Is drinking a bottle of wine four nights a week a problem?

I'd be concerned about them. They must feel rough even if they think they're fully functioning.
Do they not worry about the effect it will have on their health in the long term?

Yes. Healthwise, that's way to much. But, im guessing you know this already. There's lots of places that can help, if you want it. 🪷

@Dersnannienow I would say yes, but I too noticed I was drinking more over the summer. I am doing sober September and don’t miss it at all. My sleep is better, my resting heart rate at night is significantly lower, I have lost 4kg, I am eating better, exercising more etc. I am not actually sure if I’ll drink alcohol again, it’s not the alcohol I like, it’s the cold drink of an evening and socialising. Thankfully I like several non-alcoholic alternatives (am watching the sugar content!). If you can’t suddenly stop, try to reduce or try non-alcohol alternatives

My husband was like this in his early twenties with a very stressful job. I’m not really a drinker and did comment on it quite a lot as he needed it to get over his day, but it wasn’t a dependency thing. It is bad, and you do need to cut down. Try to gradually reduce rather than cut it off totally. A good goal is nothing Monday-Thursday and a little bit Friday/Saturday so it’s not a wind down from the week/work etc. get nice drinks like cordials/treat feeling drinks to make something more interesting than a glass of water, but you don’t need this much alcohol.

It isn’t just your liver. It’s lots of organs. Eg the kidneys and it also affects your brain. Also your risk of both high blood pressure and of cancer are significantly raised.

Alcohol is divisive and so your are going to get a lot of venom. I'm typing this with a pinot grigio.

Yes, it’s a bit of a problem. I can believe that you can quietly and coherently sink a bottle of wine 4 nights a week. But I think that suggests you've built up a fair tolerance, and that's not really a good thing. You do want to get to a place where you sit below (or mostly below) 14 units a week to reduce your risk of alcohol related cancers.

Ideally have a period of abstinence (sober October?) and then moderate after this. You'll probably find moderating much easier after being sober. Or give jumping to moderating a go.

I've been at about that amount of units post using it to deal with my divorce (wasn't the cause-I didn't drink as much prior), but growing up in the 80's it wasn't scorned upon at all. Neither of my parents were big drinkers but were very sociable and often hosted 'drinks parties'. I was encourage to give up smoking years before alcohol was ever spoken about. Fast forward about 25 years and lockdown, I spiralled to a bottle of fizz per night and the weight piled on. I loved the whole 'party for one' thing I was creating - the drinks, the nibbles, the weather was gorgeous...I was loving it. I cut down again post Covid and a few years later I was aware I was salivating driving home even thinking about wine. My smart watch also proved how bad my sleep was when I'd had even one drink, as it raises your internal body temperature, irritates your bladder etc.. I also would like to live to see my not yet born grandchildren. I have up for about 6 months completely and have cut right down to one or two glasses one or two nights a week. I probably found cigarettes easier to give up as they disgusted me. Sadly wine doesn't ... good luck OP, just be aware- it creeps up on you.

I could quite easily drink that much and not be “drunk” or have poor sleep or it affect me the next day. I am a runner and I can run 10 miles at the exact same pace after having a bottle of wine the night before as I do after not having had a drink for a month. I have always had a high tolerance to alcohol.
I do not drink that much because I don’t want to spend the money and I’d like my liver to last.

I wouldn’t worry about it, for me if you are asking the question about whether it is a problem then it probably isn’t. You aren’t in denial, you are asking the question because you are of sound enough mind to do a sanity check.

If you could stop drinking for a week and it not impact you, if you can afford it and aren’t missing out because of the cost, and if all areas of your life are progressing as you would like then I would imagine you likely don’t have a problem.

But whether you have a problem is very a different question than whether you should cut down. You could consider cutting down if you think your quality of life is impacted, if you find yourself not doing other things because of your drinking, or if you are concerned about long term health implications.

But if you are healthy and paying your bills, it’s nobody else’s business but yours

Good lord, yes. That’s a dependency

This was my mum. She started drinking more and more towards the end of the 90s. She had a really stressful job and menopause was really awful for her. It was her way of ‘relaxing’, she drank 6-7 bottles of red a week until she retired in 2014. She’d gone up to a size 24, and whilst ‘functioning’, she was so depressed and slowly killing herself with alcohol. No amount of support we gave her made a difference. I used to have to time any phone call to her early evening to catch her before she’d had too much, else she would be really disagreeable and difficult to talk to.

The good ending is she is still with us, a size 14/16, fairly healthy and not had a drink in 10 years. It was incredibly hard, but retiring made her stress easier to manage, she took up daily swimming and had amazing support from her GP surgery. She also realised that her grandchildren were worth being around for.

Not sure if you're still reading the comments OP, and I've not read them all but I can't see any that say this: if you're not feeling the effects of drinking this amount of alcohol (ie you're functioning) then that's because you have a very high tolerance and that only comes from excessive drinking. Your liver is likely very damaged but unfortunately we don't feel liver damage as it has very few pain receptors, until it gives up on us.

Also, speaking as an ex (very heavy) drinker, you are likely drinking more than you're admitting to here. I regularly googled 'am I am alcoholic', then told myself that because I didnt pour vodka on my cornflakes I was fine.

There is no answer as to how much is too much, but if you have a niggling doubt about it, then that's what you need to listen to. Good luck

Drinking a full bottle of wine in 1 hour causes a sharp spike in blood alcohol concentration and severe intoxication, whereas spreading it over 4 hours allows the body time to process the alcohol gradually, resulting in a much lower peak impairment.

Yes it is most DEFINITELY a problem. Are you ok, is anything happening in your life to cause the drinking?

I am a mental health nurse and would definitely consider this problematic drinking. Not least because its 3 times over the limit of 14 units per week which in itself a fairly arbitrary cut off as there is no safe limit as its a toxin and damages the brain and internal organs each time it is taken.
Currently I work in dementia services and we wouldn’t even assess someone drinking that much.
Why do you think you need to drink to relax? It suggests an underlying stress or problem which likely needs some attention.

It's definitely not good to routinely drink this much. are you stressed Op ? You need to look at your reasons for drinking so much

Yep totally.

Definitely problematic.

I think heavy drinkers often try to fool themselves that because they're not Oliver Reed or George Best level alcoholics, they don't have an alcohol problem. Needing a drink to relax in itself is symptomatic of having an problematic relationship with alcohol, though.

The trouble is that people only realise it's a problem when they need or want to stop and can't. All the time there is nothing to stop them continuing a habit, it doesn't cause them a problem. The body hides the problems until it can't. Then you're in a right old mess and it's often too late.

It's heavy drinkers that say this stuff. All delusionary and enabling. Most know if you're swigging a bottle of wine a night you've got a problem.

I hate this "thimbleful of wine" cliche. It's so damaging and misleading.

On literally every thread about alcohol consumption someone will tip up and say "if you drink more than a thimble of wine mumsnet will say you're an alcoholic"

It's not a thimbleful of wine, it's four bottles of the stuff.

What do comments like this add to the debate? Someone is concerned enough to bring their concern to a thread with all the vulnerability that goes with that, and all you can do is use a wildly misleading analogy to basically say "crack on with damaging your health".

Indeed

And that level of aggression is a classic response of a problem drinker to someone gently suggesting they may be consuming too much alcohol.

Getting to four bottles didn't happen overnight, this can easily slip into five, six bottles. Nip it now.