DRY HARD 2: DRY HARDER! Dry January 2024, Thread#2 🧃🧋

[HPLikecraft]

Thread#2...

Let's keep going!

Happy Friday! I have that Friday feeling, and really hate that I can't put the cherry on the cake later with a lovely glass of red. Will have to follow some more of my own tips on keep myself off it!

https://wellitywellness.com/2024/01/19/dry-january-19-more-tips-and-tricks/

Morning everyone. I'm going to make that mushroom soup recipe Mrs Danvers - I have some chestnut mushrooms in the fridge right now that I need to use.

It feels good to be on day 23 without any alcohol. I'm still a bit unsure what to do with myself between 6pm and 8pm in the evenings, still feel like something isn't "quite right" but at least I know I can handle the odd feeling without cracking.

I'm going to have a drink or two on a night out next week, however. We are seeing really good friends we only see once a year because they live out of London. I just reckon there's no good reason why I can't have a drink one night in 35 is there? It won't be wild, more like a very nice dinner and very good wine.

We now have a date for my mother's funeral. It's in February so I will be able to have a glass of champagne in her memory.

I also worked in the City at the tail end of the 80's. Ingrained is definitely the word. Wine and beer were available in the staff restaurant. I also remember coming in one morning to find a colleague asleep under a desk having gone out for post-work drinks the night before 😲!

Happy Day 19 everyone...

@Neptunium93 @MrsDanversGlidesAgain not just me then....... 🤣

My resting heart rate has gone down from 63 to 53 😊

@MrsDanversGlidesAgain that soup sounds lovely. I saved a Hungarian mushroom soup recipe last week that looks very similar and planned to make it this weekend. I recall it involving paprika (but MUST be Hungarian paprika - i obediently went and bought some 🤓)

I made a chilli tomato tuna sauce this week - one of my favourite winter dinners with mountains of spaghetti and I always put red wine in it. I flirted with the idea of buying one of the small bottles of red but I changed my mind at the last minute as I couldn't guarantee I would be as disciplined if I actually had open wine in front of me so I used half a beef stock cube and some balsamic instead. It actually tasted the same so I was pleased with that!

I have my best friend's birthday drinks tonight at the pub. I am absolutely fine now (as others have said) with staying in and not having wine - even though I was drinking a bottle a night , and have been to friends for dinner, a lunch time drink in the pub etc without drinking - but this is my first real test. I know I won't drink as I don't want to break DJ for obvious reasons - but I am still thinking that I will miss my pre going out large glass of wine (there are going to be 20ish people and I get quite anxious) and wondering if I will have a good time/ find it as easy to talk to people there/ have a good night. No one else there doing DJ as far as I know. I would normally be looking forward to this!

However I know there are plenty of you on here who have had bigger events than this and gone through with it.. and I genuinely want to have a good night to prove to myself that I don't need multiple glasses of wine (easier if I think of it as poison) to have a good night!

Happy Friday everyone

@wellitywellness I too have that Friday feeling and hate that can't have a glass of wine. Today feels like it is getting tougher not easier! Weekends feel a bit flat without a relaxing drink

@Rassy I guess the consolation price is that part of the process is identifying which drinks we really value and enjoy, and which are routine / habitual. Friday evening wine is sacred in my view!

Checking in on Day 19. Fridays are rather hard but I know that if I crack Friday will turn into Saturday and then might stretch into a f*ck it Sunday as well. Best to stick to a cup of tea and avoid that back to square one on Monday feeling.

I'm a bit annoyed tonight because my friend has cancelled on me at the last minute. "Can we postpone because I'm tired and work is stressful? (We both do the same job and spend a lot of our conversations moaning! It's not something we'd cancel for) She hasn't said- but I know- it's because I'm doing dry January! I'd bought a bottle of nosecco to take to hers, so I was making it a bit special because I've not had any so far. Curled up with a mango and pineapple tea, a dog and a book though, so it's not all bad.

I also remember coming in one morning to find a colleague asleep under a desk having gone out for post-work drinks the night before 😲!

