Alcohol.

[onebottle]

I drink too much but don't see myself as an alcoholic. I can easily put away a bottle of wine etc. BUT I don't drink myself to a stupor, can get up easily in the mornings, don't hide how much I drink, always care for my kids, don't pass out, don't drink until the evenings (unless on holiday) etc. Generally my drinking isn't a problem. Except that I do want to drink less and find it very difficult. I'd like to lose weight and am worried about my health. My great grandfather was an alcoholic and the family is full of big drinkers, so hard to know if it's genes or learnt behaviour. Ideally I'd like to only drink at weekends and would be happy with that but I often give up mid week. I feel that I do have a problem with drink but don't want to give it up completely, although I think that day will come. What is my best approach? I've given up for a month a handful of times and once 3 months but my drinking always seeks back up again. I have some big social nights coming up that I cannot envisage not drinking at. Any ideas welcome. x

[BoutiqueChic]

Hi.
You sound like I was a year ago. Alcohol dependant and it dawning on me that alcohol controlled me, no longer the other way round. And this was not what I wanted!
But then I stumbled upon a blog called Tired of Thinking About Drinking.

It is bang on the button. Check it out.

You say you look after your kids, but it can't be nice for them to have a mother who is more anxious or irritable or just plain tired than she could otherwise be. Not to mention they must smell the bottle of wine seeping through your pores/ on your breath when you tuck them in/ wake them up.
Contrary to popular ( self) belief a high unit drinker does not go by un noticed, just most people are too polite to say anything.

Congratulations on wanting to tackle this before you go further down the slippery slope (and there is no other direction if you don't act now).

Life can be so much richer when we stop filling our hours with booze.

As the saying goes - alcohol dependency is like an elevator but you can get off at any floor.

Now go and sort this while you still can.

Hugs x

[onebottle]

Thanks BC. I have managed not to drink mid week this week and am pleased with that. Think I am going to do the 100 days starting next month when all the big events are out of the way.I looked at the website, however a lot of the stuff doesn't relate to me as I think it's me one step on. Think I need to get a couple of steps back from that so that I don't teeter over the edge.

[onebottle]

(I've bought a meditation book to see if that helps get a better perspective)

[VivianStanshall]

You sound similar to me onebottle, definitely not an alcoholic but a bit prone to liking it too much.

So same happens to me, stop completely, back on it a couple of times a week and then starts approaching every day.

I've accepted that this will always happen so my solution is to regularly take at least a week off as this then resets me back to two nights a week, when it hits six or seven nights stop again.

I can stick to two days a week for a bit but you get really bad or really good days and you want a drink so it slips.

If it helps (it helps me) I also do self-reward, I put a couple of quid in a pot each night that I don't drink and that's fun money for wasting which I don't feel guilty about as that's much less than the cost of even a light evening's booze.