Stopping drinking for a while

[Patbutcherismyhero]

Throughout lockdown I've gradually started drinking more and more. I now usually only have one day off a week. Last night I drank way too much and was sick, slept terribly and today I just feel awful mentally and physically. I need to cut back. It's become far too much far too often.

I hate waking in the night with anxiety and having to check my phone to if I put any shit on social media. I don't usually get hangovers but I always feel tired and lacking in motivation. Alcohol has become such a big part of my life but I know it's not healthy and I really need to stop for a while. Anyone else?

Welcome @FrolickingLemon, @TazMac and @Washyourhands48, lovely to have you join. We are all here cheering you on.

@starskey80 that's awesome progress, think I only ever managed 2 days off

@ErinBrockovich, not pathetic at all, we've all been there. I was a SAHM for 5 years, it can be lonely. I've also found friendships have dwindled over the years. Sending a hug. I'm seeing this as a new future, a chance to be truly me so meet people that that me clicks with, if that makes sense!!

@FrolickingLemon that sounds like a really great mindset to start this process with! Someone on here said similar, I noted it down as it was so poignant to me: "it's my life, why am I giving it to alcohol?!" That really motivated me!

Thank you @NeedAUserNameAllTaken, it’s comforting to know I’m not alone. I’ve eaten really well this morning and taken my DC for a walk when all I wanted to do was hide under the covers. Small steps.

Huge steps! Well done love x

Joining please always drank out of habit but recently its been much worse. Went out Saturday night with DH, drank too much and caused a fall out. Yesterday was day 1 for me only because I was so hungover but I need to cut down majorly/stop!

Isn't it amazing how many of us feel this way and yet it is seen so normal to drink and to drink a lot. Welcome to all newbies. I relate strongly to the feeling of drinking out of loneliness when not having the children, and of anxiety. Welcome and keep posting. Check out the quit lit that has been mentioned it is really helpful.

I'm so tired and cranky - good as Sid is I'm sleeping on the couch next to crate and up and down during the night much like with a baby - and have found myself being snappy with the kids.... when I apologised for being so crabby my eldest said not to worry I was tired, and then said how great it was I still wasn't having a drink. The unmentioned was that I used to be that crabby a lot more when drinking. And she is right

I've signed up to do the 30 day challenge after reading it on this thread and today is day 1.
After a weekend of drinking very heavily, saying horrible things to my dp (who doesn't live with me) and is now not speaking to me, feeling like utter shit with a headache it's time to stop.
I've had several failed attempts the last 4 years, longest was around a week. I'm so ashamed of myself and I am now determined to beat this.

Hi @ErinBrockovich @TazMac @CherryCocktails and @FrolickingLemon
This thread will help alot, keep checking in.
I am on day 7 and think of this thread multiple times a day to keep me going.

@ErinBrockovich I can relate to your story. I self medicated with alcohol then decided to go on Zoloft and try to stop drinking.

It worked in that my body couldn't tolerate alcohol while on Zoloft, one drink would make me sick as never before.

But the pills can make you feel terrible at the start and are hard to come off of, I had head spins, terrible nausea etc.

Once they had fully kicked In, after a month or so, I felt better. I was no longer drinking but had replaced my alcohol addiction with a sugar and shopping addiction.

I never adressed the root cause of my behaviour and did terrible things financially.

I strongly feel that my excessive drinking is a symptom of another issue. My underlying issues will always be there until I address them. Drinking acts as a barrier for me. A buffer that makes me feel better about myself (tenporarily) but also makes "drinking" my main problem, and all my other problems get pushed out of mind, so I can focus on quitting the Drinking, again and again.
I guess I have some fear about addressing the underlying issues.

Just my experience of one antidepressant though, and they act differently on everyone.

I currently take St John's Wart, a herb which has been shown in many trials to increase seritonin at a similar level to some ADs, without the emotional numbness or decreased sex drive/ inability to orgasm!

