Giving up/ Cutting Down Alcohol Thread Part 16

marahouti

14/20 for May and 5/5 for SNC please Shaggy. X

maman

marahouti wrote: »

14/20 for May and 5/5 for SNC please Shaggy. X

cathybird wrote: »

Morning all, 14/21 for me today.

Welcome back Rosy!! :wave: :wave:

Smiley day for you two! Well done!:T

cathybird wrote: »

Welcome back Rosy!! :wave: :wave:

Good to se you back.:)


Hope all is OK HB, your posts have been short and sweet lately. How's Layla doing?:)

Arkers

Good afternoon everyone,

Been AWOL for the last few weeks, can only report 7 days please
Shaggy.

Apologies for not having time to read everyone's posts hope everyone is safe and well.

Arkers x

Green_Karen

16/26 May
5/5 WDC

Welcome back Rosy.

Yes maggiem, hope Annie getting on OK.

Really jealous Glenda that you can just have one drink. I would feel a lot happier drinking one glass of wine a day (especially if it's red as there are health benefits there too).

rosy10

all caught up on the thread - some amazing AF stretches in there! Thank you all for the welcome back and it's good to be back! 13/28, please Shaggy.

I've managed to get my BMI under 25; still some work to do as I'm at the higher end BUT I am delighted and it is a direct result of getting my alcohol consumption down, for which I have this thread and all you amazing posters to thank for. :T:T There is no way I would have lasted over 4 months of cutting back without this thread.

marahouti

What a waste of a drinking day! My husband is an officer at a private members' club. Today a rep came in with some samples of wine that they hope the club will stock as their house 'plonk' and my DH brought a bottle of the red home. He asked for my opinion so I had a glass - :eek: not good. I don't know if I have become more discerning since I have been drinking less or whether it really was that bad. Hubby finished the bottle but won't be recommending it to the club.

cathybird

Morning all, 15/21 for me today thanks.

Honey_Bear

Green_Karen wrote: »

Really jealous Glenda that you can just have one drink. I would feel a lot happier drinking one glass of wine a day (especially if it's red as there are health benefits there too).

Jealousy from me too!

However, without wishing to be too contentious, the 'health benefits' of alcohol, red wine included, are extremely debatable. I've been listening to this discussion for years and, very quietly because it doesn't suit the media, that jig is up. There are no benefits at all, but the occasional drink of any sort won't hurt - that's as good as it gets. There are no magical medicinal qualities in red wine. Alcohol itself is a poison and whatever way it's imbibed isn't going to change that, sadly.

rosy10 wrote: »

I've managed to get my BMI under 25; still some work to do as I'm at the higher end BUT I am delighted and it is a direct result of getting my alcohol consumption down, for which I have this thread and all you amazing posters to thank for. :T:T There is no way I would have lasted over 4 months of cutting back without this thread.

Hugely well done, Rosy. That takes some doing, and is fantastic outcome. (I wouldn't be where I am without this thread, so I know exactly how grateful you feel because I share the gratitude, too.)

marahouti wrote: »

What a waste of a drinking day! My husband is an officer at a private members' club. Today a rep came in with some samples of wine that they hope the club will stock as their house 'plonk' and my DH brought a bottle of the red home. He asked for my opinion so I had a glass - :eek: not good. I don't know if I have become more discerning since I have been drinking less or whether it really was that bad. Hubby finished the bottle but won't be recommending it to the club.

I cannot tell you how familiar that sounded! The number of times I felt obligated to drink, once I started thinking I might have a problem, made me very sad and then, eventually, very angry. I think I was angry with other people for imposing alcohol on me, but that was misplaced; I should have been angry with myself for not being grown up enough to face the truth and brave enough to admit that I didn't want to have to drink that day. I never was brave enough; I just carried on drinking, worrying about it silently.

