New Year, New Start. Probably dries and lows as we Tryers to be Dryers try 2019.

[Frouby]

New thread for the New Year.

Support thread for those who want to moderate and reduce alcohol. Absolutely no judgement, just advice and support. Absolutely everyone is welcome whatever your goals or hopes for 2019.

Am no good at clicky linke but there are previous threads and we look forward to continuing to moderate and reduce in 2019.

Especially today. 14 coming for 3 courses at 3pm and I have a raging hangover to start the year. Fml.

Anglaise you asked how I felt - I feel mentally more agile. Dh says it’s like I'm in 5th gear. I know I'm better at work. I’m funnier, sharper. Brighter, in every way. Definitely less anxious and calmer, more balanced.

I am not thinner although dh reckons I am. And my skin is shite. On the bright side my period arrived, albeit 20 days late so menopause here we come. Deep fucking joy.

Weapons grade sleep 🤣🤣🤣
I think that was the night my pillow smelled of weed. I might have to use that lavender spray again.

I love weapons grade sleep, water 🤣🤣🤣

Shrunken, 9lb 5 weight loss sounds pretty amazing.

Anglaise, I can't tell you how glad I am to read this.

In.a hurry, but just wanted to see how everyone is doing!

Time for me to join after lurking long time. Is that okay? I’ll bore you with a big (cathartic) post here then promise to keep it shorter from then on!

46, busy career, two primary age DC. I like wine. A lot. I like feeling a bit blurred round the edges. I don’t drink to oblivion. My mental health isn’t suffering. My relationships aren’t either. Nor is my career. I don’t get stupid, black out, have missed memories. I don’t dance on tables or make a tit of myself. I just like wine and I drink too much of it. I could easily do a bottle a night and 1.5 at the weekends. And still go to bed and read my book and feel fine the next day. I’ve done 3 dry jans and I found them to be purgatory. As I say, I just like it.

I’ve persuaded myself 9 units a day isn’t THAT bad. I have the ‘odd’ Tuesday or Thursday off. I’ve persuaded myself that lots and lots and lots of people, the majority, drink as I do and no one is dying or suffering. I’ve persuaded myself that all this ‘recommended units’ is just legislating for stupidity and really you can drink a fuck-ton more than that to do a thing.... besides, 3 dry jans and 2 pregnancies have given my liver a rest and regeneration and it’s probably all fine right? Wrong.....

I had a scan in January. For something else. But it included all the billiary and gastric system. The sonographer didn’t say much at the time but the GP recalled me. Turns out my LFTs are fine, but I have the start of a fatty liver, probably from alcohol as my diet is otherwise okay.

Well, that’s properly shit me up!!! It would appear that anyone drinking over 4 units a day, very regularly, will very probably have a fatty liver. It’s an almost certainty. The good news is that you stop drinking and MOST of the time it reverses itself. If you don’t, that fat easily becomes scarring (cirrhosis). My cholesterol levels were also high, and the GP said due to my good diet it’s only usually seen that high in people who drink a lot more than they should. And my blood sugars are up too - ditto.

So he needs to run more in depth testing in 4 months time and in the interim, I need to be on a low fat, much reduced alcohol lifestyle. I need to be under the recommended limit of 14 units a week, but how the fuck I’m actually going to do it is beyond me.

Since new year I’ve been abstaining mon-thurs and finding that hard. I’ve had wine fri, sat, and a bit on sun but totted up my units and that’s still probably nudging 30. I need to give my head a massive wobble. I should just stop altogether (dr didn’t suggest this but fatty liver is only either from diet or from alcohol, and I don’t need to have spent 5 years at medical school to work out which is me) but other evidence says you only need to totally abstain for a short while then keep within limits and the fat should have gone and moderation will mean it doesn’t build again.

My wider family use alcohol at the centre of every social engagement and gathering. They drink when they’re happy/sad/celebrating/anything. I don’t want to abstain. I don’t want to struggle either. I fucking hate feeling like this.

I don’t intend to stop but between now and May when I have the next tests, it has to come down. Massively. 3 bottles (27 units) at the weekend is a massive Improvement - before it was more like 60/70 units a week - but getting it from 27 odd down to 14 feels like a mammoth task to do and then sustain. I’m already chomping at the bit for
Friday and it’s only Tuesday.

