No benefits when stopping alcohol

[Gem2J]

Hi Everyone
I hope you are all well.
For 5 years now i have drunk 4 pints of beer a night. I really don't want to do this and would prefer to stop drinking all together.
I am not as addicted as I thought I was, because my new years resolution was to slowly cut down. I have my four pints once every other day:) and I find it easy.
But now I have decided to go back to my 4 pints a night, because for me the benefits of drinking alcohol every night far outweigh the negatives.
And please don't read this if you are suffering from alcohol dependence, cause i do not want to encourage anyone, because alcohol is bad.
I am just writing this cause just want to make sense of it all, and get your thoughts?
I am very weight conscious. and work hard for my slim figure, and i am not willing to put on weight, no matter what the cost to my health. I have been overweight before and it ruined my life and self esteem.
So anyway you might think that if i cut down alcohol i will lose weight, but i have gained weight! And i am not eating pizzas and chocolate, on my days of not drinking alcohol i eat chicken, lots of veg and for desert I have an orange. But I eat until I am satisfied.
On my beer days i have 4 pints and a potato.
So really i can't cope with the weight gain and have decided to go back on the beer.
Also to buy all this healthy meals like chicken, veg and fruit it costs me double! and i am already on the verge of food bank and so it is cheaper to buy 4 pints of beer and a potato from Morrisons, and i would rather have that extra money to feed my kids.
I am never violent when I drink and it does not affect my day to day life, I work full time. But now after being made redundant I have found a new job that requires me to be awake at 5am for a 6am start. I suffer from insomnia and if i wasn't on the booze I don't go to sleep till 8am. And even if i take sleeping pills and drink no alcohol I still feel rough the next day.
Also i am a very LAZY person by nature. not working but at home. I have always been like this and on the days when I didn't drink alcohol well the house would be trash, alcohol enables me to keep on top of housework and pursue my online business dreams. If I stopped then i would be in bed 24/7 and a fat lazy slob
But I don't know how this is right, surely i should stop alcohol for my health? but I honestly don't see any benefits

She does have two children

I’m not sure why you have bothered to post, OP. You have obviously made up your mind about the 4 pints+potato routine! Just don’t expect your liver to like it!

OP, please start taking a multivitamin with folate to protect your brain from alcohol-related dementia. It's really important.

I would imagine that drinking that quantity of alcohol long term will have impacted your metabolism in some way, and what you are craving when you don't drink is linked to your body's dependence one the beer. If you gave yourself and your body a chance to settle and reset you would I'm sure find this eases. Can you take some time off work while you allow yourself a chance to stop drinking without the pressure of your job and having to get up? It cannot possibly be healthy to live like this. 4 pints of beer is a lot of alcohol. Have you spoken to your GP frankly and honestly about this? I think there is a lot going on here with your mental and physical health and really feel you could do with some support.

You sound exactly like my mother. Very very similar "diet"

She's 70 now and on her own. Refuses any idea that she could possibly be an alcoholic!

We can't invite her anywhere as we can't trust her. The had almost no relationship with her children or grandchildren.

Make the change now. Don't be that lonely miserable old drunk.

Well I reckon her daily calorie intake will be about 1100. 800 calories from beer and will say 300 for a potato. So well below what her TDEE probably is. Obviously any butter or cheese on the potato will add on. But honestly this sounds better than a cabbage soup diet, maybe the nhs should promote it 😆

seriously OP, the reason you’re not black out drunk every night is because you’re an alcoholic. I would be unconscious if I drank 4 pints. You are used to it so it affects you less. However you could still be over the limit if driving the next day. That happened to someone in my village. She regularly drank every night, would stop at midnight, go to bed and get up for work. One day she ran a kid over outside the school and was over the drink drive limit,

I have also seen people with your long term level of alcohol consumption die in hospital from liver cirrhosis. By the time they realised it was so serious they’d fucked their liver up it was too late, the damage was irreversible.

ultimately I can’t fathom how you think drinking 800 empty calories a day is helping you stay slim. I hope you take a vit c tablet so you don’t get scurvy.

10 years?! Try 30, minimum

Yep, if this is true it’s a real advert for sterilising some sections of the population.

I feel like this is trolling but in case it isn’t: you have an alcohol addiction and an eating disorder. You lasted a few days before making up excuses to go back on it.

Looking healthy means nothing on the surface. My ex died in his early 50s and I’ve never seen him drink in the 10 years I was with him. It still came back to bite him. He didn’t have a beer gut or anything, he just looked normal and went into the hospital for something unrelated, came out with a year prognosis.

