Less wets, more dry, sometimes damp. We are tryers to be dryers. Thread 3!

[Frouby]

New thread for those wanting to reduce alcohol. Always supportive and friendly. No judgements, just support to get to where we feel comfortable with our relationship with alcohol. All welcome.

Am a bit rubbish with clicky links but there are previous threads.

By sharing half a bottle I meant one bottle lasted two of us two nights, which it doesn't normally!

Hello Tinkerbellx. I just joined too

Morning all,
Hello Tinkerbell - I'm new too! I know what you mean re the glass of wine home from work -if you want to break that habit can you switch up your routine a little bit, so get in from work and have a shower so it delays the "door, dump bag, open fridge" feeling. If you choose to have wine later thats fine but the routine will have been disrupted?

Flossie - congratulations on the forthcoming house move! I love looking at houses to buy all the time! tell us more!

Longest - a bottle between two people over two nights is immense!

I was AF this week but will probably have wine tonight and tomorrow but am pleased that in the last two weeks I've been AF for 9 nights. Can't remember the last time that happened

I'd love to hear about the house moves too. I live in London and am always agonising about whether my life would be better or worse elsewhere. I even had an interview yesterday for a job that could be done from Edinburgh, where I've always wanted to love, but I honestly have no idea what I'll do if I get it! I love Scotland and I think the education system would be good for my girls but am a lawyer and it's a different legal system there which closes down some options.

Oh fingers crossed for you longest! I love Edinburgh (only visited never lived there) have fantasy house shopped there though! My area of choice would be Stockbridge (based on a weekend visit...)

Hello everyone I saw a new alcohol worker yesterday and she was great. Don’t know exactly what it was about her but just liked her. And I managed to only have 125ml glass last night! Am thinking of wine not as my treat but as the evil poison I am self sabotaging with.doing mindful drinking as well so forcing myself to write down my thoughts and feelings before,during and after drinking too. Well done to others. Regarding Edinburgh, it is lovely but absolutely bloody packed in summer for festival!

Yes this is true, I have never been there in festival season. Is it more packed than the tube?!

Well done on the one glass and new mindset! Really glad you've found someone good. What is an alcohol worker exactly?

www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-6343109/Revealing-photos-happens-alcohol.html

I saw this article today. Shows how alcohol changes your appearance. It says ‘from women who drink up to 4 bottles of wine a week..’. I actually drink more than that, I’m ashamed to say!! Has actually made me feel really crap to think like that!!
We celebrating this evening. The house sale. So have booked to go out. Know it’s going I be a very wet one!! Then mon-wed I’m away taking my daughter to hosp in London. (We live in Cornwall!) I’m staying with my parents so will have a drink there I’m sure. so will b back on it once home next week!!
I really need to stop. The ‘play the film to the end’ quote is in my head now. Also looking at it as drinking poison, not something nice.
Will definitely use those things from now on.

As for the move, only 6 miles away so same schools. That was my firm belief..that just because we fancied a move, my children wouldn’t be uprooted and moved from their friends.

Flossie have the doctors made any progress on treating your daughter? I hope the visit next week leads to some positive news for you and DD. Maybe once the move is made you will be able to cut down drinking more easily, you won't have your nice neighbour to lead you astray
I agree about not disrupting the kids. When the father of mine and I separated my kids weren't put out at all, but had I moved and they had changed schools it would have been very different.
Thanks for the link to the article, it is always interesting to see before and after photos. The difference in eyes always shocks me most, I can spot someone easily now who drinks too much, the tired, puffy red eyes are such a give away.

Yes that's the main reason I'm totally torn about moving tbh, it would uproot us all and I need to know it'd be in their interests. We are pretty lucky so far as life in London goes and I have a house with a small garden, but crime is getting worse locally and I do wonder what life will be like when dd1 is a teenager. I applied for the job in the week when I had sniffer dogs in the garden and a police helicopter overhead looking for someone in connection with a stabbing whose scooter was in the street outside and I just thought fuck this.
But now I'm not sure as we do have a good support network here and she is settled
She's in year 3 at moment but suddenly I realise secondary school is not that far away and there is not an obvious one that kids from her school move on to so they tend to disperse. But if I wait till then then dd2 will be in the same position dd1 is in now. She starts school next year. I dunno!