One of the huge benefits of not drinking at all is that no-one can impose their stuff on me and effectively try to 'guilt me' into drinking with them because that's what they want. I don't know if other women go through this, the compulsion to be the person other people want us to be, but it was a factor in my carrying on drinking. I'm gradually becoming more assertive over other aspects of my life as Life Without Booze progresses. I'm not sure I ever would have done that had I carried on, lurching from one binge + hangover to the next one. There simply wasn't time to figure out what was really important to me because I was always playing catch up on my day to day life.

Thanks for your concern, Maman. I did actually type up a post yesterday but lost it when I closed the window instead of Submitting Reply. I was very decidedly not okay at all, but it was an unavoidable situation which, fortuitiously, I could just about cope with because I was on the ball. Basically, we have two cats and a dog. We've cat-proofed the house and yard, so the 18 month old kittens can't escape, and if they could, we'd just make it even more secure - they love climbing. It was extremely hard work to cat proof the place and it took me months, last summer, doing it on my own because for some reason OH decided it was nothing to do with him.

Anyway, the dog fainted on a walk on Monday evening, and during an emergency trip to the vet it was discovered she has a Grade 2/3 heart murmur and an irregular heartbeat. That was Strike 1.

OH was due to attend the Cannes Film Festival, travelling out on Tuesday morning - could I take him to the station at 7.00 am; did I want him to cancel? Strike 2 - I'm on my own. (No, I didn't want him to cancel because sometimes problems are easier to deal with if you don't have to discuss the solution. I'm pretty good at solving problems, not so good at negotiating.)

Three American paying guests were due to arrive on Tuesday, and I had to get the house to an acceptable standard by the time they were due, which was fairly flexible, but Americans can be very picky about things, so it was spit and polish time. I hate housework, which is why I've been a Flylady for seven years. Strike 3.

Layla has developed a bit of an issue over house-training which I can manage but involves a lot of vigilence and some carpet-scrubbing. We're getting there, but Strike 4.

Layla also has some seperation anxiety issues, which again, involves a slow, methodical training programme, and careful maangement. I've made a bit of a mistake over one aspect of it, entirely unforseeable, but there's a bit of repair work going on. Strike 5.

We've been finding, over the last week or so, the odd cat pooh around the house, half chewed loaves of bread on the kitchen floor and a completely new smell of cat pee in the house. Strike 6.

OH woke me up at 5.40 am Tuesday morning to tell me we had a strange cat in the house. STRIKE 7.

I cannot tell you how disruptive a terrified stray, entire male cat is, if you are the kind of person who can't just turf it out. It's been an absolute nightmare resolving the situation. The cat finally went into rescue at about 10.00 am on Thursday morning and if it's the one I think it is on their website, it's due to be rehomed at some time after 23 May. I couldn't be happier for it, and will be forever grateful to Woodside Animal Shelter, as well as the Plymouth Cat Protection League and the Plymouth Pets Lost and Found website for their kindness and support. I'm also incredibly grateful to our lovely American guests, who couldn't have been more understanding about the situation.

In the meantime here, I've been bleaching the area where it hid itself, probably for a full week, and using two dehumidifiers to get rid of the smell. To begin with it involved a bleach spray, then pouring it on, and now it's about soaking it thorougly and keeping it soaked.

I wouldn't have coped at all if alcohol had been an option! I was never much use with a hangover.

18/31 please, Shaggy.

maman

Oh HB, what an awful week. You've done amazingly well to get through it. And guests as well!! So pleased that they were understanding. Sending you the very biggest of hugs. :A

GlendaSugarbean

Gosh HB, what a week. I'm amazed you're still on your feet, tbh. I'm glad you were able to find a good solution for the stray, many people would have simply booted him out.

Rosy: sadly if I were to drink a glass of wine a day I'd see very few if any health benefits as a woman, and they'd be outweighed by the increased health risks. Plus I'd soon slip into drinking a little more until I was back into my old habits.

Reached a milestone: my first entirely sober Eurovision! :rotfl:

19/21 today.