Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Alcohol support

Mumsnet doesn't verify the qualifications of users. If you have medical concerns, please consult a healthcare professional.

how to quit drinking when I love wine?

40 replies

overdrawn · 14/09/2023 17:18

I've been drinking too much lately, and I don't like how it's making me feel (or not really remembering things the next morning, and recalling other conversations with a sense of dread!) I want to quit (or at least dramatically cut down) drinking – starting with no alcohol for a month and taking it from there. The trouble is that I really do love the wine world. We have a large wine fridge at home and a fairly substantial wine collection, and it's a world that I feel really engaged with. I want to be able to drink wine I love but not get drunk (if that makes any sense?!) Has anyone else felt the same? How did you cope with it?

OP posts:
Mushroo · 14/09/2023 17:54

Following as I could happily give up all alcohol but wine.

There’s just something lovely about a nice bottle with dinner.

Could you limit yourself to say, a bottle a week? Also only drink when you’ll enjoy it - no crappy pub white wine for the sake of it when socialising.

overdrawn · 14/09/2023 18:00

@Mushroo Thanks for replying! I just have such bad self control when it comes to wine... I will open a bottle for "one glass" and drink the entire bottle... I went out to the cinema last night and wasn't planning to drink, and ended up drinking more than a bottle of wine and then moved onto gin. I think I'm coming to the understanding that alcohol and I don't really get on, but I'm sad to think about giving up wine and it makes it so much harder to think about! I think I'm going to try to do a month (or should I start with two weeks?!) completely sober and then I like the idea of limiting myself to see if that would work.

OP posts:
LimeCheesecake · 14/09/2023 18:03

If it’s more cutting down, could you only drink wine with food, not a glass before dinner and polish off the bottle afterwards, save it for another meal. Perhaps restrict to only at the weekend? See how you feel after that.

Weefreetiffany · 14/09/2023 18:07

You need to address what makes you over drink rather than just enjoy one glass. Otherwise you’ll be miserable and beating yourself up for not being able to moderate yourself when it’s actually out of your hands. Unlimited appetites are usually compensating for past trauma or emotional neglect. It’s very freeing to be able to just have one glass, or one square of chocolate, or an actual portion of crisps and feel like you got what you need and don’t need to consume beyond your limits. Good luck x

user14699084658 · 14/09/2023 18:12

I could have written your post at the beginning of this year.
There wasn’t any big flash of enlightenment or anything, but it dawned on me I didn’t want to be the slightly tipsy one at every event, or to be sat in front of TV making my way through a bottle most nights…I bought a bottle of McGuigan Zero Sauvignon Blanc, just to see. Found I quite liked it, and haven’t drunk booze since. I can’t be the only one that likes it, as its often out of stock in the supermarket!
DH has also switched to zero booze - he says the zero Guinness is particularly good!
Maybe terrible advice for some - but it’s worked for this household!

Onewildandpreciouslife · 14/09/2023 18:55

I recommend doing some reading about the effect alcohol has on your brain. If you want to try a break from drinking, try reading the Alcohol Experiment by Annie Grace - it talks you through a 30 day break from alcohol and questions some of the assumptions we have about alcohol.

The thing is, if you were really just drinking for the love of wine, you would savour one or two glasses with a meal, then stop. But that’s not the way alcohol works

Alcohol Lied to Me by Craig Beck is also very good but is a more challenging read!

2023forme · 14/09/2023 20:55

Maybe do sober October and join a group doing it for accountability/encouragement- also helps with explaining why you are not drinking if you’re not ready to share your feelings about drinking too much with others.

TooOldForThisNonsense · 14/09/2023 23:33

I thought I’d be the same as I loved wine. But now I am 2 years sober I don’t think I really did, it was the addiction. I mean I love crisps and Mars bars but I couldn’t consume them the way I did wine. Once I stopped I just lost the desire to drink and that was that. Now I think the whole wine community, pairing with food, tasting etc is a pile of old wank. 🤣

overdrawn · 15/09/2023 15:02

@TooOldForThisNonsense haha I kind of love all the wine wank 😂but it is a really interesting point about loving something but not going overboard on it. I love eating one or two squares of chocolate, but I would never sit down and eat two blocks of chocolate – it would make me feel sick. Yet, I regularly enjoy one or two glasses of wine, then drink two bottles even though it makes me feel ill. It's actually a really helpful way to think about it! I'm on day two of no drinking today. I tried an alcohol free beer, which was actually nice!

OP posts:
Tulpenkavalier · 15/09/2023 15:07
Lottapianos · 15/09/2023 15:07

I hear you OP. I really enjoy alcohol, and matching drinks with food and that sort of thing. Sadly it doesn't love me very much any more, and I cannot be doing with hangovers so I have cut way down. I very rarely have more than 2 drinks in one sitting and only drink once or twice a week

I'm currently doing a dry September and really enjoying it. I highly recommend a month off the booze. 6 or 8 weeks would be even better. Having a break can really reset your relationship with alcohol and you may find it easier to moderate if / when you start drinking again

ICanSeeMyHouseFromHere · 15/09/2023 15:07

My trouble is similar - if a bottle's open, I'll finish it. If there's wine in the house, I'll drink it. If it's not in the house I'll not go out and get it, but if I'm in the supermarket I'll buy some.

My techniques are - go to supermarket before they sell booze, so I can't buy it, and avoid supermarkets other times (I live in the middle of no-where, so this isn't difficult)

Never let myself buy more than one bottle at a time.

