To think 12 units in 3 hours hardly makes you feel tipsy, never mind drink.

[TableFlowerss]

With lockdown I’ve been drinking more on a weekend. Like many, I’m sure.

I only drink when DC are with their (with him 2/3 night a week. (totally understand that’s not possible for everyone - to drink when DC aren’t at home, obviously if they have NC with dad)

I never drink when I’m at work the next day either and it’s usually over 2 night a week only.

Since lockdown though, it feels like I drink more 😳 so to get tipsy, I’d now need about 10-12 units. I’m totally fine the next day, no hangover etc.... but what’s the norm to feel tipsy?

I feel like my threshold is higher basically. So I might drink a bottle of wine and a couple of vodkas one night (so 12 units) but then I’d have only a couple the day after. So no more than 20 units a week at the absolute maximum. Sometimes if I don’t fancy it, obviously I won’t drink at all.

I’ve got a friend who can drink a bottle of wine each night 😳😳 5/6 night a week, then go to work in a very responsible job the next day 😳😳 absolutely no way i could do that!

Again, I never drink when kids are home (at messy 4 night a week if not 5) and I absolutely don’t feel like I have a problem. Sometimes I just fancy a cup of tea!

But a recall at one point just needing a glass of wine to feel tipsy, not it’s nearly a bottle 🙈🙈🙈

What about you? Talking to my friends, theyr thresholds have increased too.

12 units in 3 hours is a lot. I feel tipsy after 2 double gin and tonics and I’m soon drunk after another. I’m in my mid 20s and don’t drink often anymore. Used to drink more when I was at uni. Maybe you’re not tipsy because you’ve built a tolerance as you drink regularly.

Yabu. I'd have puked after a glass. I remember I had that much 10 years ago and was ill for 3 days.
You need to cut down. Although if you're not there yet then menopause will probably do that for you anyway.

@AStudyinPink then you are not in the cohort of people I'm talking about are you, being a recovering addict.

Well done for recognising that you have a potential problem OP. You are at the top of a slippery slope and you don't have to go down it.
I wish I could take you to work with me and let you see how alcohol affects real people, the patients in the 40s look 20 years older.
There are better things to do on a weekend night when the DC are away

Well, I think we can see from the replies here that “tipsy” and “drunk” aren’t useful measures of whether you’re drinking excessively. I’ve been there. I’ve told myself I metabolise alcohol faster than other people (yeah right) and that I can “take my alcohol” where other people can’t. The uncomfortable truth is that, like everyone else, I was once plastered after two drinks. That changed as I drank more, as it’s doing with the OP. It took more to make me feel “tipsy” or get me “drunk”, but that’s the nature of an addictive drug. My body was working harder to try to counter its effects, which was why it took more of the drug to make me feel them. That’s all.

then you are not in the cohort of people I'm talking about are you, being a recovering addict.

We’re all in the same cohort, just at differing levels of progression and with different attitudes. Alcohol is a drug with potent chemical effects on the body. One of those effects (in every person who imbibes it) is that our bodies become more tolerant of it over time, and the only way to reduce that tolerance is to take in less of it.

I would be pretty drunk. I probably drink five nights a week. Usually just a single glass of wine, occasionally two. When I went to the pub or out for dinner I would have maybe had 2-4 drinks but I would be drunk after 4.

I'm in virtual consultations with patients every day who are struggling in this lockdown. Feeling anxious, feeling depressed, feeling worried and feeling guilty for being weak because people like some posters on here are telling them that they are going to get fat because they are eating a bit too much, that they are an alcoholic because they are drinking a bit more than usual. It's adding to their stress (and don't even get me started on the twats who are saying it's fat peoples fault that we're in lockdown).

Nit everyone can cope with this situation, the lack of normal routine, the uncertainty and the anxiety for the future by being a clean living model of perfection. It would be fab if everyone took lockdown as a prompt to lose weight, give up alcohol etc etc but that is not possible even though it would make my job easier. People have to have a bit of leeway at the moment. For the vast majority of people, again nit those with actual problems (which they probably had pre covid) once normal life resumes, normal routine resumes, there are more things to do outside of the house etc they will get back to their normal life.

We are all in this together, but some paragons of virtue are floating around on a cloud of moral superiority and I do hope that nothing ever happens to you to knock you off.

And yes, I'm drinking a bit more. I'm eating a bit more and because I'm at my desk 14 hours a day during the week, I'm not moving as much as I should. I also know that I will return to a more normal way of life when life is normal again.

12 units in 3 hours (more than a bottle of wine?) would make me more than tipsy. I'm not going to say I never do it, but I'd definitely know I'd had it and I would feel awful in the morning.

Genuinely I’m shocked and questioning myself as well, that so many people think it’s a lot. I have about 15 glasses of wine a week (5 out of 7 days) occasionally one or two vodkas as well.

