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

[HPLikecraft]

Thread#2...

Let's keep going!

Slightly different AF recommendation today from M&S Tropical Sour Kombucha - leaving the beer behind and feeling like a grown-up drink, not too sweet and plenty of flavour...very fizzy though - which I quite like as it feels like it has more bite. Weighs in at 0.5 % ABV and 46 kcal a bottle.

I haven’t caught up with the last couple of your posts @wellitywellness but interesting you’re all talking about the divisive nature of some of the quit lit. I also feel that and in a way it’s why I’ve stayed away from a lot of it and also why your synthesis has been such a big help.

I think overall you have to find your own way don’t you, and I feel like we’ve found a like minded group on this thread which is awesome. I’m still dry having had 2-3 days of a couple of glasses at the start of the month, but I really do feel the benefits. I had a full range of bloods taken this week too and all have come back clear which I’m quite sure wouldn’t have been the case in December, coupled with the BP I mentioned.

The sleep improvement I knew about but what has been amazing is the improvement in anxiety and mood. I’m almost ashamed to look back on how short tempered I was before and I realise now how much that was affecting people around me. For that reason more than anything I am motivated to carry on as I can see its benefitting the people I care about as much as it is me.

thanks @HPLikecraft for bringing us together, and will look forward to the next thread too! I love a JB reference so bring it on :-)

Day 70 here. Pleased with that, but really would like a glass of wine now.

Morning all. Some ponderings on abstinence vs moderation from me today...

https://wellitywellness.com/2024/02/22/dry-day-53-abstinence/

Thanks @wellitywellness . Dostoevsky has it spot on (as so often). It struck me yesterday that there's a paradox inherent to much of the Quit Lit. They are trying to persuade us to choose abstinence, acknowledging that it will be a massive challenge (but so worth it), while at the same time preaching that moderation is too difficult so we shouldn't even try.

Big night last night... I opened the Pinot Noir in the first step of my gradual conversion process to actually liking red wine. I had one 175ml glass, which amounted to 2.4 units. It's French, from the Sainsburys Taste The Difference range and costs £11.50 a bottle, which is more than I would usually pay, but if I am going to be drinking less, then the cost is less of an issue than the quality. As suggested by a PP, Pinot Noir is not as heavy as some reds, and I genuinely enjoyed it. The good news is that I didn't want another glass after the first.

So not only is red wine apparently the healthiest, I think it's also going to enable me to moderate much more easily. Part of it is the fact that it's a new habit, so I don't have a previous consumption pattern to refer back to. But also, it just doesn't go down as easily as white wine does (for me) - it forces me to savour it. The same applies to beer (whether AF or not). There's a natural limit to how much of it I want to drink.

Catching up on this week's posts after a busy work week (now finished thanks to my new part time regime, which I am loving. Completely off topic but going 3 days a week having turned 60 last month is the best gift I have ever given myself, and has definitely helped re-entry to moderate drinking. Many congratulations @wellitywellness on your great health test results - I share everyone else's happiness and relief for you. Im keen to continue on a new thread please. I have not managed as many dry days as I had hoped (7/21 so far this month). But I have moderated my intake significantly, and been more mindful - measuring out how much wine I'm drinking at home and having smaller measures when out. So the Try Dry app tells me I've had 33 units in 3 weeks. Not quite as low as I was aiming for. But probably less than half what I would normally have drunk (I reckoned on about 2 bottles of wine and a couple of beers in a normal week). So I'm pretty happy, and need to keep mixing things up with nice AF drinks, and better quality wine, so that I don't slip back to previous levels (as DH is doing).

I will stick around for a new thread if that's OK.

Moderation is continuing, but as with @pangolinfan, not as much as I had hoped. I'm on 11/22 this month.

It's half term here, and we are deep in GCSE revision, so I fell off the waggon on Tuesday, and I was out last night.

I'll join in the new thread too! I haven't had a drink since the two glasses of Prosecco whenever it was...2/3 weeks ago? I barely even think about drinking now really. I thought I was fine before but with the benefit of hindsight my drinking was really not healthy at all.

New thread for when this one fills up:

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/_chat/5013605-dry-another-day-dry-january-and-beyond

“There's a natural limit to how much of it I want to drink.”

That’s like me with cider, 330mls is as much as I can manage. Unless I’m out dancing and sweating it off.

Went out for food last night as an impromptu celebration. Had a cocktail.

Food wasn’t very impressive.

My tolerance has gone down as I could really feel the effects of the cocktail on the way home.

I think I need to be really careful around starting drinking again as I can tell that I could easily start thinking “oh, I’ll just have….” or start coming up with justifications for why it’s ok on this occasion, and end up on a slippery slope back to where I was. And I don’t want to get trapped in that habit again.

Last night I finally tried that AF cider I bought during dry January.

It was ok. It had that “goes with this food item” feeling I was looking for. But I didn’t feel a need to drink more than one glass of it.

I think I’ll keep a couple of bottles in the house as a back up plan.

I slept really well last night which is good because I’ve got quite a lot on at work at the moment so the less tired I am the better.

I’ve said to a few people recently “I’m doing DJ”… to which they typically respond with some clever remark like “but you know it’s nearly March right”… before realising that actually it means I’m doing really well. Then they say nothing 🥰

@DJ24 , you were brave trying a cocktail - I always felt drunk after just one, even at my old tolerance levels. If I had one now I think someone would have to carry me home! Glad the AF cider is working out. I can imagine it wouldn't taste that different from the real thing, much like beer.

@PoppyAndParsnip , yes, it's hard to know what to call an extended DJ... I am on a light regime currently so I am calling it Damp Lent. If you stay dry you could call it Parched March! 😉

Another 2.4 units of Pinot Noir for me last night. It was very nice, but I'm feeling the lure of the AF beer for this evening, and then might go wild on Saturday with 3 units of Sauvignon blanc. If I stay dry on Sunday, which is likely, that will take me to just shy of 11 units for the week, which is good enough.

Happy weekends all, and see you on the new thread... 😊

Ha! “parched March” - love it! 😄

Checking in to report several days of dryness, and one large planned glass of Kylie Minogue tonight (hopefully).

Parched March! 👏

Ah, thought this was the new thread! So much dryness and dampness around!

What’s a glass of Kylie?