How much do you drink? Honestly!

Those saying that they don’t know any non drinkers: I’ve already posted saying that I don’t drink at all. I have a couple of friends of many years who don’t realise this, despite me having mentioned it in the past, as we only meet up during the day for meals where they don’t drink. I know they haven’t remembered because I’ve been given alcohol as gifts in the past!

So in the spirit of this thread Ive totted up all that I drank last week:

Monday - nothing
Tuesday - nothing
Wednesday - two thirds of a bottle of wine and a double gin and tonic - about 8 units in total I think
Thursday - finished off the wine - 3 units
Friday - nothing
Saturday - half a bottle of wine and a gin and tonic - about 7 units
Sunday - the rest of the wine over Sunday lunch - about 5 units

So about 23 units in total. I’m actually shocked as I don’t feel like I drank to excess at all. I certainly wasn’t drunk at any point, just a bit tipsy on Wednesday maybe and I had three days off. It does show how units can creep up quickly even when you don’t think you’re having a lot. I dread to think how much I totted up a week during my university binge drinking days.

Drinking is pointless and if you need to do it then you probably have a problem with it.

I used to drink a lot in my 20's/30's but never needed it. Glad it is becoming less of a social expectation with some younger generations.

I would have a bottle of wine a week (at a weekend) sometimes two. I have stopped buying recently for 3 reasons: cost, calories and health (lost my dad to cancer). However, if I am still planning to have a drink on a night out and will probably get a bottle to drink over Christmas. So cut down from it being a regular thing to more of a special occasion. I would snack more with wine so it helps me keep my weight down as well.

Before we had DC (up to mid30s) would quite often have a G&T while making dinner and a couple of glasses of wine with dinner every night and maybe once or twice a week would be out with friends and drink more.

It’s reduced a lot post DC - aside from the pregnancy and breastfeeding years when drinking less was imposed on me, these days (mid 40s) I just don’t feel I want to. Average week maybe 4-5 units?

Though I did end up getting properly messy drunk for the first time in year recently and remembered that actually that uninhibited silly drunk can actually be a lot of fun (the hangover, not so much!)

I don’t drink but I think I would need my stomach pumped after a bottle 😂. I’ve never been good with alcohol. I once did a DNA fit test and the results showed my body doesn’t process alcohol properly.

Honestly ! Too much … I’m surprised like you about the amount of 1 drink a year replies though . I probably get through 4/5 bottles of wine a week , it’s the only thing I drink, most week nights 2 glasses an evening (so 2 bottles during the week ) more close to a bottle a night Friday and Saturday especially if socialising. I’m aware it’s too much , I’m trying to drink less and have alcohol free nights , but after a day at work, household chores it’s just how I like to unwind ! I rarely get properly drunk 🥴 I’m not drinking to get smashed , I still do everything I need to do, it’s not affecting my ability to function I live and work a completely normal life but I’m pretty borderline wondering I lf I am a functioning alcoholic ?! My social circle and everyone we know is pretty much the same though so it’s very normalised I live in a climate where we get amazing summers , bbq and drinking by the pool , winters we have a basement bar (as does everyone we know ) - but would I like to cut down , yes

I started drinking when I was a teenager, and university until I left I was horrifically bad with binge drinking. I would just drink vodka all the time during the week as I was always out etc. I left and met my husband and even though he would drink socially aswell, neither of us were bothered at home. I then had my first daughter and found I’d occasionally get a bottle of wine and drink the entire thing, it would cycle like this over the years. I’d have periods where I wouldn’t drink at all and then others when I did. Socially I couldn’t stop once I started drinking, I’d be terrified of going out and around drink because I knew I genuinely just couldn’t stop at a responsible place. I’d say beginning of this year when I was deeply unhappy I used to order things like wine or beer on a shop and drink them whilst cooking tea etc, I didn’t get drunk just found it helped me to function doing the boring tasks. Didn’t realise at the time how much of a problem it really was because if I thought right I need to not do this now for abit, I would. In May I was diagnosed with ADHD after being on the waitlist for 3 years, and in June I started my medication, and in that time I’ve maybe had 6 drinks in total? Mostly a beer or glass of Prosecco, but always at a meal or family event and I’ve never finished the glass. Have absolutely no desire or craving for it anymore. I’ve also lost about 3 and a half stone, a lot of the weight was caused by binge eating but some was the alcohol. I think having researched heavily around ADHD I was self medicating with it. The dopamine I’d get from a drink and the calm feeling I got from it was what kept me doing it. Now I’m more balanced on my meds the need and craving to do it isn’t there. Crazy really, and I’m so happy to be diagnosed and medicated because I can see how it could have really spiralled out of control!

Binge drinker here. Most of the time I don’t drink at all. But when I do drink I go a bit silly. I have no off switch. DSis and I go to as many concerts as we can and do our annual pilgrimage to Download festival. At DSis last BBQ I drank 6 cans of cider, 2 pints of snakebite and a few vodkas. DH was fuming because he was pissed and I was just a bit tipsy. He said there’s something wrong with me 😂😂

This is one of those things that I'd love to see some detailed statistics about. If there was a graph of "units consumed per week" on the x-axis and "number of people drinking that amount" on the y-axis you'd imagine it'd follow the normal distribution kind of shape. But I suspect you'd have a lot of people on the left end of the graph who drink little to nothing, a fair amount in the middle who drink an unremarkable amount and a relatively small number of people at the right who are having catastrophic amounts of booze.

I think it'd also vary based on age as when I (a gen-X'er) was growing up alcohol was rife in social situations but I have definitely noticed the difference in younger generations. I work at a university and they've closed down a couple of the bars because they simply weren't making enough money any more to justify them staying open.