You would notice a vast difference in your mental state, emotions, weight and skin over a longer course than 8 days. That's not really long enough to measure anything. At least try a month!

No parent is perfect and i would rather my kid go to a counsellor and say mummy drinks but she says she loves me every day, she takes me on holiday and she give me 10k in savings, she supports and encourages me, rather than what i had to go through or my dad had to go through with his parents beating the shit out of him every day!

you do realise those aren’t the only two options?

how about you rather your kid doesn’t need a counsellor at all for a start?

The weight gain is probably water. Alcohol is dehydrating. You need to give it a month or so to see the real effects of stopping/cutting down.

It sounds like you do actually have alcohol dependance as you cant sleep, overeat etc without it? I remember quitting smoking after 10 years of smoking a pack a day and ut was tough. You need to find replacement mechanisms for it but don't lie to yourself. I have started running back then, I would somehow manage until about 3 pm and then struggle till about 5pm and go for a run. After that I didn't want to smoke or eat doughnuts etc. I lost loads of weight back then and its been 15 tears since and I am not smoking. I think you just reached a first barrier to stopping drinking, now just need to find some alternatives to your behavior that work. Maybe intermittent fasting on days that you don't drink or youtube exercise etc. You know drinking is not good for you so don't give up now.

You are addicted, the proof is in how much you’re thinking about this and 8 days is NOT long enough to feel the benefits esp as you aren’t stopping just cutting down.
do yourself a massive favour and go 30 days AF and then re-assess.

Cutting back and finding that life feels bad is the definition of addiction. Keep going, it will get worse, until about two/four weeks of not having any alcohol at all. Then it will stay hard as you navigate little stresses like housework and bigger stresses like bad days without alcohol. After 100 days sober you’ll start to see the benefits: you will be sleeping better, be more present with those around you, have more energy, free from doing something that harm your long term health, thinking far more clearly and you will work out how to manage your weight over time. I feel like the weight is an excuse you’re clutching onto because of the addiction. There’s podcasts etc out there, and aa also. Good luck.

Book to see your GP and tell them about your diet. Get your liver functions checked while you're there too.

Maybe your kids don't drink and smoke because they don't want to end up like you? They see you drinking every single night and don't want to go down that road.
How you perceive yourself could be completely different in how others see you.

I get it OP.
A year ago I was drinking two large wines a night... which took me wayyyy over the recommended limits. I was also slim and obsessive about it. I also needed the wine to sleep.
I gave up for Dry January...knowing I really should, hated it but did it. Did not sleep... the insomnia was awful.
I went back on the wine, but tried to keep it to one glass, until the summer when I developed horrific gastritis....from the alcohol.
I stopped.
I've now been pretty much teetotal for 7 months.. had the occasional small glass.
At first my weight went up a little because I substituted crisps for wine! But it leveled and I'm exactly the same weight as I was before, but without the alcohol.
The insomnia was awful at first, and I still have bad nights sometimes but it has improved.
Yours will too.
You ARE a functioning alcoholic... just as I was. I never got drunk, never missed wor, never drove with a glass inside me... but I was mentally dependent on it. Now I'm not and it is freeing.
If you need to, see the GP, be honest, they may prescribe something to help you sleep in the short term, and also check your nutrition status. (Mine was fine as I ate normally, not just a potato!)
I also come from a long line of functional alcoholics and have a iffy relationship with food so I really do get it. But it's worth it.
I don't look 10 years younger or wake up feeling amazing, but the knowledge that I no longer NEED that wine, is fantastic.
Making the change is HARD, it really is. But you are fooling yourself (as I was) if you think you aren't heading for disaster in the long run... it WILL catch up with you.
You need to be brave..face the fact that you ARE alcohol dependent . If you give up and eat properly you will not keep gaining weight, it will go back to normal (unless you are very underweight in which case you will probably be a couple of pounds heavier and look a lot better!)

Good luck... it is worth it.

perhaps it is worth seeing your GP for some blood tests.

Nobody can get away with that much alcohol consumption and get away with it health wise.

Are you not worried about the physical damage?

Sorry, this should say thiamine, not folate. It's a B1 vitamin. Your diet is so limited that you won't be getting enough thiamine to protect your brain from developing an alcohol related brain injury.

I think you should also tell your GP that not only are you mixing a huge amount of alcohol with citalopram but you probably have an eating disorder. You need help, OP. This is out of control behaviour.

A 'little buzz' from 4 pints is not normal, my healthy husband would be drunk after 3 pints, yes there are men that drink way more but 4 pints is a lot. Combined with the lack of real food your body is suffering. I hope you can get the support you need to cut back