To ask if this drink level is okay?

[makingitin2012]

So for the last couple of years (well, since having kids and turning into a total worrier about staying healthy for their sake!), I've realised that I was drinking far too much. My honest consumption was 3 bottles of wine a week (gulp).

The good news is I've really got a grip on this, and for more than a year now don't drink at all through the week. I do however drink on a weekend. (But obviously not 3 bottles of wine!)

Anyhow, now that I'm happy to drink just at the weekend, I've decided to address the issue of wine on Fridays and Saturdays. My problem is if I open a bottle of wine I find it difficult not to finish it! And I don't want to be drinking 2 bottles of wine a week as I think that's still too much?

So I'm thinking of having 1 can of cider on a Friday night, then opening a bottle of wine on Saturdays only. Does that sound okay, or still excessive? Can you tell I'm a worrier?!!!

Thank you!

[Cat98]

I've recently cut down and drink a bottle of wine a week average - a glass on a Wednesday and then finish the bottle at the weekend.

[Back2Two]

I agree with Minnie and Drdance

[HeadsDownThumbsUp]

carabos - they are plucked out of the air. From a government advisor:

"The disclosure that the 1987 recommendation was prompted by “a feeling that you had to say something” came from Richard Smith, a member of the Royal College of Physicians working party that produced it.

He told The Times that the committee’s epidemiologist had confessed that “it’s impossible to say what’s safe and what isn’t” because “we don’t really have any data whatsoever”.

There's just no basis for them. We don't have enough information to give people hard advice about how much they should drink daily, or weekly. So much depends on their drinking habits, their weight, metabolism, physiology.

So on that basis I won't be plucking an alternative amount out of the air myself. Just saying, as I already have, that if the OP thinks she should cut down, then that's reason enough to cut down. And that it's important to have many alcohol free days.

[heidihole]

Get a wine stopper and plug the bottle after half of it if you don't do it there is none on sat (or maybe only cider)

[Chippednailvarnish]

A bottle of wine is approximately 700 calories, therefore 3 bottles is 2100 calories on top of what you eat.
Regardless of all the other health concerns, consuming one extra days worth of calories each week can't be healthy.

[RawCoconutMacaroon]

Regarding the increase in liver disease in young people - a huge part of this increase is due to non alcoholic fatty liver disease. The cause of that, as the name suggests, is not alcohol. It's over consumption of carbohydrate (although of course most alcohol contains carbohydrates), and especially fructose (soft drinks, anything with HFCS, corn syrup, corn sugar etc). The modern processed diet now contains huge quantities of (sometimes quite well hidden), fructose and other sugars, and so called "healthy" low fat versions of foods are particular bad in that respect.

As for the wine - I think drinking 2 bottles of wine over couple of days at the weekend is a little too much if its every weekend, fine if its occasionally.

What about those little half bottles? Would those help avoid the issue of an unfinished open bottle?

[Naebother]

You're worried about your drinking so stop for a bit. A few weeks, a month. Then see how you feel.

If the idea of doing this is anxiety provoking. You have a drink problem

[makingitin2012]

Thank you all! I completely get why it's feasible to think that I have / think I have a problem. Yes I did think I did - which is why I cut down and am actually quite proud that I drink half of what I used to! But, hand on heart, I think I do have a problem - but not with drink, with worry overall! I'm quite a hypochondriac since having kids, exacerbated by seeing a couple of friends die young through illness. I wish I could oh back to a time when I didn't consider mortality but I suppose that becomes with the territory of becoming a parent! Thank you for the replies, it's helped to put things into perspective.