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

An alcoholic will make up any excuse and obsess over that rather than the real reason they can't stop drinking.

OP - you sound like a 13 yr old boy just looking for attention and reactions.

You do you. There'll be other people picking up the pieces of your children's broken lives.

If this is even genuine, any fluctuations in your weight are not necessarily going to be down to your rather pitiful 4 nights of no drinking. Weight loss/gain immediately after a diet change isn't a good measure due to water retention/gain, if you're female your cycle has a big impact. 8 days is no time. Do it for a month, then see what impact it's had on your weight.

You didn’t gain weigh, you retained water, because your body is trying to balance back out and this causes temporary water gain, also you can’t sleep because you are withdrawing from alcohol when you don’t have it, insomnia is the most common side effect to alcohol withdrawal, it sounds like you are making excuses to carry on drinking, it’s take a couple of months for the full effects to show what stopping alcohol.

For Gods sake just stop it before you kill yourself! This is absolutely insane! You need to move to 3 pints and then 2 pints and then 1 pint and then alternate day drinking a pint and then leave it few days and slowly move to weekend drinking 1 pint and maybe stopping altogether! Looks like you have drunk your alcohol quota for life! You need help, please get it. You can’t possibly look or be healthy on this crazy diet. Can’t imagine you don’t have a beer belly for all that drinking!

You do realise there’s calories in beer too don’t you?

You are addicted to alcoholic and admit to having an eating disorder.

Being an alcoholic isn't about being drunk all day everyday, and drinking spirits, it's how much you drink and not being able to stop- which you have demonstrated in your justification of why you drink.

All your excuses are coming from addiction, you've had 3/4 alcohol free days and are already quiting- because you 'gained 2lbs' which is most likely water retention and your body adjusting. Weight fluctuates all throughout the day, you weigh more in the evening than the morning and the difference can be more than 2lbs. 4 pints of beer is around 800-1000 calories on its own.

No one is ever going to agree that drinking 4 pints a day is better for you, because despite everything you say, it really isn't.

You need to be honest and maybe go to your GP to find out what services are available to support your mental health. You need to actively want to change. Any support is there to help you make the right choices/behaviours by giving you knowledge on why you might make a certain choice and the impact of that, but it's not a magic wand.

I wish you the best.

OP - if this is true…wow!

You've not even given it 2 weeks, yes you are an addict.
Naturally after being an alcoholic for a long time it takes the body time to adjust to the reduced alcohol intake.. You will eat more if all you've been eating is a potato.
You are severely unwell and deluding yourself.. If you'd rather be thinner and not be there for your kids when you die in the next decade or so suit yourself.. I'd rather gain a bit of weight and live to see mine grow up.
Knew an alcoholic just like this, dead from liver cirrhosis in their early 30s, they left their 2 year old and widow behind.

So for 8 days you have given up beer and potato every other day - so 4 days. This is a start but nowhere near enough to change a habit or see any impact on your weight.

Even if you are not addicted to alcohol, you are dependent on it to sleep. This seems like a big priority to tackle and I would be asking GP for support in getting better sleep habits.

Other issues include your terrible diet - do you eat anything else during the day and then evening it's 4 beers and a potato or is that everything you consume in a day? You must be lacking in so many vitamins, minerals, I am surprised this has not had a significant impact on your health if it has been your pattern for years.
Your kids are young adults - do they live with you? Do you or they not cook family meals and eat together?

Why are you so terrified of putting weight on? Fat does not equal bad. I'm not suggesting anyone should aim to become unhealthily overweight but most people will fluctuate in weight up or down a few pounds, cut out bad eating habits, increase exercise when they notice it creeping up.

Do your adult kids (if they live with you) help with chores around the house? Have you tried some of the housework podcasts to clean along with? You don't actually need to live in a show home. If you have no energy or motivation to even go to the toilet when you need a wee - this could be linked to your diet and lack of energy, or you mention depression and medication. If it is that stage, again I think you should seek support from GP.

Good luck.

You're probably not eating enough to keep your metabolism working properly. Appreciate you're struggling financially, but even monies spent on the cheapest pints/cans would go a long way towards food. You can change your eating choices as well which will help with food, ie eggs, beans and pulses are cheaper than chicken. Alcohol destroys important nutrients, so be aware of that as well.

In denial of being an alcoholic. Look up what a functioning alcoholic is and your it I'm afraid. I think I would rather have a bit of weight on than be addicted to alcohol

If you need to drink to feel
normal then you are an alcoholic.

Hi. You said you would rather die young than put on weight. I really understand this. It is what I used to say to myself when I had an eating disorder. It is disordered thinking though. Sadly alcoholics get chronic diseases quite young and often live disabled until they die of some liver disease or heart problem or in my friends case a throat cancer.
You need help and not from mumsnet. You need to stop drinking for both yourself and your children. I wish you every success. It is possible to turn this around.