You understand alcohol units, so you're probably aware that you are drinking more than the recommended 14 units weekly.

18 Units is around two bottles of wine - so above the recommended amount, but I'd guess a lot of people probably drink that over the course of a week. However the fact that you're cramming 2/3 of those units into a three hour period would indicate that it's probably too much - the recommendation is tor the 14 units to be spread across the week.

I have been in your position when I was younger, but in your position I'd be thinking about cutting down how much I drank in a single session.

I have about 15 glasses of wine a week (5 out of 7 days)

Which is (depending on the glasses) 6-9 units on each of those 5 days. I’m not judging you (it’s not a matter for judgement) but that’s 30-45 units a week, either double or three times the recommended limit.

This thread isn’t going to help if you’re concerned, threads about alcohol on MN seems to attract the, “oh I’m drunk after sniffing a glass of wine” brigade, tolerances are different, bodies are different, if you feel you’re drinking too much, cut down but, and happy to be flamed or painted as an alcoholic, one bottle of wine and a couple of shots of vodka would have me drunk but not unable to function or lying in a corner and doing so once a week, wouldn’t make me excessively worried.

If you only drink 2-3 nights a week and you can say no (this is crucial that on a day you don't have your kids sometimes you don't drink) then I wouldn't worry, it's pretty crap for everyone and on your own it's far worse . If it's worrying you, make it routine to have a mug of tea before the wine comes out and don't replace the vodka once it's gone. I am drinking more but it's down to the fact all our normal activities are banned!

@Jbh333

Genuinely I’m shocked and questioning myself as well, that so many people think it’s a lot. I have about 15 glasses of wine a week (5 out of 7 days) occasionally one or two vodkas as well.

Don't know if you saw this link O posted yesterday, but it's worth reading:

www.nhs.uk/conditions/alcohol-related-liver-disease-arld/

In my youth I used to finish work, drink about 24 units and then go to work again a few hours later After the DCs I only had to sniff wine and I'd be under the table!

If 12 units in 3 hours has no effect at all and you aren't very tall and very heavy, I would say that is a very high tolerance threshold and quite worrying.

I only ever drunk almost that much when I was a student over the course of a whole night so much longer than three hours and would have been a bottle of wine max probably less and I would have been really drunk. But culturally alcohol is not a big thing for me. I house shared with English girls at University and it was very much their way. I was astounded at first at the amount and frequency. I thought it was just because we were young and away from home for the first time. It’s the only time I drank quite a bit and even the I would sneak in soft drinks and miss a round when I could. Now as a middle aged adult over the years with work colleagues and friends it’s become very clear just how alcohol is the centre of so much English socialising. I remember the free post finals drinks we had with students every year. All my English colleagues would be chucking them down at a rate of knots

Are you drinking to get drunk alone? Why would you do that?

For me to get tipsy takes two- three glasses of wine.

If you are drinking a bottle of wine and two vodkas in a single sitting that is FAR too much in one go. The safe limit for women is 14 units a WEEK.

OP you are in danger of becoming an alcoholic.

Is anyone finding the opposite, as in I seem to get be getting less tolerant as I get older 😭😂

Of alcohol I mean. I’d definitely be drunk after a bottle of wine.

This thread isn’t going to help if you’re concerned, threads about alcohol on MN seems to attract the, “oh I’m drunk after sniffing a glass of wine” brigade, tolerances are different, bodies are different,

This thread isn't going to help if some posters try to minimise dangerous drinking.@OscarWildesCat

There is no debate over drinking that amount of alcohol in 3 hours. It's binge drinking.
Maybe read about binge drinking? It affects the body more than drinking the same number of units over a few days.

It's a HUGE amount for a woman.

And unless the OP is using optics to measure the vodka, they are likely to be doubles or triples. Most people underestimate how small a measure of spirits is.

I virtually t-total. Couple gins leave me sloshed

The defensiveness on this thread is really weird, and also often quite indicative of problem drinking. As is - as the OP posted - needing to drink more to get an effect.

The OP is binge drinking several times a week, by the general medical definition of binge drinking, which broadly speaking for women involves more than four drinks in a few hours.

Like every other modifiable risk factor, lots of people like to believe that harm only happens to other people.

Liver disease is the most common cause of death in 35-49 year olds and rising year on year. Some is alcohol related, some obesity related (NASH). Some neither.

britishlivertrust.org.uk/about-us/media-centre/statistics/

But most 35-49 year olds will get away without end stage liver disease, even if they drink above the recommended limits. And some unfortunate people will be abstinent and develop liver disease from another cause, or drink very little but still get alcoholic cirrhosis because they happen to be vulnerable.

It’s untrue and unfair to pretend that anything less than complete abstinence will kill you. Odds are, it won’t.

It’s equally untrue and unhelpful to pretend that no one arrives at end stage liver disease via social / situational drinking.