To ask if any alcohol loving drinking party animals who are now teetotal or practically teetotal their experiences?

[fortunatelynot]

Just that really.....I know this doesn't sound like a major thing but I used to love drinking and the socialising and partying that came with it throughout my teens, part of my twenties and thirties. A couple of years ago I got sick of the hangovers and feeling depressed after drinking and cut back. Dp and I have fallen into a leisurely stay at home more or less teetotal existence regarding our social life. I went out today to just have a few drinks in this beautiful weather and it made me feel weepy, tired and basically shit so I stopped.

This sounds really naff but as somebody whose life was partly defined (sad I know) by this lifestyle, I feel a bit, well, lost. Dp doesn't get why I even think about it and just says I must have come to a point in my life where I am just sick of it. He has cut back massively on his drinking BUT if he does have a drink, he enjoys it, wakes up hangover free the next day and all is good. I know I shouldn't give it another thought but I also know that it is on my mind as to why I have changed so drastically.

I have also learned ( sadly) that alcohol used to make me a bubbly, outgoing, carefree and energetic woman (at the time I was drinking it). Now, if I do go out in pubs etc, I feel withdrawn and anxious. I also feel a little nostalgic - when dp and I met, we met in a pub(!) and had some great times at the bar. I almost feel like I have lost that carefree aspect of our relationship.

I'm not sure where I am going with this but just wondered if anybody had had any similar experiences?

I used to absolutely love a day of drinking in London with my friends pre-baby. Although I can’t imagine physically being able to do it now (I’d be asleep by 2pm) and the idea of running around after DD with a hangover doesn’t appeal, I sometimes hear about my friends’ exploits and feel like a bit of a spare part who doesn’t always have anything to add to conversations “this really funny thing happened at Rhyme Time.....”
I also was quite into getting my nails done/hair done etc before having DD and I don’t have the time or money for that now. Every now and then (ok most days) I feel like a right scruff.
This being said I don’t actively miss going out and getting hammered etc, I just sometimes feel a bit like until my friends have kids we will be talking about completely different things!

I’m with you OP. I feel a bit pathetic too for even rating it as a concern, but I met DH back in the days of frequent heavy drinking, and it was one of our mutual ‘interests’. I do still like a drink, but very rarely to the extent of being more than a tiny bit tipsy. I just get tired and feel sick. DH doesn’t drink as much as he used to, but has no problem in doing so when he wants to. I do enjoy feeling healthier, and slightly slimmer, but I miss my carefree evenings, and silliness with DH, that just isn’t quite the same when sober.
Gosh, I sound like an alcoholic! I think it’s probably more a loss of freedom (have kids now) and feeling young and carefree, that makes me feel like this.

ohhellothereladyface - having a small baby is likely to make you feel like this, don't worry and I'm sure you don't look like a scuff.

icanhearapindrop- yes I completely get you; the weird thing is that my ds is a lot older so its not because of the kids thing. Yes, it certainly feels like a loss of something BUT I don't particularly want to drink!

Yes I drank a huge amount in my teens and early 20's - was a massive party animal. I stopped for a few years when I had kids then started up again (albeit nowhere near as regularly) in my late 20's/early 30's. I had a bit of a problem for a few years (drinking every evening) so I stopped for a year which knocked me out of the habit. Now I rarely drink and don't drink much at all when I do as I hate the hangovers and they are much worse. I'm 40 now and to be honest I don't enjoy socialising in the same way. I'm happier being at home, pottering in my garden and meeting friends for dinner than being at a party. Drinking made me a much louder more "fun" person but I'm happy in my own skin now and don't care if people see me as "boring". Drinking did me no favours really.

I used to drink a fair bit on occasion; every Friday after work and a party about once a month type of thing. But I would also drive to many events bear home (rather than after work) so could only have one or two drinks at most, and realised that I could enjoy myself just as much without drinking if I was in the right state of mind.

I now have to take painkillers daily that react quite badly with alcohol, so I will have maybe one glass of wine at a special event every year or two, and TBH I don't really miss it at all now. I can take great amusement watching other's behavior when they are drunk, get myself home safely, and wake up in the morning feeling fine.