Usually nothing Mon - Thurs.
Fri, Sat, Sun a G&T and two small glasses of wine.
Works out at 15 units so one over the guidelines.
Drink because I like the taste, don't drink to unwind or relax as fortunately my life is pretty stress free most of the time.

Usually one bottle over a weekend

Everyone has an addiction they. don't admit to. What rubbish, I have a hiatus hernia and gut issues caused by previous abdominal surgery, I have to be extremely careful what I eat and drink..I'm booked for an endoscopy in 2 weeks, but at least I know I am doing all I can to prevent symptoms..

I can take or leave oysters, I think they're a (expensive) waste of time. I do like blue cheese in small amounts with fruit (and yes the dry crumbly kind - like a blue Cheshire - are nicer than the soft ones).

Like you I think the proportion of non- / very low level drinkers is higher here than across the population. But in fairness it is Mumsnet - and when you've got children to care for and a house to run you have less time for drinking, less money to spend on it, and less tolerance for hangovers in the morning. And of course the majority of posters are women (who generally drink less alcohol than men).

I have a half bottle of wine on each of Fri and Sat, nothing on Sunday. Monday to thurs I usually have either a gin and tonic or a small beer each night.
That's a typical week. Sometimes its less, sometimes more .

So probably less units than OP. I will tell the gp or nurse that I have 13 units per week though.

I used to drink the same as you @Starlight1984 but perimenopause has given me wine headaches and reflux, so now I tend to have 1 bottle a week, with only 1-2 glasses a night. Sometimes will have more if I am out socially. Some weeks I have none at all.

But on average I am in the 1 bottle a week average now. I actually miss being able to drink more!

Absolutely this.
I can understand not liking oysters (although, factually, they are delicious) but the blue cheese thing I feel I need to address. Have you tried a dry crumbly blue cheese? With a bit of sea salt sprinkled on top? I don’t like ‘sweaty’ blue cheeses but the crumbly sort is a whole different ball game.

That aside, I’ve been really surprised by the amount of posters on this thread who are teetotal. I really don’t think that’s in proportion with the general population of the U.K. Unless the drinking of myself, and many of those I know, is dragging the figures up for the U.K. Otherwise, why would there be whole aisles dedicated to alcohol in supermarkets?

Bollinger’s probably right as they were wealthy lawyers lol, it definitely wasn’t a supermarket branded one.

I admit I don’t get the love for wine (or spirits) as I just think they taste horrible (in the same way a ten year old would), apart from those three individual exceptions. Wine tastes like vinegar, spirits taste like paint stripper (I’d imagine) and more than one small beer is too bloaty.

Now if I was to have a supply of Bollinger maybe I’d change my mind 😁

Not enough.
Certainly not as much as I did 20 years ago.
Love my wine but have hugely cut back.
Would have zero difficulty putting a bottle away still.
Most of my very MC friends drink more at home than I do.
All around 60.
I cut back a year ago and dropped 25lbs through this, less bread, butter etc.
I am happy with the changes.

According to the drinkless app, which is based on the alcohol in England Survey, running for many years, surveying 90k people monthly and anonymously -https://www.alcoholinengland.info/graphs/monthly-tracking-kpi - 13 out of 20 people (drinkers and non drinkers) drink once a week or less, while for drinkers it’s 10 out of 20 that drink once a week or less. It doesn’t feel like that prob because drinking is highly visible both in person (walk through London or any other city post work) or advertising/ media

@BunnyLake sounds like Bollinger. Wonderful and the only champagne I enjoy. There seems to be a lot of judgement on threads like this. Either for drinking or not drinking. What I would say is if you drink a small amount, it’s no more risky than any other unhealthy habit. Even sitting down for too long watching a film increases risk to your health. I don’t get why drinkers judge non drinkers-maybe it’s repressed guilt-they’ll feel better if everyone is the same as them. For large drinkers-maybe look at cutting down as risk does go up-at lower levels than the suggested 14 units a week. Which is less than a bottle and a half of wine.

I remember trying Chardonnay once to see what the fuss was (maybe back in the 90s when it became a thing?). I thought it was awful and never tried it again 😁 in fact there’s only been three times in my life when I had a glass of wine and I thought oh that’s nice (so rare that’s why can I still remember them). One was in a very nice restaurant and it was a Chablis, one was when I was a legal secretary and the lawyer brought in a bottle of champagne. It was really lovely, a deep golden colour and tasted quite toasty (no idea which Champagne) and the third was a Merlot from Waitrose. I bought other Merlots to try and find it but they all tasted like vinegar.

I know. I sat next next to a man at a wedding recently and as we chatted I told him that I don't drink. He said: that's boring. And I just thought: you're boring. Just because you're pissed, you think you're amusing but you're a drunken bore. And I think that some people really think that drinking somehow gives them a sparkling personality. I'm not against people drinking and sometimes drunks can be funny, but mostly they're just boring and annoying. I actually dislike going to places where there will be loads of pissed up people.

I drank heavily in my uni years and then maybe a bottle of wine over a weekend in my 20s. Early thirties I was having IVF and babies so I didn't drink at all then started on the wine again during the toddler years. I did go through a phase of having a glass of wine with tea each night but never more than one. These days (early 40s) I don't drink at home at all but will have a glass of wine maybe once on a weekend with food. One glass gives me a buzz, any more than that a headache!
I do have the occasional big night out with wine and cocktails but I never get drunk as it really affects my sleep and I can't cope with hangovers any more! I know a few friends who have totally given up the booze but equally know lots who drink lots!