Anyone want to join me for 30 day Annie Grace no alcohol experiment starting 1st November ?

[easterdaffsx]

Just that really .
I'm really going to have a good go at this and I'm scared .
The thought of 30 days AF terrifies me and that's why I know I need to do it.
Trying to balance a v stress job/ 12- 14 hours a day/long commute/ children and a a fabulous relationship which I'm currently putting pressure on with my drinking .
Anyone want to hand hold or do this with me pls would be great ?

I've just got into bed and thought I'd come and check in. I've had such a busy day that I haven't even looked at the email about TAE but I haven't really thought about drinking either so that's a good thing. Day 1 done, guess we all have to start somewhere! I've been pretty productive this evening as well and started a work project I'd been putting off for the last few weeks so feel much less stressed that I've made a start and have a better idea now what is involved with it. Normally evenings are written off for me once I open a bottle of wine, so I'm feeling pretty happy with what I have achieved.

Hope everyone is doing well, whatever day you're on.

Lovely positive threads here. Day 1 done and dusted and here's to day 2. Tbh day 1 wasn't going to pose a massive challenge to me as I've recently succeeded in not drinking through the week ( it was always a big problem for me and was getting out of control). The weekend will be my challenge but I'll cross that bridge when I get to it. @easterdaffsx it's a great feeling when you're feeling present isn't it? Being af has so many benefits. I actually met friends during summer and didn't drink, and I felt more present with them instead of wondering where my next drink was. @confusedlots, brill that you tackled the work project - it's now no longer hanging over you.
Day 2 folks.

Day 2 done for me. It’s been absolutely fine as I’d cut down previously during the week and wasn’t pouring a drink before 7pm and usually in bed before nine on work nights, so realistically it’s only a couple of hours but I think I’ll also be finding weekends difficult. Hopefully we can all give each other moral support :)

Day 2 on the app there’s a link to a TED talk by a Brene Brown on vulnerability. She said something about how we drink to mask pain but it also subdues joy. It really struck a chord.

@IJustLovePirates, thanks for that. I'll try to watch later, it sounds interesting.

Hey all, I am in! I started yesterday too on the app, done a few stints of AF for a few months at a time before and felt great, fell off the wagon lately and want to get back to hanxiety free living! Weekdays not a challenge for me but social events will definitely be trickier, good luck to us all this month!

Day 2 almost done ✅
2 days longer than I've abstained in what feels like forever .
I did feel a bit anxious that I would withdraw after a bottle of wine a night for so many years but so far nothing .
Drinking plenty of tea nd sparkling water.
Am I likely to get physical symptoms ?
I did wake up at 4 am amd couldn't get back off but still got up feeling better than usual and without a heavy head .
My dp to support me is doing this too and I think he's finding it more difficult than me so really grateful he's in too .

Great reading everyone's stories which are inspiring and helpful at the same time thank you and stay safe everyone .

Well I woke up again but at 2.30 this time and just couldn't sleep . Was also a bit clammy .
Will just continue to get early nights and not expect too much of myself for the next week I think .

Thanks so much @easterdaffsx for starting this thread. I bought the book months ago, but felt sort of defeated at trying to start as my partner drinks every night and then when I saw your post I was inspired to give it a go. I talked to my partner and although he's not going to do it with me, he HAS had two alcohol free nights, which is HUGE!

Looking at Day 4 now and feeling fine, but the weekend might be a bit more challenging.

Hope everyone is going well :)

I am loving how productive I have been over the past few days. The evening is generally a write off after I pour my first glass of wine, but without wine I have so much more time!

I can't seem to get rid of that little voice in my head that's saying I deserve a glass of wine now that I have got so much done. Crazy! It's easy to overcome that feeling at the minute as I'm determined to show myself I can stay off the alcohol for now, but I'm not sure how long that will last.

Day 3 ✔
I did have a slight craving but I've learnt that just because I have a craving ( a thought, really), I don't have to act on it.
How are we all doing?

In bed at the end of day 4. I think my skin is looking better already :)

Thanks for the welcome @Amdone123.