I'm 43 and over the last couple of years have completely gone off alcohol to the point I rarely drink at all now. I used to love drinking and going out, but when I hit 40 it started making me feel so ill, it got to the point I decided to no longer bother. I don't even like the taste of it anymore. My interests have changed too, I now do a lot of yoga and well-being stuff, and have made a lot of new friends who are similar to me. When I'm with my old friends, sometimes I wish I could just get drunk like the old days, but it's just not worth it.

I was THE party girl. Started going to pubs/clubs at 15. Spent days and whole weekends on benders as a student. Never had a drink free day. Whole life revolved around meeting friends and drinking and having a laugh. This continued throughout my twenties with boozy lunches almost every day and bottles of wine/rum every night. Met my OH on a club and we moved in together and continued drinking and socializing daily. Had my two DC and swapped pubs for drinks at home with friends.
I was diagnosed with depression/anxiety after the birth of my second child and started using drink to cope. Drinking got earlier and earlier till I was drinking before lunch and the enjoyment of drinking stopped and became something completely non- enjoyable and dangerous. It affected relationship with those around me and I started hating the hold drink had over me. A health problem caused by excessive drinking was the thing that stopped me drinking. I just had enough and was so worried about dying and leaving my children that after that day ( I was taken to hospital) I never have had a drink again.
I feel a completely different person from the young care-free heady days of being the popular, confident girl around town but I remind myself how it escalated and how dangerous it had become.

Thank you for all of your replies - strange - we all seem to be around the same age??

I am glad that I realised pretty quickly when I started to feel down/anxious etc after drinking and I do like the fact that I can get up on a Sunday morning clear headed. I've always kept fit and this helps me to remain so plus I work long hours and study so actually, drinking would not help at all.

I think it is more what I associate it with - great gang of people, music, dancing, laughing etc and as I said, I'm not one to sit at a party with an orange juice. I just feel like I am reevaluating who I am and sometimes I wonder if I've become boring and more solitary.

Also - you realise as a drinker just HOW much of your life is drinking - Sat night out, Sunday afternoon in the pub, bottle of wine round your mates during the week, Xmas parties, birthday parties, Easter, sunny weekends at a mate's BBQ. I have never really drank at home but socially, I have for so many years.

I do know quite a few women of around the same age who say they no longer drink. I wonder if it's a hormonal thing?

I used to love drinking and partying! Sadly about 8 years ago I started to get chronic migraines and gave up alcohol. The migraines have now gone... but I am still tee total. It doesn't bother me, I don't think I'm sad, I'm still slightly confused when my MIL gives me wine though :)

Prior to children I used to drink heavily often. I loved it.

Obviously stopped during pregnancy.

Never started again as live changed. I drink a bit some weekends but generally don’t bother. It wasn’t even an adjustment - it just happened naturally.

I do have the occasional blow out though...

I’m 41.

Could be hormonal. Its interesting what you say about a blowout Merryoldgoat. I thought that I would want to do this occasionally but today it just felt all wrong.

I used to be a total party girl - out boozing, up all night, chain-smoking. Every weekend throughout my late teens, twenties and part of my thirties. DH and I got together one amazing booze-fueled summer.

We stopped smoking, I had a spell of anxiety, alcohol agreed with me less and less so by forty I was having a maximum of two drinks occasionally.
Then I developed a chronic illness and stopped drinking at all. I've been teetotal for 18 months now. I'm 44.

I drank far too much in my 20s and early 30s. Stopped drinking when I was pregnant and have hardly bothered with it since. Dd's now 16 and I've been virtually tt for years. I tried having a glass of wine with my dinner on a Friday night but found that just half a glass was making me sleepy so don't even have that now. I'm such a lightweight these days.

In my twenties I used to drink to excess at the weekend. Now in my late thirties, I'm tee total now. I found that even just one glass of wine left me feeling depressed the next day.

I used to be a HUGE party animal. I'd always be the last one standing and always up for a night out. Even though I was a happy drunk (never offensive, only funny and fun) it started getting me down; the terrible 3 day hangovers, The Fear the day after, my anxiety was much worse after drinking. Last year I realised alcohol wasn't bringing anything good to my life, so I stopped.

