To ask how much and how often you drink alcohol?

[Falling270]

I'm trying to cut back on alcohol for all the usual reasons: to cut back on calories, health benefits, save money...

Just as a barometer for the "norm" (and sheer curiosity) how often and how much alcohol do you drink?

Iusedtobecarmen I don't drink much as the medication I'm on means alcohol makes me feel rough. I do like a drink though, would sell my firstborn for a rum and coke right now. Anyway, I find that people on either particular end of the spectrum are quite judgey. When I was younger and didn't like alcohol, I had people egging me on and calling me boring for not wanting to drink.

imnotthat girl
I agree.
sorry your meds affect you in this way.

I used to work in the wine industry, and then I did drink every night.

These days I drink most nights. If I'm cooking, I'll have a glass of wine while I do dinner, then another glass with dinner. If I'm not cooking I'll have a glass of wine while DH cooks and another glass with dinner. Sometimes I'll have a third glass , depending on the wine and how late we eat/what we're watching on TV/if I just feel like it even but not usually.

When we go on holiday we drink more, as we plan our holidays around food and wine. We try to make sure that we do lots of walking, even if it is only from cafe to restaurant to bar in an effort to keep the weight in check.

I was drinking too often, generally every night and did this for several years but decided early April it was too much and reduced it to 2 night a week. I feel so much better for it

Honestly ? I cannot actually remember the last evening I didn't have a drink , drink half a bottle of wine most nights during the week , certainly never less , and a whole bottle on Fridays and Saturdays .

Whilst I know that this is very bad indeed , reading this thread has made me realsie just how bad ( or not normal ) it is

Iusedtobe unfortunately I also come under your smokes/overweight/drives everywhere category , so am pretty much doomed !

OP the vast majority of my friends are much less frequent drinkers , with a couple who are teetotal , some of those friends could have matched me with my current drinking habits a couple of years ago. I have noticed that once people hit 40 they seem to go in two directions , denial and a increase or realisation and a decrease in their drinking , but that is only my opinion based on a small selection of the population , fairly obvious which group I fall in .

Oh and I never get drunk , which in itself is worrisome

Probably once every couple of weeks, just one or two drinks.
I like the taste of lots of alcoholic drinks but hate feeling drunk and am a lightweight so it doesn't take much. I also get awful hangovers so it's generally not worth it.

I can easily go a couple of months without having a drink or even thinking about it but when I want a drink I have one.

I also have a 12 hour rule , so I start and stop drinking my 5 units between about 1745 and 1930 , then stop . I read that it takes the body one hour to process one unit of alcohol , so I tend to err on the side of caution ( realises the irony as types this ) and doubled that figure.

Frumpet I was taught that it's an hour per unit after the first hour. So one unit I two hours, five units is six, but it's also dependent on the size of the person and their health.

Wow, I'm actually impressed that there are some drinkers posting on this thread! For me I try to have 2 or 3 alcohol free days a week. Generally on week night I have 3 beer or 3 G&T's (but make them light on the gin and heavy on the tonic), on the weekends I probably have 6-7 of the same, or a bottle & 1/2 of prosseco. If we're out all day on a Friday, then I could have about 10 beer over the course of about 9 hours.

I know I'm a heavy drinker, but I eat well, get lots of exercise and my most recent liver test came back normal.

I've noticed that people who drink heavily are not necessarily those with a serious alcohol problem, while those who don't always drink every day may drink "alcoholically" - it's about the real need and drive to drink and an inability to stop once you start. In AA, step one is about being powerless over alcohol and that was definitely me. Those of you drinking a bottle of wine a night - OK, over guidelines maybe, but if you know that you could stop if you wanted to - it's not that terrible in my (possibly warped) view; like exWifebeginsat40, my drinking was 24 hours a day and I don't even like the taste. I was 29 before I was drunk for the first time.

