I can't stop drinking wine

Not quite the same, but I cut out drinking (wine) on any week/work night, including Sundays, so now I only drink on a Friday and Saturday night. Mine had really crept up over the years.

I only missed it for the first week, but now it doesn’t even enter my head and I actually look forward to a glass of wine on Friday night.

Try it and see if you too can moderate, and if not, you probably need to quit completely and should probably seek help.

It’s not less of a problem because it’s wine - imagine it is Special Brew. We are bombarded with advertising that unwinding with a glass of wine is sophisticated but drinking too much is drinking too much however you dress it up.

id read some quit lit. Alcohol Explained by William Porter is great. Or a more personal experience book like The Sober Diaries

Consider your health your most important thing. You are feeling dizzy. Is that from the wine or do you have vertigo? I have a vertigo condition - PPPV- for several years now, but not from alcohol. I do not drink at all now - never was a big drinker though. No cure for vertigo.in many cases.

You can stop drinking wine.

First thing to do is ditch the idea that you can't. Of course you can.

Personally, I'd phase it out. I find titration is way easier that cold turkey on anything, because by the time you have titrated you don't even miss something.

I'd start by adding mixers. If you drink white wine or rose, pour 100 mls of it into a big wine glass and top it up to the brim with chilled sparkling water to make a weak spritzer.

If you drink red, it's a bit harder but you can still pour 100mls and top it up with 50ml of still water and 50ml of dark grape juice. Or make it into a sangria with OJ, fruit and sparkling water.

When you pour your first drink, also prep yourself a long soft drink of something you really enjoy, so it is ready for you when the wine has been drunk.

If you go for a top up, make sure you have finished the long soft drink first. Then do the same - prep a soft drink simultaneously. That way, you will still only have had 200mls of wine - that's just a little more than one big glass.

While you are drinking these, do some things that calm you and make you sleepy - listen to a meditation on your headphones or do a gentle yoga or relaxation session. Or light a candle and put on some soothing lulling music and just watch the cadle flicker as you listen to it.

Buy some sleep inducing teas - there are loads around, and brew one to sip in the bath.

After a couple of days, reduce the amount of wine in the mixed drinks by 10% - keep doing this until the wine is just a timny splash for flavour. Then stop buying it.

I'd book a week off work and stop drinking. There will be a few nights of poor sleep but you'll learn how to sleep without wine. Find other ways to relax before bed - a hot bath, reading a book, taking magnesium. These things all help.
It's simply not sustainable to use wine as a sleeping aid every night. You'll have poor quality sleep and increased anxiety (not to mention the other serious health effects).

Because the OP likes the alcohol buzz? It's not that difficult to understand surely.

Don't buy it and allow yourself some at the weekend? then you're cutting down but not giving up completely. Think of the money you will save too

Agree but doing it for a few days may help to break the cycle

Why does it have to be wine? Loads of nice soft drinks or on alcoholic drinks around.

Could you easily have two weeks off?

If so then do it. If not, then you might have start thinking about giving up with help.

I wasn't drinking as much as you, but still worried that my wine intake was creeping up.

The 'drink free days' app is good for monitoring how often you are drinking. I set a goal to be alcohol free Mon-Thurs. Bought lovely Belvoir cocktails for the other days. Ice, fancy glass etc so it felt like a treat. Non alcoholic wine is awful but I found some non alcoholic beer I like too.

I now don't buy alcohol except one bottle of wine on a Friday night. Slowly over time that bottle now lasts me three days and that's all I drink. I feel so much better for it.

You don't know that. And not everyone benefits from AA, though I appreciate many do.

How much are you drinking? I suppose it’s not so much the quantity but that fact you cannot manage to stop? Have you tried to give it up?

I would only suggest AA if you have tried to quit and not managed to be able to?

another vte for fever tree. I didnt have an alcohol issue. I went dry when my late husband was ill and I might have had to take him to hospital at any time, but I was addicted to cola. I can't tolerate sweeteners and my sugar intake was through the roof. Fever Tree is not sugar free but much lower in sugar. There is also a huge variety of flavours.

Could you switch to a low abv wine then drop down to an alcohol free wine?

I started drinking freezing cold tonic water as my 'special' evening drink and it really helped

You are alcohol dependent, you need AA

https://www.changegrowlive.org/advice-info/alcohol-drugs/alcohol-drinking-levels-quiz-self-assessment

Try "the alcohol experiment" it is a free day by day thing which lasts a month's and helps talk you through why people drink and whether it is still something you want to do or not. Really helped me.

It’s weird because I think the wine culture in mums has become the norm so we kind of justify it by thinking we deserve it after a hard day with the kids. I am starting to see how much clearer I am in the morning and that has been enough for me for maybe go 3 days without a drink each week, but then the cycle starts again. I actually only enjoy the first 2 glasses and unsure why I pour the next one.

I find the best way to avoid drinking is not having it in the house.

Get a non-alcoholic drink to replace it with that still feels special.

e.g. one of those fancy belvoir fizzy waters/ cordials. Fever tree tonics can be really nice on their own. Or just try a non alcoholic wine.

Have that in a wine glass and tell yourself that it's a treat/ your 'me time', and see if you can still manage to relax with it. Do something you find relaxing whilst you have it like reading a book, having a bath or whatever.

What you are likely after is the psychological hit of 'winding down' and 'me-time' - you can get that in other ways than alcohol, you just need to find what works for you.

possibly not what others would recommend but I would say cut down slowly. Start drinking later in the evening, and have just a glass. Buy a half bottle instead of a bottle. Then move down to the mini bottles. You can get 250ml bottles and you can get smaller 187ml bottles - make the bottle sizes smaller and only have one in at a time so you can't go out and get more.

Then move just having a mini bottle to every other night or weekends only.

It's a different approach to the "just stop completely" but it works for me and also if you move it to just weekends, but a small amount, you have something to look forwards to without thinking everything fun has ended!

You sound OP as though you are not 100% convinced that you want to break the habit: you are still seeing positives in drinking if you are telling yourself you need alcohol to sleep. You really don't.

I do think to successfully kick the drinking habit you really have to concentrate on the negatives : the damage the alcohol is doing physically to your body and also to your brain, the economic cost etc.

All my life I used alcohol to self medicate but I successfully quit nearly 2 years ago because I realised I was starting to see the physical effects of my drinking.

I used every incentive I could to replace the reward that alcohol gave me with other things. I'll admit this involved sweeties and chocolate initially but the biggest reward I got was feeling so much better physically and mentally and I lost so much weight from giving up alcohol. In fact knowing I'll pile weight back on if I start drinking again has been a big factor in being able to stay alcohol free.

You can quit the the habit. You can do this. Focus on the positives of not drinking rather than the wrongly perceived reasons for continuing to use alcohol in the way you are.

I used to be like this but I now sleep soooooo much better having stopped drinking completely.

It takes a while to adjust and the first week or two was pretty rubbish sleep wise but the trade
Off was so worth it.

How much do you drink each evening? Honestly - this is anonymous so don't give us the Doctors answer

Likely that the sleep you are getting now is terrible so you'll feel better on 4 hours of sober sleep than 6-8 of drunk sleep.

Agree change your routine completely and try brushing your teeth and / or going to bed really early. Any friends or relatives who aren't drinkers who you could engineer a visit to for a few days to help break the cycle??