SJW does interact with lots of meds though, so only good if you aren't on anything else.

@NeedAUserNameAllTaken I have apologised to my partner and have also said to him that I need more support. Doing 90% of the childcare and housework and waking 3 x a night with the baby for 15 months was what had caused me to fall apart in many ways. He has started doing the nighttimes and I have had 3 nights uninterrupted sleep now. Starting to feel like a human being again. I was using alcohol and food as a fuel to keep going, when what I needed was sleep and support.
Hopefully he gets it and will give me the space I need to rehabilitate myself!
I hope you are having a good week and late summer UK is being sunny

@RandomGirl fantastic work on getting off the Prozac previously, that is no mean feat!! It can be strange, but also amazing to feel all your emotions again.

Just curious of everyone here, how many drink to deal with anxiety? It seems to be commonly mentioned.

That was my main reason for drinking. Absolutely crazy because alcohol makes my anxiety so much worse overall. Short term fix, long term hellish dependence. Anxiety is so difficult. Exercise helps alot but with small children is hard to manage.

Sorry for triple post, I will stop now!!

@HotelRoomforOne thank you. I definitely drank to cope with anxiety. I’ve had anxiety since I was a young child but only really realised this a couple of years ago. As an adult I developed terrible social anxiety and needed alcohol as a crutch. No one every believes me when i say this however as I am actually the life and soul of every party, super outgoing, will talk to anyone, make friends with everyone, make everyone laugh, can keep a whole room entertained - but only if I’ve had a drink... the next day I am crippled with anxiety / hungover. The only way to combat that was to drink again. And repeat. Then I’ll have to spend Monday-Weds hiding from society as I feel so wretched (would still drink, just at home, miserably). I would even be able to go to the corner shop or do the school run! If I did, I would keep my head down, scuttle past people I knew, and hide in a corner. Just writing this down is quite revelatory to be honest.

I like having these little insights first thing in the morning, it’s sets me up for the day.

@HotelRoomforOne sorry, also, I can echo your comments about money and making terrible choices due to anxiety - hands down I would say that the reasons I don’t own my own house is due to spending money when I feel anxious / low / drunk / hungover. I have got myself into large amounts of debt three times in my adult life due to excessive spending/borrowing. It’s like I get manic almost and just rinse numerous credit cards in a very short space of time. The lows then come when I realise that I’ve maxed out, no longer able to spend, spend, spend and then in debt and skint. Cue depression and alcohol. It’s just gross. What a waste of a life... I can’t get myself find about it though as once again, I’m dealing with problem and and end date is in sight. Not for a while, buts it’s there and it’s real and I’ve just got to keep paying things off. I’ll get there!

Hello all, I've not posted for a while as have been away but I just wanted to pop in and catch up. It's brilliant to see so many people on the thread now - welcome everyone and good luck with your journey!

I started on this thread on 27th June and since then have only had booze on 3 nights. DH and I had a big weekend away last week, and I did drink on the Friday and Saturday, but it was planned and actually I was very moderate, so I feel ok about that! DH got quite pissed on the Saturday night and couldn't get out of bed on the Sunday morning, which gave him a bit of a shock so he's decided to stop as well, which is great.

We've both been completely AF since last Sunday

My plan now is to remain basically AF unless it is a planned 'special' event. I won't be drinking at home at all but, eg: on Thursday I am going out to dinner with friends that I've not seen since last year and I feel ok about perhaps having something then. However one of them is pg and one is also AF for health reasons so then again I may not drink after all!

Feeling in control of alcohol is really amazing. I still crave it, briefly, pretty much every evening when I am getting dinner sorted, but it passes. I won't lie, I do miss that initial feeling of cracking open a chilled bottle and pouring that first glass, but I know it's a fleeting feeling and I can manage it now.

I'm going to catch up on the rest of the thread now but just wanted to say, hang in there, the benefits of not drinking (even if that's cutting down, not stopping completely) outweigh the negatives by a million tonnes and it is so so so worth it.