I wouldn't think of myself as an alcoholic - I don't wake up gagging for a glass, but I have absolutely no self control, and that comes and bites me.

I've reduced from having booze most nights, to a couple of times a week with this technique, no more than 2 bottles of wine a week, and sometimes only 1.

And I realise that this would make many people still be shocked, but, in the circles I move in, this is basically nothing.

joan12 · 15/09/2023 15:21

I also stock up on McGuigan Zero and another alcohol free wine they have in Waitrose called natureo or something like that.

The next part will horrify you if you are a proper wine lover....

I pour an exact measure of one medium glass (175ml) and mix it with the alcohol free wine -- either half the measure or thirds. So I get a bit of a proper wine taste and feel but can't physically drink more than that.

It has worked brilliantly and has broken the cycle for me. Some times I have nothing, sometimes that mix, sometimes just alcohol free.

overdrawn · 15/09/2023 15:34

@joan12 haha the mixing does slightly horrify me! 😂But that's great that it works! Maybe after I've had a month or two off to reset (as @ICanSeeMyHouseFromHere suggested) I might buy some alcohol free wine and give it a go – I'm thinking I could have a glass of actual wine and then move onto the alcohol free if, for example, we have people over (which is often when I just drink stupid amounts!) as it would make me still feel like I was joining in?

OP posts:
joan12 · 15/09/2023 15:37

If you can stop yourself after one glass of proper wine? I just can't, otherwise that would be a great solution. One thing is that doing it this way means I have low tolerance for alcohol now so even a couple of glasses affect me much more than they used to. Good luck.

overdrawn · 15/09/2023 15:55

@joan12 I think that could be the problem... once the bottle is open, I don't want to "waste" it. I'm definitely getting ahead of myself anyway... first step is to prove to myself that I can just not drink. I'm about to head out to meet friends and I'm quite nervous... wish me luck!

OP posts:
Coyoacan · 15/09/2023 16:18

I gave up alcohol six years ago but even before that I couldn't drink much wine because it lowers my blood pressure and I ended depressed the next day.

But I deal with missing stuff by saying that I have my memories (and my healthy liver)

joan12 · 15/09/2023 16:36

Good luck!

overdrawn · 16/09/2023 23:38

I’ve gone Friday and Saturday night sober for the first time I can remember in about 10 years!! I even went to the pub for a work function on Friday (drank alcohol free G&Ts).

OP posts:
HangingOver · 16/09/2023 23:41

will open a bottle for "one glass" and drink the entire bottle... I went out to the cinema last night and wasn't planning to drink, and ended up drinking more than a bottle of wine and then moved onto gin

I don't think this is about "loving wine". This is an addictive substance doing what it does.

HangingOver · 16/09/2023 23:42

I mean I love diet coke but I wouldn't drink seven of them in an evening. yes I'm in recovery so I have skin in the game

FunnysInLaJardin · 16/09/2023 23:42

I hear you! I drink wine out of very small glasses. I have 2 100ml glasses with dinner and then 2 half glasses mixed with alc free wine after dinner.

I feel like I have had 2 large glasses but actually have had less than that. More like one very large glass but spread out

overdrawn · 17/09/2023 00:11

HangingOver · 16/09/2023 23:41

will open a bottle for "one glass" and drink the entire bottle... I went out to the cinema last night and wasn't planning to drink, and ended up drinking more than a bottle of wine and then moved onto gin

I don't think this is about "loving wine". This is an addictive substance doing what it does.

I totally agree with these examples and I want to stop doing this! The OP was more about how I actually love doing say matching wines, or drinking really nice wine, or going to a wine tasting - but I think my general consumption of alcohol has gotten to the point where I need to just stop all of it!

OP posts:
continentallentil · 17/09/2023 00:27

A few years ago a I remember this journo writing about reducing her dependence on wine without quitting

www.marieclaire.co.uk/life/toxic-wine-habit-alcohol-678908

Sillymummies123 · 17/09/2023 18:30

Perhaps try reading some of the recommended quitlit? Alcohol works by creating associative and chemical dependence, and honestly I think the former is the hardest to break. I don't think I would have quit without having a light shone on the mind tricks alcohol and alcohol marketing plays, and looking at some existing beliefs around alcohol and then examining the reality helped.

Unfortunately, until the world of alcohol free wine takes off to the same level of wank as standard wine, you'll need to literally just work out a way to let go of that world.

FWIW, I consider myself successfully alcohol free these days, used to spend hundreds on wine to drink at home - expensive bottles (i think i once bought a white for 100 around christmas and guzzled it down as bottle 3 of the night), but had a nice glass of dealcoholised red the other day. It takes pretty much like wine. I didn't, however, see the value of having more than one. Funny isn't it? I've had to let go. I've had to really examine alcohol in all its guises and ask myself why I want wine - and its about 90% marketing of wine. Like - I think my brain actually thinks wine is healthy (which is definitely isn't- see the awful myth that a glass of red a day keeps the doctor away).

It's a very addictive drug - the brain creates a million ways to justify the addiction (I like the world, the whole wine culture), which is helped in this case by a wonderfully successful marketing campaign on the wine indudstries part over who knows how many centuries.

But short answer - you can't love wine, want to remain a part of that world, have a wine cellar, drink wine, and be sober.

My personal belief is that once at the level of drinking and social dependence on something like wine reaches what you describe, any moderation is doomed to be temporary - whether days, weeks, months or years - so I won't advise on that front. Others might (though I'd be wary whether they're on year 3/4 of moderating, and about to lose a parent / get fired / get ill and up their drinking)