Anyone drink 4-5 bottles of wine per week and how is your health ?

[fartoobig]

Mid forties. Just wondering g if it impacts you? I enjoy wine as it brings me back to when I was really happy.
I am Going through immense stress and sadness now.
No hangovers but feel mildly better on days where I haven't had wine the night before .

I was doing this a few years ago for two years, due to intense stress/depression.

I have some liver problems already (enough to scare me into hardly ever drinking now), I gained a stone and my skin aged a fair bit.

Find a way to quit now. Don't wait until you start seeing problems

No - never have - couldn't drink anything like that amount - I can't even drink a whole bottle of beer on my own. The problem for you, I guess, will be that it won't appear to be a problem... Until it is... And then stopping isn't going to undo the problem. Have you ever been to your GP to tell them about it? Have you ever had an ultrasound scan on your liver? Common sense should tell you you will love to regret driving so much... But... Your life, your choice.

@fartoobig I help high achievers achieve freedom around alcohol whatever that that means for them - to cut back, to just drink at weekends, to quit entirely. Most people I work with want to moderate.

As to whether what you're drinking it's too much or not is for you to decide. Are you getting the results you want in life overall?

The question I always start with why. Why do you drink? And do you like your reason?

You say you drink as it brings you back to when you were really happy.

What if you could be really happy, in fact what if you could feel even happier, without alcohol playing any role in that? (That's NOT to say go sober, but to not give alcohol any responsibility for your emotional happiness.)

Because it's possible. It's possible to live a fuller life than you'd ever imagine. And to drink now and then. But for alcohol to not play any kind of important role.

This is my area of speciality. I'm really happy to answer any questions you have.

I drink around two bottles a week from Thursday to Saturday. I never drink Sunday to Wednesday. I like having four days a week with a clear head and giving my liver time to rest. I used to drink more due to stress but I've cut down a lot. Pregnant right now so I haven't drunk since October. I am looking forward to a glass of wine after the birth!

Probably could have drank that much in my mid 20s.
Early 40s now and would be exhausted drinking 4-5 bottles of wine a week.

Im more health conscious now too. Even the amount of sugar in 4-5 bottles of wine would be enough to put me off.

'I help high achievers achieve freedom around alcohol whatever that that means for them'

I really like the concept of 'freedom around alcohol' - is it enhancing your life or is it actually getting you down and making things much more difficult?

'Why do you drink? And do you like your reason?'

Love this too

I d drink that on occasion (over a say two or three months) and then not at all for several weeks. Have to say I feel no different!
I have a friend who drinks twice that and she functions perfectly normally.

Yes. If you’re a heavy drinker, it’s important to realise that you can’t rely on liver function tests to assess whether your liver is damaged or not. A liver function test doesn’t measure the amount of damage done to the liver, it measures how well it’s functioning at the time the test is done, and it can function normally even with quite severe damage.

Alcohol damage stiffens the liver - it’s called fibrosis, and it’s reversible if you stop drinking, but if you continue to drink it leads to cirrhosis, which isn’t. And then there are all kinds of complications. The portal vein supplies blood to the liver and the stiffening produced by fibrosis and cirrhosis puts pressure on it, causing damage to the heart and causing varices in the oesophagus - these are basically varicose veins which, if they are severe, can burst and haemorrhage. By this stage ascites will also likely be a problem - painful build-up of fluid in the space between the lining of the abdomen and organs like the liver, caused by pressure on the portal vein. Not a nice way to end your life.

@mondaytosunday, the chances are very high that your friend will not continue to function well indefinitely.

It’ll affect your LFTs.

I drank this much and felt like shite and I was so overweight and puffy. I haven't had wine for nearly 2 years and I feel much, much better. I think I was addicted to it and had to go cold turkey for 4 weeks before I felt like the cravings had gone. I was at the point where if there was no wine in the house I felt panic. Just awful.

Not a lambasting, just concern. Even sharing a bottle, if it’s five nights a week puts you both at about 25 units a week, which is nearly twice the recommended maximum.

Op, listen to the Huberman podcast (or YouTube) on alcohol and what it does to the human body.

It will change your perspective.

I agree with this. Blood in stool as a result of alcohol consumption is different than than associated with possible colorectal cancer. It can make the stool appear paler, rather than the tarry, darker appearance of the latter.

"No, but I used to. There is nothing that hasn't improved since I stopped."

Same here. Giving up has improved my sleep, weight, skin, brain and wallet.

Hope you aren’t driving early next day.

DH and I used to when we were younger, can’t do it anymore! We also love wine but then we had DD, we both work, I look after my DM we are just too tired to drink. We also both put on a lot of weight which meant we were exercising to drink and eat snacks (not good).

We got away with it for a long time but once we hit 40 that was it.

Used to drink like you then peri-menopause hit with debilitating anxiety, low mood, irratability and poor sleep - I had to give up alcohol and then I found all the symptoms were greatly reduced if not non-existent. A wise person said "I drank to deal with the problems that alcohol was causing"

Please go to your GP, they will have heard it all before.

This

i drank more than this OP, stopped coming
up for 2 years ago.

I consider myself lucky to have got away without irreversible serious health impacts ie on my liver but I had the following:

acid reflux
anxiety
depression
withdrawal symptoms if I went without - heart racing etc
unexplained weird bruising
a drinker’s red face
boils and skin infections
gout

at the time I never put it down to alcohol but all cleared up when I stopped so…

also alcohol and menopause is pretty bad - I was worried about heart disease once the protective effects on the heart of oestrogen wear off as well as the usual worries about liver disease.

It's terribly carcinogenic. I found an interesting article about alcohol consumption recently: https://slate.com/technology/2023/04/alcohol-wine-drinking-healthy-dangerous-study.html

Agree with those who’ve mentioned Peri/menopause. If I had a quid for every woman that’s told me she can no longer drink much (or at all) since she’s been in this phase, I’d be very rich!

I had already addressed my drinking issue sometime before I turned 40 , which I’m glad of. A sober perimenopause is certainly not a barrel of laughs so I can imagine it feels a great deal worse with booze thrown in.

https://community.theluckiestclub.com/share/405kJB3JKHsV1u3U

If anyone wants a sober community that is not AA - this is great.

My Mum does. I reckon she could drink a bottle every night, with a g&t to start the evening and a whiskey to finish. She is 60. I am 30. She has had several tests done and terrifyingly was told she is in excellent health. I was so cross, I felt like ringing the gp at the time to tell them about her drinking because she wouldn’t be honest/doesn’t think there’s a problem. She is a size 20/22, terribly unfit, terrible dry skin and has lots of broken broken capillaries round her nose. She still works full time, i worry about her all the time. I ‘like a drink’ too but seeing the way she is such a functioning alcoholic scares me.

Did your Mum tell you that's what the Doc said?