Struggling to quit

[anon105]

Long story short, I’ve been drinking about 4 bottles of wine per week.

Meaning that I’ll have 2 bottles on, say, Tuesday. Then I will have 2 bottles on Friday/Saturday.

Just because alcohol consumption is not daily for me, it is still alcohol dependency.

If anybody has any advice about how I can cut down gradually or even any experiences of going cold turkey and how you found it, I would appreciate it very much.

Thank you 💐

Hi OP,

I saw your post and wanted to offer some support. I was drinking everyday and it was ruining my life. I had tried to moderate and quit for many years but I don’t think I was ever in the right headspace to be successful. Then I read a book that changed my perspective - The Unexpected Joy of Being Sober by Catherine Gray. I read this in Dec 2019 and I’ve now been T total for 2.5 years. It’s not a magic book but it certainly helped me, I think reading lots helped me shift my mindset but this book was the most memorable of the ones I read. My life is the most simplest and content it’s ever been since I removed alcohol from my life

I am similar to you. 3-4 bottles over the course of Thursday to Sunday. No alcohol Mon to Wedns.

It is far too much and I have decided to quit for a while, maybe for good. On day 19 so far!

@Lula21 that is brilliant, well done.

Meant to add, if you decide to quit, come over to the Freedom thread. There are people at all stages of their AF journey posting there.

Thank you both so much for your replies and the recommendations.

Congratulations to both of you for staying sober x 💐

Thanks @LydiaLurk !

Good luck to you OP ❤️

Thanks @anon105 ! 💐

Hi OP I stopped drinking the day after Boxing Day. I read this naked mind by Annie grace thinking 'yeah right'. Not had a drink since and don't want one

This is so inspiring, thank you for sharing your story. It appears that these 2 book recommendations are really what helped both you and pp to just quit cold turkey. That’s incredible. You should be very proud of yourself. Thank you dearly 💐

I was drinking waaaaay more than that so if I can quit, believe me, you can! I was utterly physically and emotionally dependent. The thought of never drinking again...that crutch and need being taken away was terrifying and unthinkable. I had to hit rock bottom. For me it was a meeting with a local group, reading a tonne of quit lit, joining online support and taking it one hour at a time. I suddenly had a massive need for sugar which I allowed myself while I adjusted.

There is no (medical) need for you to cut down gradually. And in any case, this is far harder to do, because it means after one drink you have to make the decision (whilst not fully sober) about whether to have to the second, and so on. It is progressively harder to make good decisions.

I would just stop. You could set yourself a goal to have, say, three months off alcohol and then re-evaluate, if that feels less daunting than stopping forever. You can tell friends and family you are trying the One Year No Beer challenge.

The book that really helped me was Beat the Booze.

In order to stay off the booze:

• make sure you recognise your triggers. Is it the time of day, i.e. you're starting to cook dinner and you open a bottle? Is it location, i.e. you put your bag down when you get in from work and your brain goes 'wine'? Watch for those, anticipate them and make sure you have a strategy. Often if people can get through to 9pm without opening a bottle it then seems too close to bedtime


• keep your hands busy - this is a strategy to avoid opening a bottle. When I first stopped drinking I used to play Nintendo DS to keep my hands busy, then I rediscovered knitting


• plan ahead for difficult situations - works nights out, meals out in restaurants. Let people know beforehand you won't be drinking and be ready for people to try to pressure you into doing so. You may find some nights out just aren't worth it sober, and you can have a better time seeing people during the day for lunches or coffees


• tell people for accountability - you may not want to tell people you were worried you had an alcohol problem, but telling people you want to stop drinking and asking them to support that is really important. Trying to stop drinking in secret is much more likely to lead to you back sliding.

Hope that helps - as the other posters have said, there is support available on Mumsnet, you can get help from local or online groups. You don't have to do this alone but it is down to you to do it.

Abstinence is the only thing that works for me. Once I’m in the right frame of mind to decide that’s what I want, I plan a date to give up and how long for e.g. a couple of months, a year. I’m 6 months dry at the moment and was probably drinking similar amounts to you before, although on more than 2 days of the week! Abstinence helps you to think about the relationship of drinking to your life. Good luck with whatever you try.

Hi, well done for reaching out. I was drinking waaay more than you. I tried to stop many times last year, and read a lot of “quit lit”. Then I did Dry January: I used the Try Dry app, which counts your dry days and how much you drink when you do.

After Dry January I drank a few times, but I realised the main times I drank to excess were when I was tired, or angry or sad. So I did Sober Spring, which is 3 months alcohol free. I’m now 96 days sober.

I think the key thing is to work out what motivates you. If you’ve successfully dealt with something challenging in the past, how did you do it? For me, it’s reading up on the issue and measurable progress. For others, it may be being part of a community, so groups may be the way forward.

Unless you’re physically dependent on alcohol, stopping completely is much easier than trying to cut down. Strange but true!

Alcohol Explained by William Porter is another good book, and the first 5 chapters are available free on his excellent website
Alcohol Explained

Good luck. And as @LydiaLurk says, if you decide to go for it, the Freedom thread is very welcoming (and worth lurking on if you don’t feel ready to join!)

Hi well done for reaching out and taking these steps towards your goal of not drinking! I'm not going to lie it's been bloody hard but the first few days you should think hourly and before you know it the day has gone! Sleep might be off for you or it might not everyone is individual but you know in your heart you are giving your body the best by not drinking , you will reap the benefits like clearer skin, better sleep (eventually in my case!) , Better relationships, the whole lot. I'm pondering if this is for me but honestly I've been delivered bad news and stress these last few weeks and normally the drink to blot it out would have made everything worse but I can handle stuff a bit better now (not brilliantly but it's a step in the right direction!) I'm now I think 54 days so still early days but I'm going strong and determined. You might eat sugar a lot instead to replace it but at the start anything goes except the booze! What changed it for me is reading Clare pooleys book the sober diaries (sorry crap at linking anything I'll try tho)Hoping it will work.
And the support on the freedom group is amazing.

@anon105 I help highly-functioning people stop over drinking and in reading your post want to say that what you describe is utterly normal. My first tip would be to get really understand why/how/when you drink and what's going on that perpetuates it. Drinking is a symptom of what else is going on in your life. I have a podcast called '90 Days Later'. Episode 1 'Why we drink' and episode 3 'Desire' would be a good place to start.

You can do this.

I second the recommendation for 'The unexpected joy of being sober' - really life changing.

Alcohol free beers work for me. Me and DH both quit ‘for a year and see what happens’ at the start of 2022. There’s no good replacement for wine unfortunately but when we would normally reach for any booze we replace with either a smoothie, a fizzy drink, or a 0% beer.

I still sometimes crave the buzz of alcohol but oddly the anticipation of an alcoholic drink has just vanished. The idea of it is even a bit icky.

find your replacement and enjoy the clear head, you can do it!

Ask that the urge be removed. Just keep trying to quit. Quit by any means necessary then be rigorously honest in your life and think about others and how you can help meet their needs

I know this is an old thread but I wanted to say I listened to your podcast last week and haven’t had a single drop of booze since. Working on changing habits rather than relying on willpower. Thanks!

Meant to say brightspice

@GoddessofWar oh my that is sooooooo fantastic. It's quite made my day in fact 😀Go you!!!

@brightspice im working my way through the podcast but it’s great! So thank you