Hi all I definitely need support from you lovely ladies. If that's OK.
I'm on day 3.
I feel good but haven't been sleeping. I started day 1 a couple of weeks ago but thought oh I can have a couple of low alcohol beers etc and then it was yet again a slippery slope to wine and fighting and anxiety waking up middle of the night over thinking heart beating fast couldn't quite remember what I'd done that evening etc
I always always feel better when I've stopped alcohol so why do I do it to myself? Mostly I think is to escape from feelings... I need to read through the beginning of the thread too. I've done it before for many months so am determined to do it again. I thought when I stopped earlier this month I'd be able to have a glass of champagne to celebrate our 10 Yr wedding anniversary but alas this won't happen... But I'm trying not to make it into a bad thing... I really want to do this!!! My husband drinks every day even if its 1 glass he still drinks in front of me so find that a bit hard!
Hope all of you are OK and we are all ultimately trying to do a great thing here! X

Just sat here at my desk reflecting on my life with alcohol, there are so many warnign signs that I just ignored - or medicated. More recently, my hangovers involved me being sick the next day - either a couple of times or just for the whole day. I would have to just spend the whole day in bed. Sometimes, in more recent months, I would throw up the following morning and then carry on drinking in the afternoon so that I didn't miss out on social events. Absolutely ridiculous now I think about it. I would also start drinking earlier in the afternoon and go to bed earlier and I thought that was me being clever and being in control of my drinking but in actual fact, I was just writing more of my day off and giving more of my life to alcohol. It makes me feel shameful thinking about it now, but as I said earlier, that won't help - I just need to use that cringesome feeling to motivate me to continue on this journey. It's mad the things that I just accepted and normalised so that I could continue drinking without feeling guilty.

@HotelRoomforOne thanks so much for sharing. Since reading this thread it’s struck me that I’ve never been very honest or open with anyone in my life. Not even my husband. I’m secretive about how much I’ve drank in the past and I don’t talk about the embarrassing moments. They sit there in the past unspoken but there. I’m worried about the judgement and I can’t justify or explain my actions.
I don’t talk about my feelings or things that have affected me. I’ve never got to the root cause of my drinking but always chalked it up to an addictive personality. Binge eating, workaholic, perfectionist, abusing alcohol.
I’m still not sure of the real reason but hopefully some sober time to reflect will help with that.
Day 2 for me.
Thanks for the tip about SJW. I never took it previously because I was on the pill but I’ve got the coil fitted now so I’ll double check but I think that’s ok.
Have a good day everyone.

Wow so many newbies! Welcome to you all.

@RandomGirl alcohol has done this stuff to me too. The all day hangovers are just the worst. Quite recently I had to cancel going to see my friend and her new baby because I was being sick from too much gin the night before. I felt awful about that. I don't get hangovers unless I really binge but when I do they knock me clean off my feet and it always annoys me that I've wasted a day. No more!

@BoxAndKnife great to hear from you. Glad you are moderating well. This is what I want to be able to do. Knock drinking on the head when I'm at home but be able to still enjoy it on those rare occasions. I'm definitely drinking less at home so it's all progress.

I haven't had a drink since last Friday but annoyingly I've been sleeping really badly. I keep waking up in the early hours and not being able to nod off again. Seems unfair that I actually tend to sleep better after a drink or two but I won't let that stop me. I have yet another meeting with friends this weekend and I really don't want to drink to excess but I find it hard when we are in a big group. I will try to moderate and have a few soft drinks in between. I really don't want a hangover.

Great insights @RandomGirl
Like you I did the drinking earlier and earlier in the day and justified it away.
Like you I had / have social anxiety that I tried to allay with alcohol.
Like you used shopping to soothe terrible anxiety and went into huge debt.

My question is what do you think led to your childhood anxiety and later social anxiety.

Where does it all come from? It is so sad to me when I think about how social anxiety, low self belief and alcohol have sabotaged my life, to a large degree.

