were off.

It occurs to me when I add up the amount I've probably saved over recent years not drinking, or to put it another way the money I spent on booze back in the day, that I usually only add up the cost of the booze itself. It never occurred to me to add in impulse purchases I might make when slightly (or very) under the influence. In fact I probably can't put a figure on it but it's no doubt a pretty big amount. Another way in which this thread, and cutting back, also helps cut back on spending. Maybe I'm stating the obvious but it's never struck me before!! And it could at least partly explain the big debt I was in when I first joined MSE in 2006 (when I was drinking like a fish). Long behind me now but it was horrible at the time and it took me years to clear. I cut up my last credit card in 2013 and joined this thread about a year after that??? ... Alcohol-related spending has very long arms.

Tammykitty

Being off work and lots of family events meant I was mia for a while from here - and not doing too well on the AFD's - but back to reality now!


Feb finished on 20/22


March put me down for 25 - currently on 3/25

CuppaTea

Cathybird that’s sound advice on the not drinking excise and impulse spending thanks.

Honey_Bear

Huge congratulations on the 59 Day Run, Shaggy. Belle at Tired of Thinking About Drinking says that if people can get to Day 60 on the 100 Day Challenge, they're very likely to make the 100 days. Clearly you didn't want to run the risk of giving up for good!

CuppaTea wrote: »

Oh and I meant to ask for some advice please, if anyone can help?

I have friends coming round tomorrow for drinks and nibbles. Orginally I was planning on having wine with my friends, but now I've changed my mind. I've been experiencing stomach pains lately in my side and back. Could be liver or kidneys, but I know they will subside if I stay off the booze for a bit. Ive done two days, I won't be drinking Saturday or Sunday as I am driving. I never drink on Mondays, so that would be a week break. If I can not drink Friday.

I don't want to be answering questions, but I expect to get spoilsport comments. What can I say, that isn't related to antibiotics (I can't take them anyway) or being pregnant? "Im not drinking tonight as I've a busy weekend ahead?" and then changed the subject before they get a chance to push?

You know your own friends, and you know whether they're likely to respect your choice, or presume they have the right to question your autonomy. Frankly, "I just don't feel like it but don't let that stop you enjoying it" should be enough, but sometimes isn't. It's a good idea to have a plan, but the reality is that sometimes people can be very persistent when they try to bully others into drinking.

You don't have a duty to tell them the truth, so if you want them to learn to respect your choice, be clear that they're being disrespectful by questioning any personal choice that you make.

I'm tired of people thinking they have the right to be disrespectful and frankly downright rude about whether someone should drink, so I no longer put up with that sort of nonsense. I used to be much more cautious about this issue but my patience has been tested too much lately and even good friends are being irritating about it. It's been four and a half years; that wasn't a decision I took lightly and then stuck to for a very good reason. It's tough at times and there must have been a really good reason for me to give up, so let's just accept that I had one, and stop questioning it, shall we? Ask away if you really want to know what it's like not drinking at 62 in the early 21st century, but not about the decision's validity. There's a difference.

We were out with friends celebrating a 60th birthday over the weekend. The subject of my not drinking came up - it still does, sometimes, as if the answers to the same questions as I've given repeatedly over the past four and a half years were untrue, or .... I don't know why people keep asking the same old same old, I really don't.

Not totally co-incidentally, almost everyone who was there the last night I drank was there on Saturday, and we were all sitting together when the question came up, yet again. I have to point out that they'd all been drinking all day, from 10.15 am when the first bottle of bubbly was opened, more bubbly as the train journey went on, beer before lunch, wine with lunch, drinks in the bar afterwards, off to a pub, more drinking while we waited for the other guests to arrive, and it was, by this time, 7.30 pm. I know some people can pace themselves, but let's be honest, I absolutely know I was the only person who was stone cold sober. I never, ever bring the subject of booze up because I've got nothing new to say to them, and I don't think about it any more most of the time.

