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

It's a problem, OP. Whether you can function or not, is not relevant. It's a substance/alcohol addiction. You will be physically harming your health and doing a lot of internal damage that sometimes we can be unaware of. It will catch up to you. I would talk to your GP and perhaps switch to something lighter/alcohol free wine, slowly. You don't need to go cold turkey. You've already started the first step by asking about the issue. You can do it.

@ArseSkinForAFriend is right, @Dersnannienow - you are asking because you are worried you have a problem, and from what you have said, I would say you do - I’m sorry, I know that is hard to hear.

Please reach out for help - AA may be useful, or your doctor could signpost you to services that could support you. The Drinkaware website might also be useful.

Take it one day at a time.

It IS a lot, but I did the same through my 20s and 30s with no ill effects. It's only now in my 50s that I barely drink, because my body cannot tolerate it.

TBH I don't think it was problematic for me. I enjoyed it!

It's far too much. A bottle of wine is approximately 10 units so that person is drinking 40 units a week. Recommended maximum is 14 units per week. So 3 times more than the maximum recommended. It will be having a terrible effect on your liver.

A few posters have said that the recommended units of alcohol per week is 14. It's a bit obvious but nobody recommends alcohol at all. It is recommended not to drink over 14 units per week!

4 bottles of wine is too much.

I loved alcohol. White wine with friends. Red wine with Bolognese. Pint of lager on a long dog walk. Cider with curry. It was my friend and I looked forward to it most nights. I could easily have drank a bottle a night.

It did catch up with me. Fatty Liver and warned that it will get worse if continue with the booze so I reluctantly said farewell.

Feel so, so much better. Don't miss it. Don't drink even on a night out now. Sleep better. Lost weight. Hopefully liver is recovering.

May have one or two when I go to a wedding in a few months or at Christmas. May not.

And there is is......... The 'LOLOLOLOL I drink 10 times more than that, and I'm absolutely fine hahaha' brigade have struck.

If you can sink 2 bottles of wine in one sitting, trust me, you are NOT fully functioning. Your insides and internal organs must be screaming in pain.

I'm sure you're very proud of how much you can knock back though. 🙄

I'm cringing for you.

Yes. Definitely a problem. I am now dealing with a mother at 85 who has alcoholic dementia and choice of poison is wine. Tge Dr was horrified when she said she drank 3 bottles a week (which we know is a lie. That’s the public amount. We know there’s secret drinking too). The penny only really dropped a couple of years ago when she was found on the floor by my elderly father having consumed half a bottle of whiskey (which she denies because ‘she doesn’t like whiskey’ but there was no wine in the house) at 8am!!! Now looking back over our lives a lot of odd incidents now make sense now we know she has a drink problem but I have never in my life actually seen her rolling round drunk. So she would probably say what the OP is saying that functions fine and it’s not a problem. However it does explain the mood swings, irrational behaviour and paranoia and general nastiness which is definitely magnified when she’s been drinking.

You drink more than a thimble of wine for most mumsnetters, you're an alcoholic.

Yes, you are drinking way too much, @Dersnannienow . A bottle a night even once a week counts as an unhealthy binge (binge = 6+ units in one session, and wine is at least 9 units per bottle). Four bottles a week is an at least 36 units - significantly more than twice the recommended safe maximum. You must know this is much too much, surely?

Yeah, my old boss was like that. Absolutely lovely chap too. Drank in the pub but did go to the pub every day after work and one or two days a week during lunch.

He was found several months after he died alone. He'd lost everything when the booze won, which I was unaware of as was some years since had seen him. Heartbreaking and a waste of truly one of life's good people, this is what booze does if not careful.

So why do you drink so much it if you can easily go without it @Maddy70 ?

I do think it is a lot, i used to be quite a heavy drinker thinking I had deserved the midweek wine as well as the all weekend wine and the Sunday hair of the dog, it was just getting out of hand and I just felt rubbish most of the time, my husband commented one Sunday night as I was settling down to watch some tv with wine, and what he said really hit home, i do still drink but I just have a bottle of wine over a weekend i never drink more than 2 glasses when I'm out , it is such an easy trap to fall into, and if someone has said something then it might be time to look at your drinking,

I don't think that's fair on a thread about someone needing 4 bottles a week in order to relax. You know that's not right.

Speaking as someone whose almost entire family were functional alcoholics, yes, you're kidding yourself. That amount is already bad for your health, and you're such a small step away from full-on alcoholism. People don't appreciate how easy it is to slip into it.
Right now it's 4 days a week. Then it'll be "oh, but there's a special occasion this week, so I'll drink on the 5th day too, but just for this week", but then there'll be another "special occasion" next week, and soon Wednesday will feel like a "special occasion" (it's midway through the week, I need a drink to get through it!), and before you know it you're drinking a bottle of wine a night, plus a bit of day drinking on a Sunday, and you're well and truly an alcoholic.

Certainly not a healthy amount of alcohol. You see the word alcoholic on many posts like this. There is a huge difference between someone who drinks too much and an alcoholic.
An alcoholic has lost the ability to control their drinking and endures mental torture trying. A ordinary heavy drinker can moderate or reduce their consumption with ease.

It's a lot of wine to consume every single week. It will be affecting your body and your sleep. Can you explore options for cutting down? I used to drink wine 2-3 nights a week and could easily finish a bottle then but I felt it in the morning. Now I can take it or leave it and would struggle to drink more than a bottle over a week.

This. ^

This tedious comment 'according to some, if you have thimbleful of wine in one sitting you're a pisshead,' is always spouted on here from people who can't control their alcohol intake, so they project by mocking and deriding anyone who quite rightly states that 4 bottles of wine a week is approximately THREE times more than you should be having.

Well that isn't what the thread is about or what the Op is drinking or what Pps are commenting on is it?

'I can easily go without it' is often spouted by people who clearly cannot.

'Oh I get pissed most evenings on 1.5 to 2 bottles of wine, but I could stop any time I like...........'

Just stop it ... Stop the denial. You have a problem with alcohol if this is you, and you probably can't help it, but quit denying it, and mocking anyone who thinks it's a lot. You're making yourself look very, very silly!

.

Yes it is a problem. And will probably get worse if you don't take control now.

I would say yes. A bottle of wine in a night is a lot!

There is little difference. The heavy drinker thinks they're in control as does the alcoholic. Neither are.

Alkies will have more extreme health issues but the heavy drinker is sadly not far behind.

Sometimes a poster unintentionally reveals a lot about themselves

This post by @dogsaremybusiness being a case in point

People don't tend to get liver scans until there's an obvious problem.
True, what used to be called non-alcoholic fatty liver disease accounts for lots of issues, but drinking that much can cause all sorts of problems, liver and others.
Yes, people used to drink more. But they also exercised more, ate better, and tended to have less stress than we do, so this drinking is potentially dangerous.

This is true, but I would add that it's easier than a lot of people think to slip into alcoholism. Very few alcoholics deliberately set out to drink too much. Almost all of them started out "just relaxing after work", or "just drinking socially", and gradually let it creep up, making excuses and minimising their real consumption at every step. So it's worth reining it in before it gets to the tipping point, and I think OP is at the point where she ought to rein it in.