Day 5, and the hardest bit now… watching someone else quaffing wine over the weekend (he’s abstained this week so far - would usually drink moderately on Wed, Thurs, and sometime Tues). I would usually drink (less moderately!) every day except Monday, but hadn’t even always had Mondays off just lately.

I’ve hugely struggled this week, not so much with not drinking - I’ve felt pretty resolute about that - but with paralysing anxiety and generally feeling low and hopeless. Clocks going back doesn’t help at all; my witching hour is 5pm til I eat (I’m an early eater), so my way of not drinking too much is to eat early enough that I’ve only got time for a glass or two. Normally that would be 6pm… which is now 5pm!

Longer term, I need to find something to get me through that danger period each day. My will is strong(ish) in the first half of the day, then that little wheedling voice in my head starts on me in the afternoon, getting louder and more insistent until I’m hungry and weak willed at 5pm and give in. If I can make it through to dinner, I’ve got no urge to drink after that and feel relieved I didn’t. Isn’t it ridiculous - all that wasted energy for a two hour period at most!

@PromisesMeanNothingSue, morning and well done on Day 5. I'm in the same predicament regarding weekend. My dsis is having us for Sunday lunch - the whole family. She had a windfall so has insisted on buying my wine ! Normally I would take af drinks and no one would really notice. I'm going to have to think about this one! I feel for anyone trying to abstain when partner drinks. I can't have it in the house the same way my dsis can't have chocolate I the house. My dh doesn't drink much. He certainly wouldn't buy it unless I asked him.
Sorry to hear about your anxiety. Do you have help / medication for it? Your will and determination sound strong. I hate these cold days and nights, they make me feel low. I have to motivate myself everyday to stay positive.
The wine witch is a cow isn't she? The number of arguments I have with her on a daily basis is ridiculous. If she were a real person I would have kicked her out of my life a longggg time ago.
Do you have any ideas to get you through the daily danger period?

I haven’t looked at the Naked Mind book or the app yet (I have to say I was slightly put off after signing up by the hard sell emails and North American flavour to them ) but I have been listening to the audio reading of Drink: the science of alcohol by David Nutt. That makes so much sense to me, and I’ve been listening on earphones every night, to the point where I can hear it in my dreams! I’ll share, actually, as it was quite telling….

So in my dream, I was in room full of people trying to sleep, and I was lying there listening to the book on my earphones as I waited for sleep. The audio of the book was really loud, though, and I was worried about disturbing the person next to me with tinny sound-bleed. I kept trying to turn it down on the headset, but it made no difference. I took out the earphones and could still hear it just as clearly, so I was panicking that I was disturbing everyone in this room, and that they’d all know what I was listening to and that I must be an alcoholic! I was so relieved to wake up and realise that it was because I was listening to it in my sleep.

Lots of shame and guilt in there, I think!

I think strange dreams are normal when you're trying to abstain. The number of times I've woken up panicking.
I'll listen to that audio tonight thanks.

Thanks @Amdone123, yes I’m on a shedloads of meds, which I know would probably work a great deal better if I weren’t sabotaging myself by drinking so much! I’ve struggled with depression and anxiety since my teens (late 40s now), and I’m ashamed to admit that I’ve never had a lengthy period (more than a few weeks, in fact) where I haven’t been either drinking regularly or imbibing other substances (in my younger days). I’m the daughter of a depressive alcoholic father, so I learned how to drown my feelings early - not that it’s been a very successful approach!

I have a van that I go away in, and when I’m away I don’t have the urge to drink. It’s when I’m at home and all the triggers are there. I think identifying those triggers and finding alternatives/mitigations is the answer; easier said than done, though.

For me the triggers are stress and anxiety (= wine will make me feel better)… so combine work stress and wanting relief from anxiety with being hungry, and my will dissolves.

I need to remember that
a) the relief lasts only an hour or two at the most, and then I feel disappointed with myself.
b) one glass is rarely enough, especially if I drink white wine, which is my absolute weakness; I’m hungry and it’s cold, so it just slips down so fast that I’ve drunk half a bottle or more before I know it, and that’s before dinner.
c) that will affect my sleep quality, which means I’ll feel less capable tomorrow. And so on, and so on!

