I feel proud of not drinking for a night - does that mean I’m an alcoholic

This is a bit of a fallacy.

Nobody wakes up one day as a black-out, fall down drunk. It's a gradual process that usually occurs over a period of years.

One of the most powerful quotes I read when I started my alcohol free journey 4 years ago was (paraphrased) "I never drank in the morning, until I did. I never got the shakes until I did"... alcoholism is insidious, it grows over time and whilst most people will never succumb to it to the extent they'll lose everything / become homeless etc there are many, many functioning alcoholics in every walk of life.

@cbr333 well done for acknowledging your problematic relationship with alcohol. It's a huge step. I think your example of only drinking naice wine with posh olives and crisps demonstrates my point perfectly. Alcohol makes us lie to ourselves. Because we drink good wine in relative moderation in the evening and not spirits straight from the bottle upon waking, we perpetuate the lies.

It's up to you how you tackle your drinking. For me abstinence was the only way. Moderation only ever ended up with me drinking more.

I recognise so much of what you say OP. And I promise you after about 3 months off the booze I knew I'd never go back. And that was in February 2022.

Try eating something sweet instead. In my early recovery eating earlier really helped with the cravings.

We tend to think of alcoholics as shuffling about in an old coat tied with string or those that pour scotch on their cornflakes. If you feel alcohol is in any way making you think twice about your habits and intake or making you unhappy so that you’d like to give up then that can be classed as a drinking problem.

What you're describing is physical dependency.

I did rehab and I wasn't physically dependent.

You can do it. Imagine how pleased you will be if you make it through this evening as well!

If you really, really, really (really) need a wine then sorry but you are absolutely hooked. I was raised by a nightly wine drunk mum and it was horrible. It also absolutely ravaged her looks!

This from Aldi is very good

Be kind to yourself - you’ve done great starting to make a change x

Way too many people on this site measure problematic drinking by 'how you feel', 'if you get drunk', 'whether you can have a night off'. Your drinking is problematic if you exceed the guideline – false stop

This ^
@Didimum is absolutely right; if you’re regularly exceeding the guideline
and having to make excuses why, you have a problem. Full stop. You’re kidding no one except yourself.

Way too many people on this site measure problematic drinking by 'how you feel', 'if you get drunk', 'whether you can have a night off'. Your drinking is problematic if you exceed the guideline – false stop.

OP, someone could drink well within the recommended guideline and feel proud at having a whole week or month off – it's not a useful or meaningful gauge.

So many people get offended at the guideline as though they are some sort of moral judgements – it's not, it's a measure at which, statistically, drinking becomes harmful. That's it. If you are well exceeding that measure, then, statistically, you are likely experience problems – regardless of how you feel about it one way or another.

I found the same - the couple of glasses of wine a night became a habit. So easy to justify that I'd had a bad day. Or a good day. Or....

I got the drinkaware app and now I love seeing the drink free days. I usually have wine just Fri and sat nights now. Sometimes have a can of non alcoholic beer on a hot day. I definitely missed it at first but don't usually now. I just stopped buying it so couldn't drink extra.

@cbr333feel free to join us here if you want to continue being sober and wanting support- we are a lovely lot https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/alcohol_support/5515037-calling-time-on-wine-the-next-100-days-after-the-first-100-day-reset-thread-3-continuing-to-support-and-navigate-together?utm_campaign=thread&utm_medium=app_share

Try to create a new habit. So I tended to start drinking after I collected the kids from school and knew I was home for the evening, no errands or clubs to run around to. So I started a 5pm AF drink routine and I put on a podcast (for me I listened to sobriety podcasts, you may feel freaked out at the thought of listening to a podcast about sobriety but they really are aimed at drinkers like you, mums indulging in too much wine, not homeless alcoholics in the gutter, One for the Road and Sober Awkward are both very good).

Anyway, I started a new habit. It doesn’t have to be an AF alcoholic drink. Don’t just go out buying AF gins and stuff. Have a kombucha, have a tonic with lots of garnishes, make yourself a nice iced tea with all sorts of of fruit in it, a hot chocolate on a rainy afternoon, etc. Also eat earlier and go to bed earlier. Once I stopped drinking, I loved climbing into bed earlier with a book and a herbal tea. Even if you were ‘only’ having 1-2 glasses during the week, that is enough to completely wreck your sleep. You can start catching up again. In bed, herbal tea, book or a series to watch. It’s lovely.

Yes, it would depend on the alcohol volume of the wine, size of glasses and if you are accurately counting what you drink.

I doubt if you have done any damage that is not reversible and habits can be changed.

It’s not bad, no. It’s great to feel proud that you can do it. But it’s the actual drinking too much that signals you have a drinking problem. It sounds like what you’re trying to do now is sabotage that and find an excuse why you will just find it hard and should just go back to drinking because you’re ashamed that you feel this way.

It’s fab you’re having a break. Keep going. I cannot recommend enough This Naked Mind or doing the Bee Sober 30 day experiment along with it. It really does get better so keep going. I stopped drinking over 3 years ago (I was drinking A LOT more than you). It’s wonderful. I truly do not ever think about it and never wish to go back to those days. It’s very freeing and life is so much easier now.

Clinicians do not actually use the term "alcoholism" any more it is now Alcohol Use Dissorder. There are different degrees and types of dependence. It does not sound as though you are chemically dependant on alcohol, your need for it is probably psychological, as a habitual way of winding down after the daily grind.

No judgement from me for that. But drinking becomes high risk if you have more than 14 units per week for long periods of time according to NHS guidelines. You are consuming around 50.

It’s definitely behaviour of an acoholic, two glasses a night is that behaviour ignore others saying it’s not. Well done on breaking the habit, i’m not usually proud of strangers but I am with you!

Surely if you were an alcoholic you'd be dependent on drinking - you wouldn't be able to function without it?

An manager I knew couldn't function until he'd had a couple of whiskies in the morning (before work). He never appeared to be actually drunk - and I think that's alcoholism, isn't it? You need the booze to be 'normal'? He topped up at lunchtime too.

I speak as someone who can't function without my morning caffeine - but I guess that's a lot less of a problem healthwise.