Can you pinpoint where your social anxiety stemmed from and have you ever tried attending similar parties sober? I haven't
.. yet!

Welcome to all newcomers. 💗

Just to reassure you about the sleep - it took a few weeks, even a month for mine to calm down. Crazy dreams, really vivid. It was actually the dreams that made me stick with it because they gave me such a fright about how my body was reacting to AF. It made me realise that I did have an issue.

@RandomGirl and @HotelRoomforOne read back to @fluckityfluckfluck going to get first party AF. It’s really inspirational. She was so nervous and she did it and it was fine, good in fact!

For me it’s the evenings at home that are hard rather than the parties. I like being more in control when I go out. However home chaos, noise of family life and just relaxing (which I find hard) are triggers for me. Both my husband and I were brought up with a lot of at home drinking which has really normalised it for us.

Yes @Patbutcherismyhero and @Railingsohno the dreams after stopping have been wild and not in a good way!

@Patbutcherismyhero I envy you your social life and you are a moderation hero. I'd love to be able to drink a single pint of Guinness or glass of champagne somewhere in my distant future.

@ErinBrockovich the honesty is important I think. There's no need to say here or even out loud all the things you know alcohol has lead you to do/say/behave, but acknowledging the impact it has really had is good - necessary.

I finished Dry and have started Blackout. My biggest biggest hate is losing time as I called it. The worst feeling. I'm finding all the quit lit addictive 

Welcome back @BoxAndKnife and well done. I made it up to bed last night and got about 5 hours straight sleep which has made me feel more human this morning.

To those in the early days please be kind to yourselves, it is so hard but I promise it gets better. Keep posting

Hi all!

Wow so many insights this am. I hear you all on so many of these. I struggle with anxiety massively and used booze as a crutch, one of my main reasons for quitting. I know it will take time to adjust to life without self medicating, I'm using yoga instead! I know physical activity helps my anxiety hugely and leaves no impact after. My friend who is a therapist has been teaching me to sit with the feeling of anxiety - didn't want to but if you dont fight it it does pass quicker. Cant say I always do this so because I dont like it but I'm learning that perhaps I need to.

Re social anxiety- me too! Mine is just awful. Even with good friends I'm awkward as hell. To the point that we've just agreed I call it out so we can all just move on. I definitely used to use alcohol to get through this but then the fear the next day, just the worst. I never want that fear again.

And yes to normalised drinking too, my family DRINK so much....

Its interesting how many of us here share similar traits and anxieties that lead us onto this path. I'm starting to have a weekly therapy/chat with my friend to try to unpick some of my stuff; so far the things I've uncovered have been so helpful. Like realising I have pretty low self esteem and working to address that. Highly recommend this kind of reflective work. Ive also been looking at self compassion and letting go of Shame; kindness to oneself is so important.

@HotelRoomforOne, I'm sorry I re read my comment and it sounds like I was putting the issues in your marriage all on you. I'm sorry, I did not intend it to read like that. It certainly takes two to f#ck up a marriage, been there done that. And it sounds like you've had a very tough few years. I'm glad your partner is giving you more support now, it's so important.

Amazing @Patbutcherismyhero, I honestly take my hat off to you. I just couldn't manage that. Serious respect.

Lovely to hear from you @BoxAndKnife, glad you are doing well.

And welcome @Ynwa1234 xx

@ErinBrockovich, I can really resonate with what you said on openness, honesty and fear of judgement. I've self filtered for years and present a "better" version of myself. So now I'm not. And actually, it feels a relief, like for example I was asked to do something at work that scared me; people pleasing, easy me sent a reply saying "sure, I'll do that". The reality was I was terrified so I then owned that and the relief and support, just amazing. I'm starting to see that if I am more me and more honest I wont need booze to mask upset, irritation etc.... because instead I'll address it. Plus people can choose to be friends with real me or not and those that are, well I can relax around. Might sound simple but for me it was eye opening . Hope that is helpful x