And even though this isn’t new news (I’ve know since the start of last week) for some reason tonight I just want a bloody drink and I’m so fucking annoyed with wanting a drink and not being able to have one.

Shit, that was massive

Hi Alabaster - just rushing at the moment but you are very much not alone here. There's lots of us that could polish off a bottle of wine a night.
Is there anything else you like? Gin, beer, with lower units? Wine is just so flipping more-ish!! And it really racks up the units.

Alabaster- hey, you’re not alone. That’s why we are all here and all willing to hand hold each other. I drink near enough a bottle a night week nights and then deffo a bottle on weekend nights. I find it slips down tooooo easily!! As you said..I like it!! I bloody love it in fact!! I don’t get so pissed I forget, or mess things up..I too drink til I’m fuzzy and nice, then I stop and make a cuppa or two!!
I’m epileptic and my anticonvulsant meds mean I have regular lft’s done. One of the readings always comes back mega high!! Told only found in folk that drink and to reduce it if poss. So I reduce til the next text, get a near normal reading, then think ‘wahayyyyy I’m good to go!’ and start again!!
I’ve promised myself over and over that I can handle this shit. That I can do it!! Clearly I can’t!! Currently tho, I don’t even have that ‘you can do it voice’ in my head.
I’ve booked into slimming world on Saturday. First session in a bid to loose this two stone I’ve acquired through drinking. So....I WILL have to moderate and also have af days. I’m hoping that having a reason will help. Simply doing it for me isn’t good enough....I don’t love myself enough at the moment to do it for me. However doing it for the cowbag who sits behind the scales each week telling me my new weight obviously IS enough to kick arse!!

We can do this!!!!!

Hi NC4now

I can do gin. That’s pretty much it. I went through a faze of having beer years ago but let’s face it, the wine racks up the units because it’s the units that get you pissed. And it’s being pissed I like. That’s why I don’t replace the wine with becks blue or plain tonic or anything else in a fancy glass. I just can’t see the point....i’d rather just have squash. Well, I wouldn’t ‘rather’ I’d ‘rather’ have wine, but you know what I mean!

I just need to stick rigidly to mon-thurs and really reduce the sat-sun bit too. I just feel like it’s a monumental task. And I could do it for a week, maybe two, but forever? What do you do when you don’t want to do it forever? I feel like this is being enforced and that’s what’s so hard. If I wanted to stop, maybe it would be easier.

I agree alabaster. It’s the head/heart situation. Loving it makes it so much harder

Hi Alabaster, I can easily drink a bottle of wine. Or two. And still be lucid, not even pissed. And be fine at work the next day.

I bet if I had the tests you've had my liver would be the same. Bound to be. It scares me.

My aim from Feb is no alcohol in the week and a bottle on Friday (or just under, ideally) and the same on Saturday and that’s it. But I’m not sure whether I can do it. I may try lower alcohol wine.

I love wine too. You are not alone. Welcome!

Welcome! I think what you have posted will resonate with a lot of us. I did 20 days of dry Jan and it was rubbish, like you say, and I was willing it to be over. I have no particular reason to want to drink less other than health. I have never behaved badly when drunk and I don't really get the anxiety others have talked about. I am trying to have as many AF nights as poss but a minimum of two, and to stick to one bottle between me and DH on any one day.

I’m on day 28 AF today though.

I haven't minded dry January really, other than about 4/5 times when I’ve really craved wine. But it is SO easy to get into a habit of drinking every night. And so easy to drink a bottle.

I might try listening to Ailsa Frank again in Feb. I’m not working after this week so that will be a challenge for sure.

Thank you all for being so kind. I think when you feel that no one else gets it, it’s even harder.

I’m sure everyone has a witching hour (as we used to call it on the dry Jan threads) and I know during mine I am evil. But then to be honest I was evil most of dry Jan. And when feb came around nothing was reset, I just went back to exactly the same routine.