Other people drinking doesn't bother me in the least because it's (for me) a dark place I don't want to return to - I've always wanted my DD to have a healthy relationship with alcohol and am happy that she can go out, have a few drinks and come home. I'd hate her to think that she shouldn't drink because of me - same with friends and family.

decaf thats why I double it

Usually 1-2 bottles of wine once a week, but often weeks without anything

I'm not supposed to drink at all on my meds so have liver function tested every month (its perfect)

I drink 1 glass of red wine every 1 to 2 months mainly because I can't sleep if I drink any amount and feel rubbish the next day. Also exercise is my relaxant which I do at the end of my day and can't do it if I drink so the thought that I might excercise later always puts me off. DH never drinks so that makes it boring to be drinking alone!

frumpet, this was me. How is your sleep? I always felt knackered when I drank like this, but because I very rarely felt hungover, assumed it was nothing to do with the drink. Now I've cut back so much, I feel much better, so it obviously was. Do you want to cut down?....

I try not to drink on a school night as my hangovers can be spectacular but on a Friday and Saturday DH and I prob have 1.5 bottles of wine each and then maybe 1 each on a Sunday afternoon.

Since this thread started on Monday i decided to make some changes to my drinking habits as i know i drink too much. I have not drunk the last two nights (and last night i found it a struggle not to open a bottle of wine). I have to say that last night i had the best nights sleep i have had in a long time.

DH and I drink 2-3 bottles of wine a week between us. We generally have Sunday and Monday nights off altogether. If it's a bottle of white, and it's not a school night, we might have the whole bottle. I have to be very careful with red - if I have too much I'll be in bed all day the next day. I never binge drink.

If we are on holiday we drink more but that's the only time.

If I go out for an evening I might have two glasses of prosecco and that will be it all night.

Alcohol consumption will never be "Cured" ... Nor will it just go away, its something that has been with us from the very beginning of invention. And it will be there to the end of our creation.

I do not perceive alcohol as a problem to an individual person, as long as you can take OR leave it.. I can consume alcohol one week and not touch a drop of it the next.. I never drink in excess and am very happy with a glass along with a meal or on an occasion out.

I supposed its all down to the individuals own strength in health and mind, alcohol gives very short comfort.

I've been either pregnant or breastfeeding for the past 3 years so perhaps 6 drinks in all that time??

I used to drink g&t's after crappy days at work (rather frequently) then on a weekend I'd drink a bottle of wine before going out on a Saturday plus lots of spirits and in the summer I'd drink a few pimms or ciders any day the sun was shining (regardless of work).

I even started to have a drink before my driving lessons because I was such a nervous wreck. I don't drive and realise I'm a much nicer person without the alcohol, it does horrible things to me.

This has made interesting reading - I had no idea there were so many no/low drinkers out there!

That said, I think my father is probably technically a functioning alcoholic (1-2 bottles of wine a night, if he runs out he'll hit the cooking brandy) and I think it's quite normal to drink at home (due to Dad i guess)...

Although I did suffer with horrific hangovers at uni (vomiting all day the day after a night out - so most days), apparently due to a lack of the right enzyme to break down the alcohol (or at least sufficient relative to the quantity I was drinking ), am now 36, work full time with DD who's 3 and most days I drink 1-3 medium glasses of wine or bottles/cans of beer and DH usually has 2-4 cans of cider daily, more for both of us if it's the weekend or we go out, perhaps 1 night off a week.

That said it was my work leaving do last week, I had roughly (as I can't remember) 5 pints, 5 jack daniels and coke and was forced into downing a jager bomb (vile!), spent very little time at work the day after and most of that was in the loos puking or with awful stomach cramps so I'm trying to go back to just drinking Fri-Sun as I too have found I sleep better with no booze but don't quite feel the need to pack it in yet

If I open a bottle of wine I have to finish it. Some times I share it with my OH and up until recently I was doing that on average 4 nights a week. Now once a week x1 bottle and I try to time it so that he's out and I get the whole thing 😂

5/6 days and about half a bottle of wine on those days. I would say I drink about 25 units a week.

one or two glass of wine every night, but then am French :)

I never drink during the week but at the weekend I could have 1 bottle of cider or 1 bottle of vodka all depends what I'm doing some weeks I could go without a drink (when I'm ill )