You obviously have a lot of underlying issues that need addressing before you'll be in a place to make decisions that prioritise your health.

Hi Everyone
I hope you are all well

Anyone else noticed an increasing number of threads starting like this recently. Usually followed by an OP of a strange or controversial nature 🤔

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.

OK OP, going back to what you want, which is actually to stop drinking beer every night, and ultimately stop drinking altogether.

What are your reasons for wanting to stop?

Given all your updates I think it would be hard to stop by yourself and without some support and advice, both emotional support and health / alcohol support.

Start with your GP?

There may be alcohol support services in your area?

In the end, you will be able to achieve your stated wish , to lay off the beer, because a heathy body will not put on weight replacing nearly 900 calories of beer with chicken and veg (unless you are eating KFC and sweetcorn fritters as your chicken and veg!) .

It is very easy to get discouraged when you embark on something like this… just look at all the weight loss threads… and you have do many complex issues to deal with.

But with help, you can do it. You have already made sure your kids had a better life than you did, so you can start giving yourself more of the life you want.

Go back to NY resolution, think about what prompted you to make that resolution, find the help that will give you the medical / nutritional/ support you need and the moral support.

Maybe start a thread asking for advice on the agencies who can help or what to ask your GP for?

(also… packs of chicken thighs are really cheap…compared to beer, and look out for the veg in special offer in Lidl)

Good luck!

Any change in routine can cause sleep and weight to fluctuate at the start. That doesn’t mean they will continue on that trend forever, just that your body is working out what to do with the change.

a balanced healthy diet without beer is very very likely to get you to a healthier sleep pattern and weight than your previous diet, just let it bed in first.

4 beers every night is dependency, it's more than most regular female drinkers drink on a night out (I drink beer every weekend and rarely drink 4 pints, 3 is about my limit, so much liquid!)

As for the fact you say 4 pints beer plus a potato is cheaper than proper food, how? Beer is expensive, far more expensive than a portion of chicken and veg stew. Last time i bought beer for the house I'm sure it was £2 a bottle, i mostly buy beer in the pub and it's £4.30 a pint there.

Your metabolism will settle, your sleep cycle will stabilise and you will be healthier without the booze but you are far better cutting to 2 pints a day for a month then down to 1 pint a day for a month before dropping to only on 2-3 days a week, and which point you can quit completely or just drink socially if you can cope with this

My mum used to say 'you've got to die somehow!', while smoking and drinking. I don't remember her drinking daily but maybe every other evening, possibly only a bottle of cider or two.

Well what a fucking state she's in. And she doesn't drive either. So who does it fall to, to take her to all the hospital appointments/operations/to check in on her as she's basically housebound now? The kids. Just what we wanted to do in our already full on, busy lives.

Aye, it's all fine and dandy to say about sacrificing 10 years of your life to upkeep this lifestyle, but you've no idea what the last 10 years could be like. Just because you're managing now, let me assure you, when it catches up to you, it's a long, slow, drawn out affair. You can say you've done better for your kids than your parents have with you, but it's so selfish to think 'my only bad side is that I like to drink/I don't beat them etc'. You're going to become a burden and the kids, if they hang around, and they're going to be a bag of emotions knowing you chose to put yourself and them through this.

You need therapy. I don't mean that as an insult. You have trauma and it needs dealt with.

You won't notice any benefits of better sleep from stopping drinking because you are still drinking 4 pints every other day - so although that's less than you were, you haven't actually stopped drinking and are still drinking a lot!
Gaining a bit of weight is likely just normal fluctuation. Beer is also pretty high calorie - and empty ones at that too.

Hi all,
Thanks to everyone who has reported their concerns about this thread rather than troll hunt. We have had a look into this poster's background and while we can never guarantee anyone 100% we are inclined to give her the benefit of the doubt.
We considered moving the thread as the bravado is somewhat inappropriate for this board even if it meets the topic . We can see, however, that they are receiving solid support, which is what we are here for at the end of the day.
Thanks again to those who reported, and the best of luck to you, OP.

I’m pissed off that the NHS (aka taxpayers) will end up paying thousands and thousands to manage/prolong the shit state of your health.

4 pints and a potato FFS 🤦🏼‍♀️😂

I knew from your opening post that you were trying to deal with trauma and self medicating.

Have you had counselling for the childhood abuse you experienced? That’s where you need to start.

Do you think there's any way you could try to give it a month without alcohol and try to eat healthy and just give yourself that chance to see if there's a positive difference? If it doesn't work, ok, go back to how you were, but even if you were to gain weight over the month you would lose it again quickly going back on your old routine, so why not just try it as an experiment. I just think the 4 days are not enough to give it a chance. It could be the path to feeling better overall.