So basically, I’m always borrowing from tomorrow to feel temporarily better today. It’s a bit silly, really.

Re your sister hosting lunch… that’s a really tricky one - I know I absolutely can’t do social occasions without boozing, so I’ll be avoiding them for the foreseeable. Do you not feel that you can tell her you’re doing a sober November? In that case, could you have a dental issue that’s required Metronidazole or Doxycycline antibiotics (you can’t drink with those)?

I’ve got a work do next week; a meal in a restaurant. I’m dreading it, but I’m just going to treat it as an extension of work and be relieved that I’m not going to make a tit of myself by drinking - I’m very unfiltered when I drink, and they only know the work me, not the real me.

Yes, regarding the points you want to remember, I have been doing all 3 in my recent attempt to stop. Funny how they're exactly the same! The relief is temporary ( I've come to realise that it's the anticipation, the buying of it, the storing it that is more exciting than the actual bloody drinking of it!), the dreadful sleep I'll have and the dreaded hangover stops me and, of course, I know I can't have one ( one being too many and a thousand not enough).
I could tell my dsis that I'm doing November af but she would just laugh ! She's a darling and my favourite person but knows me too well ! She would just say have a day off and enjoy yourself. I'm on another thread on here about moderating. I can moderate really ( I tell myself I can't but I can!) ; so I'm thinking I'll just take it easy and make sure I eat. Thank you for your suggestion though ; I'll definitely use that when I meet with friends , ex colleagues. I'm ok not drinking with them, like you I prefer it as I usually end up legless and stranded in town. I'll just eat. But they still harass me, so I'll say I'm on medication.

@Amdone123 I want to be the person who can just have a glass or two of red at the weekend, especially as I live with a wine obsessive; he loves researching, buying and drinking good wine (and port, madeira, etc). I’ve known for years that if I could cut out the white wine and stick to red, I’d be a moderate(ish!) drinker.

But I’ve been trying to do that for years, and failing abjectly. So I keep coming back to the thought that I need to stop completely. Yet I can’t quite bring myself to do that… and so the cycle goes on and on.

Phew
Well was fearing this evening the most but managed to stay AF .
Had a couple of AF beers and they were really nice !
Hope everyone is doing well.
Be kind to yourself and hope all having a not too difficult evening .

How did everyone manage with Friday night? It was pretty easy for me as I'm working today doing quite technical work so I knew there would be a big risk if I opened a bottle of wine and drank more than I intended. I was also really tired so just got into bed early. Still no wine in the house which helps. Tonight will be the bigger test. I know I'll feel like I 'deserve' some wine tonight after a long day working on a Saturday. Which makes no sense when I feel so good today after being off alcohol all week.

It definitely helps to keep checking in here.

This was my first really challenging night. We went out and the drink was beyond flowing at dinner and in the pub after. I managed the dinner fine and it was great because the people out only ordered white wine and I drink red so I wasn’t bothered but in the pub I felt I needed something other than a fizzy drink so I ordered one bottle of Heineken zero and that worked perfectly for me while the others must have had 4-5 pints. I’m lying here beside DH who is going to wake with a monstrous hang over and I’m feeling great. We have people over staying tonight too so the weekend challenge isn’t over yet but I’m actually well chuffed.

Hi everyone, happy non-hungover Saturday morning 😁 how are you all doing? I had a night away with a friend during the week and stayed off the wine and genuinely had a much better night for it and of course no 3 day hangover to deal with :) at home not really a trigger for me so I should be ok but just psyching myself up for first post covid city break with OH next weekend which would normally be boozy so that will certainly challenge me!

How are you finding TAE app? I think it's great, I love Anne Grace and her podcasts and how she goes into the neuroscience of things like cravings, it really helps to understand what's going on and resist I think. The day three video where she explained about blood alcohol content rising after the first drink and giving you that 20 minute high which you then come crashing down from and Can't even really replicate by continuing to drink was really impactful. Like why cause all these bad effects of drinking that can last for days for JUST 20 minutes

God I love waking up without the effects of drinking. It is really fantastic.