I still go out to socialise, I just leave earlier, and I so relish being able to get restful sleep and waking up without a hangover, or without worrying what I said or did (which was invariably nothing bad but hello anxiety!)

It is difficult when you feel that alcohol makes you a more fun and happy person to be around, the first few times I went to the pub after stopping drinking were so awkward. I think this is just a manifestation of my social anxiety though. Previously I'd use alcohol to numb it, so now, for the first time in my life, I'm actually having to be myself in social situations, without drugging my fears away or hiding behind alcohol. A breakthrough moment was when I realised I already am that fun and entertaining person that drink made me; alcohol didn't make me more fun, it just numbed my fears that I wasn't fun.

A good book that explains it much better than I ever could is 'The Easy Way to Cut Down Drinking' by Allan Carr.

I drank to get drunk from 14/15. I stopped when pregnant and started again after. Out most weekends - I used to volunteer for late shifts so I had childcare and piss off out after work until the small hours and go back to work the next day. I did go through a period of self medicating with vodka to cope with various problems, and long story short, ended up in a psychiatric unit for a few days voluntarily. It wasn't because of the drinking though, I stopped and didn't feel like I needed it if you get me.
I made a promise to myself after that to never drink when I am down, and I don't. I rarely drink anything, but not necessarily because I'm down but because I just don't want to. It tends to make me tired and give me a headache unless I'm really in the mood.
I do have the occasional blow out though...

Even this has become few and far between. I had a tough time mid 30's, sorted and settled by 38th birthday and went out somewhere I was comfortable and among friends, woke up face down on my bedroom floor. 🤦 Am 40 now and haven't drank enough to even be tipsy since then, but not because of any specific reason really, I think I have other priorities now sleep and would honestly rather spend an afternoon pottering in the garden than in the pub!

Just out of interest, those of you who rarely / never drink, did your DP sort of join you or they still drink? Does it bother you if they do?

Yep I know what you mean. I'm early thirties and my 20s were defined by being a bit of a party animal, attempting to work my way up the corporate ladder blah.

I now rarely go out drinking and hate the bureaucracy of work. I just don't know who the "me" is underneath all that. It's like having a teenage crisis of "who am I?" all over again.

I used to love a good drinking session and was probably the life and soul of the party throughout my twenties and early 30's. A health issue earlier this year meant I had to stop drinking almost completely - it has had so many health benefits I can't even list them all. I was very much a social drinker but would often have a hangover one day of the weekend that totally spoilt the weekend, not any more. No more headaches, no more feeling anxious after a night on the tiles and no more feeing the need to over eat the following day.
I have been out several times now and not drunk at all, it's been pleasantly surprising to realise that I can still have a good time without alcohol and not feel the next day feeling awful.

I was a massive party girl and was always out boozing or having house parties. I would regularly get the girls round and drink 3 bottles of white wine TO MYSELF (now I would be dead).

I stopped when I met my DP. He offered me stability I didn't know I needed. It calmed me down, made me happy and whilst I still enjoy the odd night with friends, work friends etc, I'm nothing like I was and I'm happier and healthier for it.

Thank you all - so sorry to hear from those who have chronic illnesses.

Yes - I too would end up losing a weekend day to a hangover - not good when you are working a 60 hr week Mon to Fri.

Ellapaella and Tilikum - maybe that is what I need to do - try a 'night out' without the booze, instead of automatically equating a night out with booze (and therefore not going). Saying that, my old 'gang' do drink like absolute lunatics so I have visions of listening to some very very drunk nonsense.

bodgersmash - yes! This is absolutlely how I feel:
I just don't know who the "me" is underneath all that. It's like having a teenage crisis of "who am I?" all over again

Babysharkdododont - my dp is very open minded. When we met he was a big drinker but since I've practically stopped he is equally happy to not drink as well. He tends to have a weekly trip to the pub to catch up with his mates and have a few, but he is very happy whether he has one drink or eight drinks and does not get hangovers.

I’m 32 and barely drink, we have small children and even just one drink in the evening makes me feel sluggish in the morning and made the night wake ups even more tough. I’ve surprised myself with how much I don’t miss it to be honest.