For years my ‘go’ was 6.40pm. Kids were teeny tiny and DH would come in at 6.30 and ‘take them off my hands’.... play for a bit then do baths while I cooked. Wine+cooking+peace. My idea of perfect. Then DC got older, routines changed. ‘Go’ is now 4.20. I mean - FFS!!! How is that okay?

water you’ve done 28 days and (without wanting to encourage you) the liver trust says that period of time will have removed alcoholic fat from your liver and it’ll stay away if you only now drink 14 units a week. 14 units. I could bloody INHALE 14 units by 6pm given half a chance. However your longer term plan seems to match mine. Fingers crossed.

Flossie I need to loose a stone but I’ve dare not do any fixed diet plan as being told ‘you cant’ have x/y makes me nasty. I did weight watchers years ago and before I measured any food for the day I would pour 500ml of wine and put that in a jug, then see what was left for food. Yes, I was that bad. I think you’re fab for doing it and admire your determination I wish I had some!

DD has told me something so awful that I am not dry. Can't read for tears, either. But will try tomorrow.

Hi Alabaster. You sound v like me and others on here. I bloody love wine too and was drinking around 60 units a week when I first posted on here 3 weeks ago. I’ve been doing 3 AF nights a week but still doing a bottle of wine a night plus a couple of gins at weekends. Managed to reduce to around 35/37 units - still too much but better.

I didn’t realise that you can have a fatty liver without it affecting LFT’s. I’ve had a few LFT’s over the last few years when I’ve had a few health panics and Dr has done them to shut me up. I’ve always felt very reassured when they’ve come back normal and then used that as a green light to carry on drinking .

Dion lovely, are you ok? I mean, obviously not, but do you want to talk about it? X

Oh no Dionysa, that’s not good . Hope you and her are ok. We are here if you need to offload. Sending a hug.

Dion . Hope you and dd are ok lovely we are here for you.

Albaster most of us are in the same place as you. Or have been there. I could easily do a bottle a night. Or 5/6 cans. Or 3 or 4 gins. I am currently concentrating on moderation and very slowly I have come down to half a bottle of wine and a couple of bottle of beer on a fri/sat. And 3 or 4 drinks another night. And dry 3 or 4 nights.

What's helped me is splitting the 3 or 4 nights in half. Dry sunday and Monday, wet Tues then dry Wed and thur is much more manageable for me than 4 dry days in a row.

I did try dry 5 days a week but found I wasn't moderating at all on the 2 wet days amd drinking the same units fri and sat as what I would normally do mon to sun.

Everyone has to find their own way. Af beer has helped me, as has nice soft drinks.

Having said that I have had 4 bottles of beer tonight, won't sleep properly and will feel rough tomorrow. I was having 3 and stopping but went for the 4th because the brexit votes bollocks is fucking annoying me. What a pompous, archaic way to conduct the business of running the country.

Frouby I know! I work on this shite and still have no bloody idea what is going on. Except that it's not good and the pound is crashing and our futures are looking grim.

Sorry dion I hope you are okay.

can the first thing I said to the GP was ‘but my LFT was clear?’ And he said it’s not relevant. You can have advanced liver disease and normal tests. That’s because the poor old liver will keep limping on right until it gets beyond the point of return. You need a more specialised blood test called a ELF score which looks for fibrosis within the liver. And a scan (either a normal ultrasound as I had, or a HIDA scan) only those things will show fat on the liver. Sorry.

Dionysa, I'm sorry, poor you and dd. 💐

If it’s self harming, suicidal thoughts, sexting or bitchy teenagers I have experience, sadly, so let me know if I can help. Not that I’m an expert, not at all. Just been there.

And 😡 at the wankbastards fucking up fucking Brexit, I’m with you on that

Dion sending love to you. I’m so sorry, whatever it is and just to echo water, we’re here for you.
I have experience of some pretty difficult teenage things too, if we can help at all, or just listen.

Thank you, all, for your kindness. I am so not dry, and feel like a failure on top of everything else. But I really do appreciate it.

Well if you’re a failure, shuffle up and let me join you on the bench. I’ve just nipped to the spar for a bottle of rose.
Work woes here have left me absolutely fuming. I’m cranked up to 11.
Hoping to inch back to a nine in time to tackle it calmly in the morning.