So, the usual questions, the usual answers, and for the first time I told them a bit about my behaviour on the way home towards my OH but most definitely not all of it, but going into a bit of unattractive detail and finished up by saying, 'So I don't drink anymore. I'm fine with everyone else doing so, but it's just not for me' and within seconds, and I mean seconds, of saying that, one of them who wasn't there that night said, 'Oh you don't have a problem, F, you really don't. Trust me, you don't.'

Thick as mince, some people. I think I know my own capabilities, and to deny that what I'm saying is the truth is both silly and disrespectful. I can't be bothered with it any more. Rather than argue with him I just ignored the comment but it wasn't too much of a co-incidence that we left soon after.

And, I think for the first time, I can honestly say, I really was !!!!!! off about being told whether or not I have or had a drink problem.

Mind you, last week I also got irritated by someone who I've never particularly liked (nothing to do with the bunch of friends I was with on Saturday other than they all know this other idiot and no-one seems to be fond of him) who saw me buying some handmade chocolates in my favourite chocolate shop and made a silly comment about putting on weight as I was paying for them. As I said to him, 'Thanks Jeff, that's just what everybody needs, being told they're getting fat.' Which he wasn't, of course, but it was what he meant in that way that supercillious people have of pretending to be teasing one in a good-natured friendly way, but are in fact being unpleasant because that is all they ever do. I've never heard him say a single kind or generous thing and I've known him be consistently borderline unpleasant for 25 years.

The older I get the less likely I am to be tolerant of the kind of crap that people seem quite happy to dish out nowadays, but very unprepared to accept themselves. He reacted as though a flower had spat at him. I was rather pleased and I very much hope he thinks twice before he opens his mouth to speak to me again. That would be a start.

Very sadly for me, but probably not unrelated to the 60th birthday celebration comment, OH and I were on a Brittany Ferry to France this week for a minibreak and if anyone has travelled with them, you'll know how lovely they are. While OH was eating his meal he had a half bottle of wine to go with it because we were, technically, on the first night of a (mini) holiday, and had a cabin so we could really enjoy the whole experience. For the first time in a very, very long time I really seriously considered reaching across the table and picking up his glass of wine to have a very satisfyingly large [STRIKE]swig[/STRIKE] mouthful. It was very, very tempting.

cathybird wrote: »

I noticed something yesterday, a drinking day, had a couple of drinks with a friend at lunchtime. I was a little tiddly in the afternoon, nothing major. About 3pm I got an email about a sale of dvds at half price. Now these are dvds I would definitely use and watch, in the "favourite films" category, so I tried to buy some but when I went to check out realised the supplier only ships to the US and Canada, so that was the end of that. It was about £50 that I would have spent. It would not have been wasted money per se as they would have been repeatedly used but these were still purchases I didn't need, and I added them to the online basket with gay abandon, partly because I had been drinking and felt more reckless than I would have done otherwise and was thinking "why not" - the brakes in my brain were off.

It occurs to me when I add up the amount I've probably saved over recent years not drinking, or to put it another way the money I spent on booze back in the day, that I usually only add up the cost of the booze itself. It never occurred to me to add in impulse purchases I might make when slightly (or very) under the influence. In fact I probably can't put a figure on it but it's no doubt a pretty big amount. Another way in which this thread, and cutting back, also helps cut back on spending. Maybe I'm stating the obvious but it's never struck me before!! And it could at least partly explain the big debt I was in when I first joined MSE in 2006 (when I was drinking like a fish). Long behind me now but it was horrible at the time and it took me years to clear. I cut up my last credit card in 2013 and joined this thread about a year after that??? ... Alcohol-related spending has very long arms.

I can remember at least two occasions when I splurged money on stuff I didn't need and, when I'd sobered up, didn't want, either. Both times it was less than £250 but pretty close. I don't have the kind of money to afford that kind of spending, either. It only happened twice but I imagine there were masses of occasions when I spent smaller amounts I shouldn't have, but those two biggies really stand out in my mind, now, at least 10 years later.

7/31 please, Shaggy.