If you are after scare stories then I can share my mum's. She's a lovely woman in many ways - clever, generous with her time and with a social conscience. But she's drunk too much for as long as I can remember and it's created a barrier between us. I can't invite her to things I'd like to because she will get embarrassingly drunk - emotional, weepy, slurring her words (never abusive). My dad died when I was 25 and she has an unsuitable new partner who is borderline abusive and also an alcoholic and has made things worse. Now she's in her 70s and her health is suffering. She fell and broke her hip after drinking too much and has had some blips in recovery like infections and low sodium that I think are due to long term alcohol damage. I don't want to overegg this as people who live saintly lives often do not enjoy better health at 74 - my dad died at 61 for eg - and her life's not been awful - she had a career and friends and is close to the grandchildren, but overall it does feel like alcohol has cast a shadow over it, and stopped all aspects of it - work, friends, family, from reaching their potential. I am not on that road yet but I skate a bit close to the edge sometimes I think and I want to give myself a bit of a talking to before it's too late

Yes I don’t want to end up in my sixties necking a bottle a day. I don’t want dc to have it normalised either. It’s so hard to change learned behaviour-growing up in Scotland, whatever life throws st you, and whatever your emotions, alcohol is the first port of call.

I would actually consider that when contemplating a move up north-drinking is a huge part of the culture and it takes a will of iron to resist joining in.

Where you live plays a huge part in your drinking habits. Before moving to France 16 years ago it was normal to drink several big glasses of wine in the pub with girlfriends. And to drink in the week. Here in France it is rare for French women to drink more than one apéro and one small glass of wine on an evening out (and food is always involved). And rarely drinking in the week and never ever drinking alone. The drinking culture is completely different to the UK and therefore it is much easier not to go off the rails because it just isn't in the culture to drink a lot for French women. For men it isn't quite the same thing!

Within England it is getting a lot better imo. Still an issue in the Celtic nations (and, obviously, in lots of parts of England!).

This is fascinating and I think could work similarly here. www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/stories-41973296/how-one-country-persuaded-teens-to-give-up-drink-and-drugs

Yes I grew up in the north and have Scottish grandparents. I remember my grandma's disparaging comments about a parrtcular gathering being a "bit of a dry do" and family folklore includes a quote about being ready for Christmas "I've got whisky, gin and sherry for those that don't drink". It's funny until it's not

All my peers are massive drinkers. I think it’s a generational thing too. We’re in our 40s.
People say it was growing up in the ladette 90s but we drink more now than we did then.
It used to be a couple of pints in the pub, sometimes followed with a few vodkas. Wine was practically unheard of.

Indeed. When I was pg, I was positively excluded for not drinking by my Scottish relatives! There will obviously be a large part of Scottish people who will decry these experiences as unusual, but they certainly aren’t in my experience in many parts of Scotland, with many different groups of people.

I'm not sure London is that different. It's 8:30pm and I have already had a glass of wine at a playdate (ok 1.5) and a glass of mulled wine at the school fireworks display, neither of which were my own idea. On the other hand part of me feels like it's part of the human condition to seek something to take the edge off life.
The quid pro quo of consciousness. Generation sensible if that really exists do puzzle me from that perspective but perhaps they have much to teach me, like the french, though they have their own cultural demons imo. Perhaps switching the national drink from beer to wine was not a smart move without the culture to go with it. My mum has certainly got much worse since she did that. Beer is to a certain extent self limiting.

That’s an interesting thought. I’ve definitely soaked myself tonight (2/3 bottle wine) but am still optimistic for tomorrow!

I wonder if London is an oddity. Alcohol would never be offered at play dates or st school functions here in midlands.

Except the private schools!

My dd's school is a bit niche I guess. It's a state school but very middle class, though in an arty slightly bohemian way. I often feel like the poor relation as there's a lot of money rolling about, but also I am an oddity having a professional job and no rock n roll past. I'd probably miss it if we did move!