Oh yes. One colleague came in so hungover he did the same in an empty office, and there was one sales guy who if you wanted to talk to him after 11am, you didn't bother going to his desk, you went to the pub

Was cleaning the fridge earlier (me and my exciting life) and thinking 'FRIDAY! beer night!' then 'Oh bugger....' 😅

Apparently, the third week is the toughest, and this is the third weekend in January. I would love a chilled glass of wine as I cook dinner, and another with it but NO! It will be either Lucky Saint or fizzy water with bitters.

The City and Fleet Street both had epic drinking cultures in the 80s. I was in fin PR so there was no escaping.

Stagger out of the Railway in Liverpool St at 9 when it shut and into one that was within walking distance but didn't have City hours. I'd be dead if I'd kept up the pace we set in our 30s.

Yes another survivor of the City drinking culture in the 80s and early 90s here. All those boozy client lunches, not to mention after work! I'd love to have that constitution again, but without the drink habit.

I've got my first difficult test tonight - it's my drink book club belated Christmas get together - dinner, drinks, games, charity shop gift exchange. Looking forward to it though. And I'm driving, so no option to lapse.

Checking in for day 19! Friday night is always sacred wine night here too. I usually get in from work around 5 and like to open a bottle straight away - then can easily have quaffed half of it by seven. So I was expecting to find this 5-7 period the hardest for being AF-in previous years this has been the part of dry Jan I’ve found hardest.

Happily, though, one of my DC has started a new training schedule for his sport which involves a 6pm pick up at a location half an hour away from home. So I’m finding that by the time I get home, around 6.30, the wine urge has gone.

I’m in awe of those of you who are attending social gatherings and remaining AF, though. I am managing dry January pretty well overall but I’m hibernating - no evening social events booked at all. I suspect I should probably try at least one to challenge myself.

Drinks wise I’m working my way through a random selection of flavoured tonics from DH’s brief membership of a gin club. I don’t like any spirits, but I’m quite enjoying the tonics -fevertree clementine is a favourite so far.

Dry today,after a major slip up yesterday. Got to not give up just because I havent done the full 19 days. Still massively improved from my usual. Tucked up in bed with chamomile tea.

Definitely toughest evening so far. No good reason why. I think maybe I've started to take the beneficial physical effects for granted, eg, hugely reduced inflammation in my arthritic feet and hands, better, less flushed complexion, astonishing sleep... But if I can just get to Sunday it begins to be a countdown which I'm hoping will be easier.
A hiding in the bedroom until it's time for The Traitors - then I'll watch that and go to bed, another day done.

Hello everyone. I’ve found this evening tough, it’s just been me and youngest DD this week and it’s been great, in routine, calm, enjoying each other’s company, school, work.

Now the household is four (as of tonight), the children are arguing, the other adult is a complete PAIN, and I really fancied a drink. I didn’t have one though, and I won’t. So today is done.

Hope everyone else is hanging in. We can do this.

I made a chilli tomato tuna sauce this week - one of my favourite winter dinners with mountains of spaghetti and I always put red wine in it

Oooh, recipe please! I LOVE tuna.

A nice zero Guinness in the pub tonight. I'm feeling a bit under the weather so no Friday night cravings. It helps that quite a few of my friends are also DJing.

Day 19 draws to a close. DH poorly so evening plans cancelled. Still AF.

Enjoying the food and recipes - love mushroom soup.

Checking in too - still AF.
Can't believe there is less than 2 weeks left of January.

I’m still in! Ten days of an awful bug have very much helped tbh… no interest in drinking at all.

i tried Nozeco this week… you lot are all mad, the stuff is vile 🤣!! Sticking to the odd AF beer and that’s it, had a nice virgin mojito at a party before I got ill too.

Checking in. Day 23 today for me and oh boy I nearly cracked last night but resisted putting the bottle in the fridge so by the time I had dinner the urge had gone.

I'm still here. Another one who remembers the city drinking culture- seems so outdated now compared to where I work. We don't drink at lunchtime whereas I can't remember anyone in the old city days not drinking if we went out on a Friday lunchtime (and it was acceptable to not come back if you didn't have client meetings)

I'm out tonight - drinks then dinner in central London - I won't drink. I will be fine as I'm with low drinkers (they will prob share 1 bottle between them!).